New high school in southern suburb to open this fall

A new public high school in Calgary’s deep south will welcome 1,200 new students this fall, with the hope of alleviating pressures in one of the city’s most rapidly growing areas.

The Calgary Board of Education will open Joane Cardinal- Schubert High School in the community of Seton on the city’s southern edge, starting with students in grades 10 and 11 in September before expanding to Grade 12 for the 201920 school year.

The school will have capacity for up to 600 students per grade, taking as many as 1,800 by its second year and relieving pressures on other high schools in the city, many of which are averaging nearly 40 students per class in critical university prerequisite courses.

Trustees received the new school’s details for information, but also approved a boundary expansion in the city’s deep south, adding the new communities of Belmont and Yorkville, two of four new developments in the new “West Macleod” area that is expected to house nearly 36,000 residents once it is fully built out over the next several years.

“We are very excited to add a new south high school this fall, it’s been needed for a very long time,” said CBE chair Trina Hurdman, who was also re-elected Tuesday as chair for the next school year.

“It’s really important for high school students to have a school in their communities … just giving them more time to do the things they need to do.”

Hurdman said that while educators often focus on the importance of early learning development, a student’s high school years are equally critical as they increase their social networks, participate in extracurricular activities and prepare for post-secondary education.

“As a new facility, it will offer students immense opportunities in terms of technology and other options to develop a wider variety of interests and passions.”

Dany Breton, CBE superintendent of facilities, added the new high school will also offer better learning spaces, with more windows and open spaces for students to work and learn together.

“More concretely, you’re seeing less concrete. … You’ll see less focus on classrooms and more on open spaces for collaboration.”

Along with the opening of the new high school, high school modernizations will also be completed this fall, including upgrades at Forest Lawn High School, James Fowler and Lord Beaverbrook in an effort to expand Career and Technology Studies programming.

Forest Lawn’s upgrades will include the expansion of welding, automotive and construction learning spaces, while James Fowler will get a modernized wing for communication technology, trades and an arts-centred learning space.

Lord Beaverbrook saw upgrades to its entire facility, from floors to ceilings and its mechanical room.

“We wanted to revitalize these spaces, many of which were built as far back as the 1960s,” said Breton.

“And the programs will help transition students straight from high school into the workplace, or post-secondaries if that is what they are wanting to do.”

All three schools will also house the CBE’s adult education programs, after the closure of Chinook Learning Services at the old Viscount Bennet School this year.

Three more elementary schools are expected to open sometime in the next two years — in Coventry Hills, Cranston and Evergreen.