hawkman

One or two of the threads on here have got me thinking about looking at some of Edmonton's satellite towns, but I have a couple of queries, and would appreciate any help.

In particular I was looking at Sherwood Park and St Alberta, I've looked at the website for the municipalities for both towns and can't find any mention of schools or Education. It there some other official body which runs schools for these towns or does it come under Edmonton?

Also what's public transport like between these towns and Edmonton. I've looked at the transit authority sites and it seems quite good, but does it still run okay in the winter or it is like blightly when everything grinds to a halt after 0.025" of snow!!!!!

We both like the idea of living in a small town and commuting in to the big city, which is pretty much what we do now living in a small town about ten miles outside of Manchester.

Any help in this area would be appreciated.

Again thanks to all in advance...

Steve_P

Can't answer your questions right now I'm off to bed it's 10:45pm here.

I'm just letting you know how late it is and you might not get any answers for another eight to twelve hours.

Cheers
Steve

Judy in Calgary

SHERWOOD PARK

Sherwood Park's public (state) schools fall under Elk Island Public Schools.

R2D2 lived in Sherwood Park with two young children and really liked it. They have just moved back to the UK, or are in the process of doing so. However, that was not an indictment on Sherwood Park, which R2D2 often praised. Rather it was that they missed the UK, and Canada didn't quite feel like home to them. Well, at least that was my understanding of what R2D2 said. Anyway, if you do a search for threads about Sherwood Park in which R2D2 has participated, you'll find a fair bit of info.


ST. ALBERT

St. Albert's public schools are administered by St. Albert Protestant Schools.

Wow, that's weird. I've never before stumbled on a public school board that has actually had the word "Protestant" in its name. However, I knew that was the origin of the public school system. In Canada's early days, English-speaking settlers usually were Protestant, whereas French-speaking settlers usually were Catholic. In order to be fair, the provincial and territorial governments of the day provided schooling for students from both the majority and minority communities in any given jurisdiction. In Quebec the English / Protestant group was in the minority. In most of the rest of Canada, the French / Catholic group was in the minority. The connection between language and religion doesn't necessarily hold any more, but there still are public (originally Protestant) and Catholic (often called Separate) school boards across Canada. Both are government-funded. But I digress.

Rae lives in St. Albert, and in the thread called Information about schools in Edmonton he describes his daughter's (positive) experience of school.

TRANSIT

I haven't ever used public transportation from Sherwood Park or St. Albert to downtown Edmonton, but I can assure you that Edmonton is pretty well geared up for winter. It continues to function, and it does not grind to a halt when winter arrives.

Anyway, as I type, it's about 11.15 p.m., and I too am shutting down for the night.
x

Linda P

We have lived in Sherwood Park for 18 months now and we love it!!!

It has a lovely family feel to it. We are in an area called Woodbridge Farms, which is one of the older (not run down though) areas. It has established trees and is very well kept. I have to say I have yet to see anywhere here that the gardens are not well kept! (unlike in the UK)

When we were looking into sherwood park we were told that there are no bad schools here. I found that hard to believe and ask lots of people even stopping people on their drive ways and asking them about the schools in their area.
We visited two schools.....with no appointments, just walked in and explained we were possibly moving into the area. Each time we were given a tour, the heads seemed very proud of their schools, which I thought was great.

My two children 9 & 7 settled in very well and we are very happy with the school.

I cannot give any advise on public transport, sorry.

Please pm me if I can help with anything.

Linda

hawkman

Judy/Linda

A big thanks to both of you, your respective comments were both really helpful; thank you!

leith

Just a couple of quick comments on Edmonton satellite towns. Property taxes in St. Albert are very high. We used to live in Edmonton but moved to Beaumont after carefully looking at all the smaller communities. It's a nice clean, friendly town with very good schools, shops and services. We walk or bike everywhere in town. Getting to major Edmonton shopping malls is less than a seven minute drive and the International Airport is ten minutes away but the town isn't on a flight path. No consistent bus service as yet from Beaumont. Sherwood Park and St. Albert do have bus service into Edmonton but it's not much fun waiting for buses in winter. One thing you will find very different here is the much greater distances you have to travel even within cities and the time it takes to get around some parts of Edmonton especially when there's construction going on on the freeways(motorways).
Hope this helps.

hawkman

Thanks Leith.

I'll take that in to consideration.

Cheers.

Hawkman

jericho

Hi mate, we're from Manchester- moving to sherwood park in 2 weeks. Good luck