Already struggling, this Alberta village faces losing its only school
CBC
Carol Dubitz has spent much of her life around Andrew School in Andrew, Alta. She attended the school herself. Her children, now grown, also went there.
These days, Dubitz looks after a small shop, a bowling alley, sauna and gym in the same building as the school.
This week, she's worried.
At a special board meeting on Thursday, trustees with Sherwood Park-based Elk Island Public Schools will consider a motion to close Andrew School, the only school in the village of fewer than 400 people, 115 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.
If a decision is made to close the school, it would close by the end of this academic year. Next fall, students would be bused to nearby Mundare or Lamont.
"It's sad to see these small towns dying off, where it took a lot of work and people to make these towns," Dubitz said in an interview.
"If we don't have anything to bring people into this town, we don't have a town."
Andrew's school has two major problems: the building is "at the end of its functional life," according to a recent report, and enrolment is in steep decline.
Although the school has capacity for 385 students, only 62 are attending this year, in kindergarten through Grade 6. In 2019, the school stopped offering high school grades, and a year later, junior high.
Enrolment is expected to plunge further next year to 44, with only three kids in kindergarten.
The building — originally constructed in 1957 with additions in 1964, 1980 and 1991 — has a "questionable" sprinkler system and leaky roof, with total repairs estimated at more than $3.2 million, according to an April report to the board from EIPS administration.
"The government of Alberta does not provide emergent funding for repairs of this kind; school divisions are expected to pay with existing resources," an EIPS spokesperson said in an email to CBC News.
The school division owns the school and the land it sits on. The Village of Andrew owns an adjoining building, which includes the village offices, the public library and a two-lane bowling alley.
Together, EIPS and the village share financial responsibility for repairs and upkeep of the whole building — EIPS is responsible for two-thirds of the costs, with the village responsible for the rest.
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