A centre which helps students take classes at home is getting a new home.
Christ the Redeemer Catholic Schools’ Centre for Learning is moving from its current facilities — in three separate Okotoks buildings — to a building near Costco.
At present, the Centre for Learning is in two houses on Elma Street, and has additional leased space in the Westmount area.
“It has been our goal for literally years and years to move into a better place and we finally have that opportunity to start pursuing that,” said Michael Kilcommons, CTR-Catholic assistant superintendent-corporate services.
The school division is in a partnership with a company, which is building and will own the facility.
“We will move in and will lease — and we will have all of our Centre for Learning staff under one building at that point,” Kilcommons said. “We are leasing largely because of cost — We don’t have an extra ‘X’-million of dollars just sitting on the side to build a new facility… We are looking down the road having some kind of partial ownership.”
The school division has to take care of the costs because the facility is not a school.
The Catholic division passed a near-balanced $99-million budget in the spring. It also has reserves of approximately $7.3-million.
“Over the course of the next two years, the vast majority of that (reserves) will go towards the CFL facility, and putting portables in our schools,” Kilcommons said.
The Centre for Learning offers a Christian-based, home-schooled education for students across the province.
