Meeting Two of the Student Accommodation Consultation for the Town of Cochrane was held Tuesday, Feb 25. The meeting is a follow-up to the initial meeting held January 16, 2020 at Rancheview School. 

Student growth in the Town of Cochrane is a constantly fluctuating factor which sees enrolment increase by approximately 250 students annually. The result, Cochrane schools will be over 100 per cent utilized within the next 5  years. The ideal scenario would be to build new schools, but that takes a long time to happen. In the interim, meetings will be held to come up with solutions to balance student enrolments in Cochrane schools. Often the situation requires changing attendance boundaries which is a worrisome factor for parents.

Feedback was taken from Meeting One in January and then information was compiled to provide three options presented at Meeting Two. The primary issue is RancheView School in Sunset Ridge is already full to capacity and the problem needs to be fixed. Attendees were given the three options to ponder and provide feedback at a table discussion. Each table had a facilitator who recorded the responses and will be returned to Rocky View Schools to further consider.

Collette Winter, Director of Facility Planning with Rocky View Schools, explains, " All of the three options are variations of Heartland community coming out of of Rancheview and going into Glenbow/Mitford/Bow Valley Schools. The other is Heritage Hills would come out of Rancheview and go into Elizabeth Barrett/Manachabman/Cochrane High Schools."

Board of trustees chair Fiona Gilbert says Tuesday's meeting is the final public meeting but parents and guardians can still, "Submit in writing to the board and there is also an opportunity for what we would refer to as a delegation to the board."

The board will make a decision on April 23, 2020.

For more information click here.