Sometimes it's better not to share

There will always be plans and proposals that look better on paper than they turn out to be in reality. I would suggest that high schools sharing gym space is one example of that.

High schools sharing space for a career and technology lab that would include manufacturing, design, construction, trades and heavy-equipment programming sounds even more complex than co-ordinating gym time for schools in separate divisions with a combined population that could reach 3,000 students.

That kind of project looks more college-level than high school level to me.

If there is a difference of opinion between planners in Alberta Education and local school boards, it's almost always better to side with the local school boards. But not in this case.

Red Deer Public had initially endorsed a high school development proposal for a large piece of property on the northeast corner of 67 Street and 30^th Avenue. Three high schools are proposed for the site: public, Catholic and Francophone.

That's a whole lot of people coming and going to one place, every day. But let's assume that if Alberta Education can OK the land use designation, Alberta Transportation can also approve safe access and egress on what's going to be a very busy corner in this town.

The public board's understanding was that the whole project was to be built in phases (as provincial construction funding comes available, and who can predict that?). On paper, there were synergies that could be developed for some of the more high-ticket items that come on a list of things that a school needs.

One would be a gym. I don't know how many other smaller gyms were planned to be part of the total package, but in all the time I've spent in the stands of a school gym, there's no way I can see how one gym would serve three high schools — even if it was only to be a “game” gym, with teams doing their practices elsewhere.

Can you imagine how many teams and other groups needing gym time there would be at three high schools? It would list into the high dozens. Even if some uses were scheduled for midnight, there aren't enough hours in a week outside of school time to accommodate.

For each sport, game day or practice day is every day, before and after school hours. Each sport has junior and senior teams, for girls and boys. In my days with kids at Lindsay Thurber, players who didn't make the senior or junior squads got another chance to play in the league for smaller regional schools, adding yet another layer of need for gym time.

You don't build a multi-million-dollar gym for a school with more than 1,000 students, and only 10 girls and 10 boys get to use it for league basketball, for instance.

That's just for after-school activity. Phys ed classes would be a whole other scheduling problem.

What would a gym for more than 3,000 students look like? I'll suggest the main gym at Red Deer College would be too small (and about four or five gyms too few).

Whose logo would be painted on the wall? If you think that's not important, you don't know the value of team sports to the functioning of a school. I know this from experience: the logo on the wall and the championship banners in front if it are a prime connector for a community of students with pride in what they do.

Bottom line: I can't see how high schools can share a gym.

Unless it's an entire sports and fitness complex, like the Collicutt Centre. Red Deer needs another, larger, one of those, and proximity to three high schools would definitely be useful. But a useful thing like that is not on the table here.

Nor, when you think about it, is a shared career and technology centre. Our schools really are doing a good job these days in giving young people a wide range of options in the training they receive.

Even “academic” students can benefit from taking an option class in construction or some other trade. High school is too early to stream your education totally in or totally out of the academic or trades stream.

But the wonderful shared lab that was proposed on paper looks like something a college should be doing. If I managed limited funding, that's where I'd put the money.

So it was a good decision — on a variety of levels — that the Red Deer Public district board changed its mind and let the idea of shared facilities go.

Red Deer Catholic is now free to proceed quickly on their plans for St. Joseph's High School. Red Deer Public will get funding for a high school at the site, whenever Alberta Education makes it a priority. Same for the Francophone high school.

Each will design a building to match its programming. The synergies will develop out of parents choosing which school's programming best suits their own children's desires for their future.

Less cost-efficient on paper, but most likely better for the students.