From the very beginning, Aspen View Public Schools assured the Athabasca community that’s its plan was to replace Edwin Parr Composite with something that was much more than just a school.
They painted a picture of a facility that not only educated our community’s teenagers, but the broader community as well. With the promise of a school, library, multiplex and new swimming pool all combined, we were all urged to get behind a utopian, next-century concept that would become the greatest community facility rural Alberta had ever seen.
And now, while we still wait for the public input we were also promised, we find out that the school project’s architects are leaning towards a standalone facility. Not integrated with the multiplex, like all those examples then-Education Minister Jeff Johnson pointed to as comparables; not a community hub providing education, recreation and culture to all who enter; but a standalone facility with a clear demarcation between the school and the outside world.
In other words, just a school.
To be fair, Aspen View superintendent Mark Francis said it’s way too early to call this a done deal. Good, because Aspen View and the rest of the stakeholders in the project, including the Town and County of Athabasca, need to ensure our community gets what it was promised.
The prospect of something more than just a school was the spoonful of sugar that made palatable the otherwise illogical notion of building a school on the largely unpopulated edge of town. Without integrating community facilities, that argument falls apart. A standalone school should just as well be built downtown or on the growing east side of Athabasca, rather than somewhere 99 per cent of its users must drive to.
This project began with a grand vision, and now is the time for stakeholders to demonstrate conviction, not capitulation. Stick to the vision, stick to the message and give this community the integrated, multi-purpose facility it was promised.
Otherwise, this amounts to nothing short of a bait-and-switch scam.
