Edmonton Public Schools releases decisions for 11 overcrowded schools

CTV Edmonton: Redrawing boundaries for 11 schools Edmonton Public Schools is redrawing the boundaries for 11 city schools, as it tries to deal with crowded classrooms.

Edmonton Public School district officials released final decisions regarding their plans to manage nearly a dozen schools in the city dealing with overcrowding Tuesday, after a public consultation process.

The decisions were released in the wake of a series of public meetings with hundreds of parents, school staff and community members, in addition to an online survey conducted in early January – all surrounding 11 schools in the public school district that have been dealing with enrollment pressures in recent years.

The district said since 2005, 46 new neighbourhoods were added to those being served by Edmonton Public, and 11,000 of the district’s total number of students lived in those neighourhoods.

The overcrowding issues at some schools have forced school officials to hold classes in school gymnasiums and staff rooms.

Some of the more challenging enrollment pressures reported have been at schools in developing neighbourhoods, such as Bessie Nichols School, Johnny Bright School and Esther Starkman School, all three are affected by changes announced Tuesday.

Final recommendations taken from information gathered during the public meetings and through the survey were presented to the Superintendent for approval in early February.

Changes released Tuesday are the final decisions to deal with overcrowding at the schools.

Decisions for each of the schools differed slightly, most involved changes to enrollment areas.

In many cases, current students and their siblings were grandfathered, or allowed to stay at the schools in question.

However, a few of the schools: Brander Gardens School, A. Blair McPherson School, Bisset School and Michael Strembitsky School are partially enacting grandfathering for some students depending on the area they live in, some of the decisions also affect siblings of current students.

Edmonton Public said the solutions released Tuesday are estimated to cost $6.6 million – with $600,000 going to pay for transportation, and $6 million to pay for twelve portables the board needs to buy - the cost will also leave the Edmonton Public School Board's Capital Reserve Fund with about $1 million.

Due to the solutions, 447 students will have to move to a new school in September.

A breakdown of major changes to each of the schools is as follows:

Dr. Donald Massey School

Elizabeth Finch School

Bessie Nichols School

Winterburn School

Brander Gardens School

Esther Starkman School

Johnny Bright School

A. Blair McPherson School

Bisset School

Ellerslie School

Michael Strembitsky School

With files from Serena Mah