Peter Skinner wanted his daughter Chelsea to be skilled in coding and science.
When he heard about a special program that taught those skills and more was offered at St. Richard School in Mill Woods, he moved his daughter from her mother’s home in the west end to the southeast.
He said the GREEN Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Academy will give his daughter a leg up when she goes to junior high and high school.
“Like football, you don’t start a guy when he’s 16 and hope he’s going to make it to the NFL. You start when he’s five,” he said.
“It’s going to give her a fast-track.”
Peter Skinner moved his daughter Chelsea from the west end to Mill Woods specifically so she could enrol in the GREEN STEM Academy at St. Richard Catholic School.
Different programs
The GREEN STEM program is one of several programs at Mill Woods schools drawing in students from other parts of the city, according to school officials.
At Edmonton Public’s Meyonohk School, more than half of the elementary students are part of a Chinese (Mandarin) Bilingual program. Those in the program spend half of the day learning in Mandarin and the other half of the day in English.
Grade 4 teacher Max Liu said students come from across the city to take part in the bilingual program.
“Students know today that learning a second or third language is very beneficial to them,” he said.
The demand for the program is year-round, said officials. The school’s principal Connie Spasiuk said she has already received several calls from parents wanting to register their child in the program for the next school year.
“There are always parents wanting to register,” she said.
Increasing demand
School board officials said many schools in Mill Woods are seeing growing classroom sizes as a result of many students coming from outlying neighbourhoods.
Lorne Parker, assistant superintendent of infrastructure with Edmonton Public Schools, said that is a problem for many of the older schools, which are running out of space in some cases.
He also said many schools in Mill Woods are around 40 years old and will soon also need major upgrades to keep up with growing classroom sizes.
“In the Mill Woods area itself, we’re seeing an increase in our student demographics because we have areas around Mill Woods growing at an unprecedented rate,” he said. “The southeast is the fastest growing area in the city. We don’t have enough schools in those areas to accommodate all the students so they’re being transported into the Mill Woods area.”
Neither Edmonton Public or Edmonton Catholic provided statistics as to how many students outside of Mill Woods bus to Mill Woods schools.
But Parker said that public junior high schools and high schools in Mill Woods are seeing the highest demand in enrolment.
According to the 2003 Alberta’s Commission on Learning report, classroom size recommendations are listed as 27 students for Grades 10 to 12.
Students from J. Percy Page High School’s Leadership class in a photo from the school’s Twitter feed in March 2018. (Twitter)
At J. Percy Page School in Mill Woods, Grades 10 to 12 in the 2017-2018 school year had a classroom size average of 28.2 students, according to online statistics.
“J. Percy Page is close to very quickly being out of space,” said Parker.
“In order to address that pressure, we desperately need to see a high school built in the Meadows area. If that doesn’t happen, we’re going to see continued pressure in Mill Woods and in other high schools.”
The Meadows high school was the top priority for Edmonton Public Schools as part of their capital plan that was approved in March.
The southeast high school would cost about $79 million, with an initial student capacity of 1,800.