Pie in the Sky

Royal Oak is finally going to get their much needed middle school. The neighbourhood has moved up and down and off the waiting list but now the news is final and it’s good...for those in the community with kids young enough to benefit from the future school. The families with older kids remain in the same conundrum, where to ship their kids as they get older.

I recall reading somewhere a few years ago that Tuscany had the highest population of kids under five in the province. I may have that wrong but the fact remains that the burbs are busting. You cannot walk through a mall without seeing pregnant women and little people crawling around the play area. We are breeders and running out of places to but our thousands of kids.

Here’s some pie-in-the-sky thinking...    

What if when new neighbourhoods are developed the builders all got together to build a school in the centre of the ‘hood that was ready to go when people move in to their new homes?

If someone is forecasting how many homes are needed and what type of family is going to move in can’t the school boards and builders get together to design a school to meet the needs of those predictions?

What if were designed to be a school by day and a community/ centre/ gym/ tutoring centre/ library/ resource centre/ childcare facility at 3:00?

I'm guessing it takes planning and doughs but surely a school sitting empty is expensive too.

The Renerts are opening their new school in the fall and the lights will not go off at 3:00 but instead the dance, music and karate programs that run during the day for the students will continue at night for neighbourhood adults and kids. There will also be math enrichment classes after school when Bright Minds starts up there in the fall. I bet the gym will be rented out too and any other available space that can help the community thrive.

It may take a village to raise a kid but the villager's doors are locked. The village kids are bussed all over town to go to school and few have tight connections to the kids in their own neighbourhood. But, if there was a central, supervised, vibrant spot in the centre of town that offered the stuff we drive our kids to after school...how cool would that be?

Tutoring, reading area, gymnasium, piano lessons, dance, library, arts and crafts...

The Calgary Board of Education is looking at using corporate dollars to add to their coffers. At least two sponsor’s names will be attached to Lord Shaugnessy High when it reopens this month.  

Alberta has no shortage of growing families and growing corporations. Businesses looking for ways to reinvest profits and feed into the economic future of the city and province. What better way to do it than help build places where the movers and shakers of the future can get an education, extra curricular activity and old-fashioned, much-missed sense of community?

Imagine hearing parents yelling to Come In For Dinner from their front stoop.

And imagine parents kicking the kids back out the door as they swallowed their last bite and headed for the community center.

Is this pie-in-the-sky ... ?