Saskatoon News November 5, 2012

Saskatoon Needs More Schools-Hampton Village Overview

Patience is a virtue but for many Saskatoon families patience is running out when it comes to the apparent lack of prioritizing for new schools in some of our newer neighbourhoods. We are seeing more about it in the news in this past week so it is definitely getting notice. While Hampton Village and Stonebridge have land set aside for schools there may still be quite a wait. As an experienced real estate agent in Saskatoon it is quite often that I get asked when the schools are coming. I wish I had a definitive answer.

Hampton Village, when complete, will have about 7500 residents. And no schools. Nearby the public elementary school of Dundonald and the Catholic school, St Peters, are experiencing huge jumps in enrollment. Dundonald school is bursting with 735 children, up from 652 in 2011. Parents are getting frustrated and are starting petitions as they feel their children are not getting the proper attention and it can also be a health and safety concern.

The public elementary school for Hampton Village is in the bottom of “Priority 4 Category” while there are talks of a Catholic school opening first. This opens another can of worms as we have been seeing more joint school projects and it appears those are going well. Willowgrove has a joint public/Catholic school being built and Bethleham/Tommy Douglas Collegiates has been a success.

The difference in priority, according to Sheldon Ramstead who is the ministry’s director of infrastructure, is that the Catholic school has just one school nearby while the public school in nearby Westview isn’t at capacity. There also has been no application for a joint school in Hampton Village therefore less priority given. Both school systems wouldn’t comment to the Star Phoenix but both said they are still analzying the information.

Once the development of Kensington, the newest development in Saskatoon’s west side, gets underway there will be even more need for another school as Dundonald will likely be getting some of these kids. Our new neighbourhoods are almost like mini-cities so it would make sense to have schools in these areas so hopefully things will start to change and more joint-school projects will be underway sooner than later as Saskatoon is booming so we need to keep up with the pace for our education.

Kari Calder
Saskatoon Real Estate Agent
Century 21 Fusion
kari@saskatoonrealestate.net