BARRHEAD - Work on the rightsizing and modernization of Barrhead Composite High School (BCHS) is expected to begin in early spring.
Pembina Hills Public School Division vice-chair and West-Ward 3 trustee Judy Lefebvre told Town of Barrhead councillors this at their Jan. 14 meeting.
"That is what we are hearing from Alberta Infrastructure right now," she said, adding that the project will start with the upgrading and enlarging the school's east gymnasium, which is expected to take three years to complete.
Lefebvre, along with board chair and East-Ward 3 trustee David Truckey and West-Ward 1 trustee Victoria Kane, visited the council and updated them on what was happening at local schools.
The original school was constructed in 1959 as a junior high school before being relocated and expanded in 1962 to accommodate senior high students to its present location, with further expansion, adding the library, cafeteria, and trades in the 70s and early 80s.
In March 2023, the province announced that BCHS would be part of the BCHS modernization and rightsizing project for Pembina Hills and received approval for design funding as part of a list of 58 education-related capital projects within Budget 2023.
The province initially budgeted $29 million for the project but has since increased to $38 million.
"The school as it stands is configured to accommodate 1,227 students," Truckey said, adding that rightsizing the school will lower BCHS' capacity to 854. "Right now, [BCHS] is hovering around 700 students and a utilization rate of 62 per cent," Truckey said.
As part of the rightsizing, the school will lose one of its three gymnasiums.
At a December 2023 PHSD trustee meeting, facilities director Tracy Tyreman stated that the school division opted to go with rightsizing and modernization over a new build for two reasons: the first was to increase the chances of the project moving forward.
He noted that a replacement build would have been much more costly, and the school would have lost too much space. Tyreman suggested that the drama theatre would have been axed and the trade shops cut in half.
Truckey told councillors that the rightsizing would mean losing one of BCHS's three gymnasiums.
The west gymnasium will be converted into a combined cafeteria, learning, and flex space.
However, Truckey told councillors that the school division has decided to use $1.5 million from its reserves to expand the East gymnasium, the largest and newest of all the gyms, to its original intended size of 1,429 square metres from its present 1,370. The gym will also be divideable.
Lefebvre added that to help compensate for the loss of a gymnasium, the facility department upgraded Barrhead Elementary School's gym over the summer, allowing it to be used when the high school hosts sporting tournaments and to make it more suitable for other community users, specifically referring to pickleball users.
Enrolment and utilization rates
Truckey said enrolment at the Barrhead schools remains solid, noting that BCHS enrolment is a "shade under 700" and Barrhead Elementary School "just under 600," putting their utilization rates at 62 and 75 per cent, respectively.
He added that at its Dec. 18 meeting, the board revisited the 2024-2025 Grade Configuration and School Closures Report, first presented in late November.
The report was automatically triggered after the school met the review criteria because of its junior high (Grades 7, 8 and 9) enrolment numbers for 2024- 2025.
Currently, there are 81 students enrolled in the school, 19 of whom are in junior high, and an overall school utilization rate of 33 per cent. In the 2023-2024 school year, the school had 97 students.
PHSD projects for the 2025-2026 school year, there will be 21 junior high students, seven in Grade 7, four in Grade 8 and 10 in Grade 9.
"We've taken a wait-and-see approach," Truckey said, noting trustees will reassess enrolment levels and trends again in the fall. "[Enrolment] might increase a little bit. We don't want to start closing grades down until we are sure they are not viable."
The school last underwent a grade reconfiguration in the fall of 2011 when the school division eliminated its senior high school programming.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
