Planning to start on new Fort Saskatchewan collegiate school, with provincial funding committed

Elk Island School District celebrated funding for Elk Island Heartland Collegiate School on Monday.

Elk Island Public Schools on Monday celebrated receiving provincial funding for the planning of the future Elk Island-Heartland Collegiate School, which will replace Rudolph Hennig Junior High and Fort Saskatchewan High.

The project is one of 30 new school projects that will receive planning or design funding through Budget 2026. In total, the province allocated $110 million for new schools and school modernizations.

“If you were to tour the school here in Fort Sask, Fort Saskatchewan High, you would see that the learning spaces have been good for what we’ve been using (them) for, but in order to prepare our students for the future and what careers are going to need, we need more modern spaces and more modern technology,” division board chair Colleen Holowaychuk told CTV News Edmonton on Monday.

The high school is 68 years old and the junior high 58 years old, according to Holowaychuk.

The future school will be built in the city’s developing Southridge area and have a maximum capacity of 1,600 students.

“It’s going to be great, because our students in Grade 7 will have access to some of the things that they normally wouldn’t in a regular junior high,” Holowaychuk said.

Collegiate schools offer specialized programming in focused subject areas, and partner with industry and post-secondary institutions to provide work experience or career pathways.

The Elk Island-Heartland Collegiate School is meant to meet the expected labour need in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland.

While there is not a timeline for construction, Holowaychuk said the vision is aiming for three to five years and expects it to start quickly after design is finished, as the site is shovel ready.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Klippenstein