REGINA — Regina’s rapid growth is putting increasing pressure on public and Catholic schools, with several schools already operating at or above capacity and new neighbourhoods expected to add thousands more students in the coming years.
Mark Haarmann, director of education and CEO of Regina Public Schools (RPS), said dozens of schools are at or near capacity.
“We have 13 of our schools that are 100 per cent capacity or higher. And I would say about half of our schools are at about 90 per cent capacity and higher.”
Schools operating over capacity have led to changes to RPS boundaries affecting Wascana Plains, W.S. Hawrylak School and Walker Elementary School, helping the division provide enough space in those areas until fall 2028.
However, Haarmann said there are limits to how far students, particularly young children, can be transported.
“We can’t be putting kindergartens on bus runs that have multiple stops and end up being an hour in length,” he said.
Transportation is already a major expense for RPS, which Haarmann said is about $1.9 million over budget in that area.
But the biggest concern is not necessarily where schools are already full. It is where Regina is growing.
“Where we don’t have space is where the growth is,” Haarmann said, pointing to areas including east Regina, Harbour Landing and developing communities farther west.
Regina Catholic Schools (RCS) also has a number of locations at or over capacity.
“We're at 15 schools that are over 100 per cent capacity. Notably, there are two that are over 120 per cent capacity,” said Twylla West, supervisor of communications for RCS.
Over the past few years, RCS has requested portable classrooms to help relieve capacity pressures. This year alone, six will be split among St. Marguerite Bourgeoys School, Saint Gabriel School and St. Theresa School. Meanwhile, eight portable classrooms will soon be available for Michael A. Riffel Catholic High School.
“Those additional classrooms will make a really big difference at Riffel in particular. Based on the August 1 enrolment numbers, Riffel will go from about 115 per cent capacity last year to approximately 94 per cent this year. So we are seeing some relief.”
But Haarmann argues portable classrooms are a costly, temporary fix.
“I think those relocatable classrooms cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The challenge in a growing community is that they can eventually become empty once a new school opens and boundaries are adjusted, so they may not be the best use of resources.”
He also noted relocatable classrooms can cost loads of money to move. Instead, Haarmann believes aiming toward more permanent structures is a more worthwhile investment.
“Let's build a permanent school, something that's going to stand for 70, 80, 100 years, put the money into that, let kids go to school in their neighbourhoods. I think that's the best way to go forward.”
But the challenge lies in securing funds from the Ministry of Education, which uses enrolment numbers as an indicator of where new schools should be built.
“Using projections to know where we will end up is really hard to do,” said Haarmann.
“Two years ago, we saw a change in federal immigration policy in March, and suddenly the significant growth we had projected didn’t materialize. I saw a similar situation when I was in Peel, where we had very little insight into immigration numbers despite asking for that information.”
While the Ministry of Education could add extra capacity to a school to account for a worst-case scenario, West said this could create risks.
“It can be a good or bad solution, but we’ve seen rural towns drop in population numbers, meaning schools are now way under capacity. It could be hard to tell how neighbourhoods shift.”
Instead, Haarmann believes developers should incorporate new schools into neighbourhood plans, with the city and province finding a way to incentivize corporations to speed up the process.
The next school set to open in Regina is a joint RPS and RCS elementary school in Harbour Landing in 2028.
A joint elementary school and high school are also planned for The Towns neighbourhood, but the exact timelines for those schools are unclear.
