New High School in Bonnyville NLSD’s Top Priority

Northern Lights School Division (NLSD)has put together a list of the Board’s three year and ten year capital plan for the Provincial Government; with hopes of one or more of the projects being approved in the Budget on April 14th.  On top of the lists is a new high school for Bonnyville, says Communications Officer for NLSD, Nicole Garner.

“A new high school for Bonnyville is still the top priority and that will be submitted to Alberta Education.” The lists have to be submitted to the Government annually, “the Board had to decide if we were going to change anything, and we decided to keep the list the same, because the Board is still working through its facility review. It would be premature to change the list now, but they may want to do that after they do the review.”

An ideal situation would have the Provincial Government approve all the projects on the timeline provided by NLSD, however that rarely happens. “We have no control over the timeline, because the Province has to give us funding for the projects. Sometimes, things are in the three year plan, but they might sit there for ten years before they get approved,” explains Garner.

On top of that, the Division has been somewhat lucky recently with getting approval on projects, “we had just opened JA Williams (Lac La Biche) and in the process of opening Cold Lake Elementary,” Garner says those were back-to-back projects which is rare. “We’ve been really fortunate in getting approval for our projects in the last couple of rounds of infrastructure projects.”

You never know, NLSD could hit the jackpot and go three-for-three should the Provincial Government approve a new high school for Bonnyville. The new build would replace Bonnyville Centralized High School (BCHS).

3 Year NLSD Priorities (after the new Bonnyville high school):

• Modernization at Ecole Plamondon
• New Elementary School Lac La Biche
• New Elementary School Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement
• Modernization for Iron River School

10 Year NLSD Priorities (after the above noted):

• Upgrade for HE Bourgoin Middle School Bonnyville
• Upgrade for Kikino School
• Upgrade Caslan School
• Upgrade Wandering River School