Decision around the corner on balancing student spaces in Airdrie

At today's Rocky View Schools Board of Trustees meeting, they heard an update on what Airdrie residents thought when it comes to Balancing Airdrie Student Spaces.

In response to the growing student pressure within our city, RVS came up with a few ideas that would help alleviate that pressure. Back in 2023 they started the initiative called Balancing Airdrie Student Spaces and have held multiple open houses and surveys asking residents to share their thoughts on three possible outcomes. 

Here are the three initial scenarios that were brought forward according to RVS:

• Converting C.W. Perry School into a high school. This will redistribute Grade 9 -12 students across Airdrie. C.W. Perry was chosen because of its location in the city and ability to accommodate high school-level programming in its spaces.
• Grade 8 students stay in their current school for Grade 9, creating a more traditional Grade 10 - 12 high school model. This minimizes the changes for families as students stay in their schools for one more year; however, it impacts the programming options our Grade 9 students currently have and increases space pressures in some schools by adding a grade. It may also require adding or removing a grade level at some other schools.
• Re-organize grade structures across Airdrie schools to remove urgent pressures where possible (Kindergarten – Grade 6, Grade 7 – 9 and Grade 10 – 12). This addresses both high school utilization and standardizes grade configuration across the community.

According to the presentation, they had a total of 1,316 people complete online surveys, around 450 open house attendees and 11,600 visited their website RVSEngage to learn about the possible changes.

Here are the main themes RVS heard from Airdronians who shared their input.

Information provided by RVS.

According to statistics provided by RVS, 37 per cent agree or strongly agree with converting C.W. Perry School to a high school. 67 per cent agree or strongly agree with grade eight students staying in middle school for grade nine and 63 per cent agree or strongly agree with re-organizing grade structure for all schools. 

A  few new ideas were submitted for the Board’s consideration as part of the engagement:

• Hybrid learning model for high schools, in-person and or virtual learning.
• Two schedules for high school, one group attends morning to mid-afternoon. The second group attends mid-afternoon into evening.
• Advocate to the province to build new schools faster.
• Open up registration at lower-utilized rural schools to Airdrie students.
• Build schools before communities.

The trustees will make a final decision on April 25 for implementation mostly starting in the fall of 2025.

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