KEY POINTS:
Eighteen prefabricated classrooms will be moved to Albany Junior High by the end of the year at a cost of about $1 million to taxpayers.
The "relocatables" will take the overflow of students until the second stage of the school - due to start construction in January - opens.
It follows news last month that the opening of Albany Senior High, designed to take the junior school's graduates from 2009, is expected to be delayed by a year.
Junior school board of trustees chair Anne Read told a parents meeting this week that it had repeatedly asked the Ministry of Education to fast-track the stage-two building project.
"We asked for stage two to be built when they finished stage one [in 2005]," she said.
"We said we had the numbers, the growth was coming. The ministry decided, 'No'.
"It has cost the taxpayer $1 million."
The ministry refused to comment.
Principal Mike Jackson said the school's success had contributed to the bind.
"We've had an unprecedented number of families move into the zone just to come to the school, in numbers I don't think have been seen before," said Mr Jackson.
"It's really gratifying for us as a school that people are so keen to come here but it does make planning difficult."
He said the ministry had criteria that needed to be met before buildings were approved and it was too simplistic to blame it as being slow.
"They've got to have the evidence before they put their money towards their buildings," said Mr Jackson.
"We certainly didn't pick we were going to grow that fast. It's not surprising the ministry was caught on the hop a bit too."
Mr Jackson said the bill for consents, permits and moving had almost reached $1 million.
Stage one of the school, three main teaching blocks, was designed to cater for 840 students, which it reached at the start of this year.
Stage two will add two more teaching blocks and include a music suite to take capacity to 1400.
Said Mr Jackson: "We've got this state-of-the-art school, which looks fabulous, with all these 30-year-old relocatable buildings on it."
