The new school will be located on the current St. Francis Xavier school site (318 - 8th Street N.E.) adjacent tp Monsignor McCoy High School.
A new school that will serve students ELP - Grade 9, a theatre and a physical literacy space. All items requested in our Capital Plan submission have been approved for the project.
The design phase is 1 year from announcement and should be complete in early 2024. Construction estimation is 2 years. The school is anticipated to open in 2026/2027 school year.
St. Francis Xavier School, St. Michael’s School, St. Mary’s School will be included in the new project.
In the original Capital Plan it was stated that École St. John Paul II French Immersion students were going to be moved over to the new school building but this has now been paused. Our division enrollment experienced a significant increase over the past year, this enrollment is positive but has created space issues in a number of schools.
The Board of Trustees and Senior Administration are in the process of reviewing programming in all schools and will be looking at the current configurations of all schools in the jurisdiction. Once a decision has been made with respect to those configurations, information will be shared with all parents, including École St. John Paul II School.
Students from St. Francis Xavier, St. Michael’s and St. Mary’s will move over to the new school once construction is complete. The three school buildings will be closed once students have moved to the new facility.
The school will be ELP - Grade 9 but will be kept very separately as an elementary ELP - Grade 6 and then middle school Grade 7-9. This will be done by having separate wings or levels for the different groups.
No academies or programming will be lost in the move to the new school. We will still offer the St. FX sports academy for grades 4-6, fine arts programming for elementary, fine arts academy for middle school as currently offered. Students will have a great opportunity to participate in the various programming that is of interest to them having it all located on one campus.
Class sizes will stay about the same in the new school. There will be less opportunity for grade splits though as with more elementary students there is more opportunity for straight grade classes.
Services will be more available to students at the new location. There will be in-house school liaison counselors, CCT workers and other service providers as they don’t need to split their time traveling to different locations.
The theatre will seat 400 and be available for use by all division schools. It will be located in between Monsignor McCoy High School and the new school.
The physical literacy space is designed as a space for exercise equipment, yoga and stretching, dance classes, etc. Further specifics will be determined during the design phase.
Administrators will be regularly engaging with their staff and parent groups for feedback. You can also email any questions regarding the project to: newschoolproject@mhcbe.ab.ca
All project updates can be found on our website at www.mhcbe.ab.ca/new-school-project
Stakeholders are encouraged to follow our division Facebook and Instagram accounts for updates.