School space can’t keep up with growing Edmonton public student growth

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Every school day on average enough new students register at Edmonton Public Schools to fill a portable.

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The ongoing influx is causing a space crunch, trustees heard at this week’s meeting of the school board.

“The reality is, a lot of our schools, especially in high school right now, are over 100 per cent utilized as we speak, and we have years to go before relief is happening through new school construction,” said superintendent Darrel Robertson after a modular update from Cliff Richard, chief infrastructure and technology officer, and chief financial officer Todd Burnstad with a revised plan for the use of capital reserve funds.

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The total enrolment in Edmonton Public Schools has risen almost 50 per cent in Robertson’s 12-year tenure, spiking to more than 121,000 students from 81,500.

Inflation and spending on soaring benefits costs for employees have contributed to average student spending for 2023-2024 at $11,510, about $206 more than the prior year, the trustees heard.

Except for a downward blip in “the COVID year,” Robertson said, the majority of that growth has happened in the last few years, figures buoyed by Premier Danielle Smith’s efforts to recruit new Albertans and because of relatively affordable housing.

Expensive portables can’t keep up

Between 2010 and 2023, the division has installed or relocated 440 modular classrooms to accommodate growing student enrolment.

“Portables” are springing up around brick-and-mortar schools around the city, deemed both necessary and troubling, and certainly no panacea, trustees heard.

“The whole modular program has a lot of uncertainty with it, and we do need space, and we are going to have to add modulars, whether they’re provided or not, and certainly the amount of modular space that we need would far outstrip any capital reserves we have,” said Robertson.

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Edmonton public is adding about 40 portables a year, but that’s not enough, said board chairwoman Julie Kusiek.

“If we grow with the rate we have been, it’s approximately one-fifth of the total number of new students we expect next year. We’re still a far cry away from accommodating the student growth,” Kusiek said.

“I’m really hoping that the Alberta School Construction Accelerator Program (ASCAP) gets us some actual new schools built at an accelerated pace because, so far, we’re still seeing things moving all along, maybe a little bit more like a snail than a cheetah. I want the cheetah version,” she said.

Portables by the numbers

Figures weren’t immediately available on how many school sites have reached their maximum capacity for the modular buildings Alberta Infrastructure-approved vendors hammer out at an estimated cost of $350,000, with an additional $150,000 for installation.

This year, there will be 42 new ones from the province and an additional four pre-existing and repurposed ones moved from other jurisdictions.

In order to address “unfunded priority” requirements, Edmonton Public Schools requested and received approval from the province to self-fund the acquisition of six additional modular classroom units and to relocate four existing units within the division, a report tabled Wednesday said.

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“This cost was included in the $5.7 million growth accommodation allocation from the division capital reserve, as approved by the board of trustees in the 2024–2025 budget.”

(While school divisions can use capital reserves — garnered by savings and selling off defunct buildings — and buy some modular buildings on their own, the province is not topping up capital reserves, instead encouraging districts to thriftily add to them in case of a rainy day by doubling the capital reserve cap to more than six per cent.)

Schools getting the most portables in the 2024-2025 school year include Joey Moss with six, Winterburn, Ellerslie, Centennial, Julia Kiniski, and Alex Janvier, with four portables apiece, and Garth Worthington, Weinlos, and Kim Hung, with three portables each.

Edmonton’s November 2024 ask for the 2025-2026 year from the province includes 39 new modular units across 14 schools to accommodate 1,170 learners, and a request to fund one portable demolition.

The UCP government’s construction program includes “enhanced funding” for modular classrooms over the next four years, as well as increased school construction and funding for school modernizations, to open up “20,000 student spaces.”

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Portables strain the system

Busting at the seams, Edmonton schools are home to almost one-quarter of Alberta’s public school students — and modular space alone won’t cut it.

“We absolutely need school space. There are limitations to how many portables you can put on a school site. Every time you add a portable, it puts more pressure on the core of the building, the washrooms, the gym, the library, everything that is part of a school. So it’s not just that simple,” Robertson said.

Trustee Marcia Hole said she gets inquiries from people wondering what the district will do about a lack of school space, and “might be under the impression that we can buy ourselves out of that problem.”

“I know that we’re going to see some relief with the ASCAP in terms of hopefully some new buildings and definitely some new portables, but that’s a three-year program that we’re keeping our fingers crossed is going to continue,” Hole said, adding that she found the report “shocking.”

“The thing that stuck out to me is that many of our new schools have greater number of modular classrooms versus permanent construction. That was a bit of an eye-opener for me,” she said.

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Trusteee Sadiq Sumar wondered if future growth, the “space crunch” and the need for additional future infrastructure could be accounted for in new construction.

“When we’re doing that design work (could we) somewhat over-build the core of the school?” Sumar queried.

The answer’s complex, Robertson responded.

“You get into conversations around what the anticipated density of population is going to be in those neighbourhoods to justify a school in the first place. We have seen in the case of at least one of our lottery schools, where the manner in which that those neighbourhoods built out, the densification of the housing, the type of housing that was actually built there, at the end of the day was not what the neighbourhood master plan had originally intended,” Robertson said.

“I do believe that there’s sincere effort to try to ensure that those buildings are built in a fashion to accommodate the neighbourhood, but there’s a lot of moving parts with that.

“It’s a constant juggling act, from a planning perspective, to figure out what is exactly the right mix of modular space versus core construction and how all that comes together,” Robertson said.

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jcarmichael@postmedia.com

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