The Rocky View Schools (RVS) board of trustees has made a decision to restructure the wards within its division boundary for next school year.
While the division will continue to be represented by eight trustees as it is currently, it will combine Ward 2 and 4, the two eastern rural wards, into one and add an additional trustee to Ward 6 in Cochrane.
While not all Trustees were in favour, the majority voted for the change, which they noted will more fairly represent the growing population.
RVS hired Brian Callaghan, a consultant with the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA), to come up with several options to restructure the wards. Through consultation over the last year, residents were able to provide their input.
“When I first came upon this file back in 2015, the population back then of the district was 145,363, grown from 122,220 in 2013, and fast forward to 192,239 this calendar year and growing,” said Callaghan.
He noted the pockets of growth within the RVS division have not been uniform across the wards. Currently, the ward that makes up the City of Airdrie has three trustees and makes up 43.7 per cent of RVS.
Dividing the total population of RVS, 192,239, between eight trustees would leave each trustee to represent 24,029 residents. Using the government standard that each ward should be within +/- 25 per cent of the average, the range for a ward would be from 18,022 to 30,036 residents.
Upon review, Callaghan recommended option B, which was later approved.
This option maintains the rural 25 per cent and urban 75 per cent population balance and trustee political balance at two rural and six urban trustees.
Feedback from the public made it clear they did not like blending rural and urban communities.
“No matter what people were saying about the options, blending was a negative in all cases,” Callaghan said. “It was the one constant I could pull away and say people don’t like blending.”
Trustee Discussion
While the board chair and Ward 6 Trustee, Fiona Gilbert, also recommended option B, not everyone agreed.
Similar to a decision made in 2017 when two west rural wards were combined into one, this change will combine the eastern rural wards, wards 2 and 4, into one larger rural ward.
Ward 2 Trustee Shelley Kinley said rural wards cannot compete with growth of urban areas.
“If the growth continues in the three main areas, pretty soon there won’t be a vote for rural voice,” she said.
Ward 4 Trustee Norma Lang offered a substitute motion to instead direct the chair to send a letter to the education minister asking for support to explore the feasibility of forming an Airdrie school division. The chair ruled this motion was not within the purview of the board at this time and trustees voted to uphold that decision.
“What’s come to light through the ward boundary process is that we are trying to solve the wrong problem,” said Lang. “With close to 200,000 residents in our school division and nearly half of them in the single community of Airdrie, RVS as a school division is unbalanced and potentially doesn’t make any sense any more.”
She noted the population growth in Airdrie and Cochrane drives the need for ward changes, and that representing the population more equally across the wards means pulling representation from rural areas.
Ward 1 Trustee Shali Baziuk said a ward change needs to be made first to better serve the division, and that a big sweeping change like a new separate division for Airdrie should be made by an equitable representation of the board down the road.
The decision to create a new school division for Airdrie is out of the hands of trustees, added Ward 3 Trustee Todd Brand. While they can advocate for the change and write a letter, it’s ultimately up to the provincial government.
Ward 3 Trustee Melyssa Bowen said Airdrie’s ward is bigger than Medicine Hat, which has its own school division of five trustees. She felt none of the options addressed Airdrie nearing 50 per cent of the division’s population.
“I don’t believe that ward 2 and 4 are over-represented, rather I believe they are represented in line with other rural wards in other school divisions across this province,” Bowen said. “Their representation only looks askew because of how much Airdrie and Cochrane have grown.”
She noted adding a trustee to Cochrane creates more of an imbalance between the two urban centres as well.
While considering all options, Trustee Brand felt option B most fairly represents every voter. He said the only negative of adopting option B is that the two trustees in the eastern rural wards, Kinley and Lang, would have to run against each other.
“The hard thing about making today’s vote for Option B, is we’ve got two very committed and very effective and very dedicated trustees, and one of them won’t be able to be at this table,” Brand said. “In the big scheme of things, I can live with that reality knowing we are trying to protect the vote of everyone represented.”
Baziuk agreed that everyone across the division should have the same opportunity to be elected as trustee. Currently, Cochrane residents would need almost three times the amount of people to vote for them than their rural counterparts, while their vote at the table is equal.
