The future of a small school in an east-Central Alberta community along the Yellowhead Highway is up in the air, much to the dismay of many parents and community members. 

Fewer than 60 students from K-12 attend Delnorte School in Innisfree, about 140 kilometres east of Edmonton. According to provincial data, the village’s population was about 200 in 2025. 

Though small, the community’s showing of support for the continued operation of their school was mighty during a Wednesday night meeting at the village recreation centre. 

“We were north of 250 here tonight,” Evan Raycraft, mayor of Innisfree, told CBC News. “The community presence here was 100 per cent expected by me. Whenever our school comes together, whether it’s for graduation or it’s for a Christmas concert, we fill this hall.” 

The meeting came a month after a Buffalo Trails Public School Division (BTPS) board vote to investigate the school’s complete or partial closure in January, and three months after the superintendent was directed to conduct a formal review of the school in November. 

Former Delnorte graduates, parents, neighbours, as well as current and future students filled the space to share their thoughts, concerns and questions about the potential closure with representatives of BTPS. 

Community members heard a declining enrolment trend, classrooms with three grades, and an operating deficit of $225,000 for the 2025-26 school year were factors in the decision to assess the school’s future. 

Kara Jackson, BTPS board chair and trustee for the Innisfree region, said the review will look at several criteria. 

“Every single factor has to be gone through methodically,” Jackson told CBC News. “It has to be a compilation of looking at all of those viability factors.” 

Wyatt and Madison Gutsch were in the crowd Wednesday with their one-year-old son, Wolfgang. 

Madison Gutsch is a second-generation Delnorte alum, and said she wants to see her own children get the same small-town education.  

“It would make me so happy; when I went to school there it was so welcoming,” she said. “All the one-on-one time we got from our class being so small — I think it would just be so good for him.” 

For Wyatt Gutsch, the potential loss of the school signals a worrying pattern for rural communities like Innisfree — a place he saw as an affordable, tight-knit community to raise a family in. 

“At one point, every town had an elevator and that was the lifeblood of a community,” he said. “As those elevators closed, I think the school became the lifeblood of the community. 

“As we’ve seen school closures, we’ve seen towns dissolve into hamlets, and they’ve lost their lifeblood. Now they’re just ghost towns of rural Alberta.” 

BTPS closed an elementary school serving grades 1 through 6 in the hamlet of Clandonald in 2021. CBC reported that as of 2024, 14 small rural schools had closed their doors since 2019, according to a statement from the Ministry of Education.

The ministry did not provide an updated number of rural schools closures.

Mayor Raycraft said a closure could start a domino effect of decline for the community. 

“The school is an economic driver in town here,” he said. “How long, if the school leaves, before Canada Post is pulling our post office? Before our ATB agency is looking to move somewhere else?” 

Board letter

In a Feb. 18 letter to Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, Jackson requested enrolment thresholds for rural small school funds be raised, so more small-town schools are considered rural.

“The need for equitable and sustainable funding for rural schools is not a new concern,” wrote Jackson, noting the issue has been raised by organizations like the Alberta School Boards Association, the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta, and the Rural Caucus of Alberta School Boards.

“The challenges associated with underfunding are not unique to this school,” Jackson wrote. “Many rural divisions across Alberta continue to echo the need for meaningful changes to the funding framework.”

Nicolaides’s written response said school boards have sole authority on decisions to close schools, and his ministry provided “substantial rural-targeted funding” for the division.

“I expect you to exercise that authority and make the decision that best serves the constituents you represent,” wrote Nicolaides.

Julie Warrilow, chair of the student council, said she hopes the board is open to alternative options she presented prior to the community meeting, like a shared responsibility program, which would see students receiving a home education attend the school for a portion of programming.

“It’s definitely something I think we could bring to our division that could increase some funding for us,” she said.

The decision facing the board, to be finalized with a vote at a March 18 meeting, is a troubling one, said Jackson.

“The last thing any school board — and I can say this confidently — wants to do is look at the viability of a school long-term,” said Jackson. “That’s not why we put our hat, our name in the ring to run for this position. We do it because we believe in student success and especially in rural Alberta.”