Lakeland Catholic school officials say timing is good for Alberta's new school funding plan

Lakeland Catholic School Division board trustees say the recent announcement by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith of billions of dollars in new school funding is great news at the right time.

Smith announced on Tuesday in a province-wide address that a new $8.6 billion plan is in place to build new schools to meet the surging enrolment of students in provincial schools. The plan, to build and upgrade Alberta's schools is part of what the provincial government is calling the School Construction Accelerator Program

Anna Brockhoff, chair of the Lakeland Catholic School Division board of trustees, said the additional capital funding from the provincial government is a great step forward. She said the timing of the announcement couldn't be better, as division officials have been working to get a new building to replace Light of Christ Catholic School in Lac La Biche, this comes as good news.

She tells Lakeland This Week that officials with the faith-based school division are hopeful that the School Construction Accelerator Program will expedite the project that will see a new school eventually constructed on a parcel of land adjacent to the Bold Centre.

The Light of Christ Catholic School in Lac La Biche opened in 2016 as the only Catholic school in the Lac La Biche area. It operates out of a building that was built in 1962 and was formerly a middle school run by Northern Lights Public Schools.

"Through the design and construction of Light of Christ School, this initiative also creates an opportunity to collaborate with community partners, ensuring we support both our students' success and the needs of Lac La Biche County," Brockhoff said.

The Lakeland Catholic School District is a publicly funding school division operating eight schools within the Lakeland areas in the communities of Cold Lake, Bonnyville, Waskatenau and Lac La Biche. Approximately 2,700 students from K-12 attend Lakeland Catholic School Division schools.

Lakeland Catholic and Northern Lights Public Schools officials had separate trustee meetings on Wednesday to discuss the new provincial funding program. A response from NLPS trustees had not been made public by the editorial deadline of this story.

NLPS operates 28 schools across the Lakeland region, serving more than 5,800 students in the communities of Bonnyville, Cold Lake, Lac La Biche, Glendon, Plamondon, Ardmore, Caslan, Iron River, Wandering River, Kikino Métis Settlement, Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement, and the Pine Meadow Hutterite Colony.

Plan projects 200,000 new spaces In her presentation of the new funding plan, Smith said the School Construction Accelerator Program will create 200,000 spaces for students will be created over a seven-year period. Starting in 2025, the Alberta government will commence with the construction of upwards of 30 new schools for every year over three years, with as many as eight modernizations of current buildings and replacement schools.

The program is also designed to accelerate the construction of schools by allowing projects to be approved "in-year" for the next stage of the building process without the requirement to wait for the next budget cycle.