REGINA — You can add the Coopertown area of Regina to the growing list of areas in the province that will need a new school build.
The ground breaking ceremony for the new neighbourhood took place last week, with reports that the area is expected to attract 36,000 people over the next 30 years.
With that size of population there is already talk of a need for new schools there. But the timing of the sod-turning, and the speed at which the new development is proceeding, has caught education officials by surprise.
“We might have been as shocked as many on that announcement,” said Adam Hicks, chair of the Regina Public School Board.
Hicks made those comments to reporters at the grand opening of the new tawâw school in Regina on Wednesday. No sooner has the paint dried on that new joint use elementary school than the talk has turned to Coopertown.
“We’re excited,” said Hicks. “We know it was green-lit from the city in their development plan, so we knew that it was in the works already. It had been green-lit to be a development. What we weren’t ready for is how quick that’s potentially moving ahead.”
Education Minister Everett Hindley was also asked about the development and he told reporters he did not think there has even been a submission before him for a school there yet.
“To my knowledge, I don’t think that one has been submitted to us. I stand to be corrected, but I don’t think it’s been brought to our attention yet, but that’s not to say that I don’t expect that if it hasn’t been raised with us, I would expect that at some point it would be provided as a submission to the Ministry of Education.”
How the process works, he said, is that school divisions “come to the government and say, here’s our priorities. We’ve taken a look at all the various schools within our boundaries of our school division, and here’s our ranked priorities in terms of capital needs.
“Those get submitted to the Ministry of Education, then we work through a process at government with the funding we have allocated to us through the treasury board and finance, to try and spread out those dollars as best we can.”
No paperwork yet
Hicks confirmed the public board has not yet put their paperwork in for the Coopertown school. He explained that every year Regina Public submits a capital list to SaskBuilds.
“Because we didn’t know about it, it was actually not included in our last capital build list,” said Hicks. “What I can tell you with pretty darn confidence, and we don’t have that final list yet, I am pretty darn confident Coopertown will be on that list this next year when we submit that capital list.”
Typically that submission happens around budget time, he said, noting the budget preparation and treasury board process is happening now and takes several months.
Typically, Hicks said, there are two reasons why schools show up on their capital list. One is to address population growth, which explains their requests in recent years for the new schools in Harbour Landing and east Regina areas.
But now Lakeview elementary and Balfour Collegiate are “on that school list now,” Hicks said, because of structural issues at those existing facilities.
The new tawâw school in northeast Regina, also came about due to structural issues at the schools it replaced: the Imperial and McDermid elementary schools.
“The Coopertown one will definitely be because of the growth one. There’s no school there as you know right now.”
What the school board hopes to avoid is a repeat of the delays that were seen in getting a second school opened in the Harbour Landing area. That new school is now under construction for a 2027 opening, but Hicks said the school should have opened there four years earlier. Regina Public has had to bus hundreds of students out of Harbour Landing to other schools due to explosive population growth.
A similar scenario in Coopertown is one Hicks indicated the board does not want to see happen.
“What I can tell you on behalf of the board is, of course we’re concerned,” Hicks said. “Plainsview School is near capacity already and it serves that area, so we’ve already been talking about boundary changes potentially coming forward for that area.
“We need a new school in that area, so Coopertown cannot go ahead without a school in that spot. We don’t have anything that’s been announced. I know conversations have been started between our management teams. One hundred per cent, though, Coopertown cannot go ahead without a school in that area.”
– With files from Martin Oldhues
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