Some more concrete details on the Alberta government’s funding for school projects have been released today, and included on the list is a modernization of Bonnyville Centralized High School.
On the list of 26 projects released today, Bonnyville’s has a TBC next to it for “To Be Confirmed.” Northern Lights Public Schools will either accept or decline the government funds at tomorrow’s board meeting.
“It’s a bit of a technical thing,” explains Northern Lights Public Schools Communications Officer Nicole Garner. “If you look at our existing three year capital plan, what we actually had as our top priority was a new school to replace BCHS. But what’s happened since this time last year when we submitted that capital plan, was the provincial government came in and did a value scoping exercise with us. They came in and looked at the facility and looked at all the different options and they talked to the different stakeholders -So there’s parents and representatives of the town. The recommendation coming out of that was that the programming needs and other needs could be met through a modernization instead of a new high school.”
Things are very early going at this point, what the new BCHS will look like or even how much money they’ll get to renovate it aren’t known yet. Should the board approve the funding, the next step will be to come up with a design.