Families’ guide to fall and return to school
Going back to school typically means a return to a familiar place — but when the first bell rings this academic year, many students will be walking into something decidedly different.
Calgary’s public and Catholic education divisions are opening new schools this fall — something many educators call a muchneeded step to ease ongoing pressures facing burgeoning systems.
For Mike Bolder, with the Calgary Catholic School District for more than two decades, opening a new school — which he has done once before — is a career highlight.
“It’s truly a gift,” says Bolder, principal of All Saints High School, which is opening in the southeast community of Legacy.
“You’re starting from the ground up to create a culture and climate … and building a learning community where all students can be successful.”
Since last August, as the school was physically built, Bolder has been working on assembling its education team.
By this past January, he had a secretary on board and by June had held more than 40 presentations for future students and their families and conducted nearly 200 interviews to hire teachers and support staff.
While he expects some minor glitches, Bolder says a shared passion for delivering excellent education guides everyone involved.
“It is just that wonderful opportunity to put in place a mission and vision which focuses on students being at the centre of every decision we make,” Bolder says.
By the time this past school year ended, some staff were savouring the new school smell as the principal arranged for a tour of the new facility.
“Here’s the bottom line,” Bolder said months before All Saints was set to open its doors. “We know, on September 4, we are going to be welcoming over 800 kids to our building in Grade 10 and 11 and we’re going to be ready. All the extra work is all worth it for the net results.”
In its first year, Bolder anticipates a student population of about 800 but the following year, when Grade 12 is added, All Saints’ numbers could hit 1,500.
It will be the third-largest high school in the Catholic district, with 42 classrooms plus career technology spaces that include a gymnasium, fitness centre, science super lab and a multi-purpose performing arts space with theatre-style seating.
The division is also opening its kindergarten to Grade 6 Divine Mercy School in Mahogany and Blessed Marie-Rose School for students in kindergarten to Grade 9 in the Sherwood community — bringing the division’s school tally to 115.
A new school opening is something Rocky View Schools won’t enjoy this year. Rocky View board of trustees’ chairman Todd Brand says being left out creates many challenges for the division, which has almost 24,000 students at schools west, north and east of Calgary.
“In the last round, Rocky View was given no new schools, zero this year,” he says. “We are extremely concerned.”
The division opened three new facilities over the past few years, including Fireside School in Cochrane.
And while a new, yet-to-benamed kindergarten to Grade 8 school is slated to open in Airdrie in 2019, the lack of facilities is causing concern.
“We really are faced with a lot of space issues,” Brand says.
“We are growing consistently by over a thousand students every single year and one of the fastest growing school divisions in Canada.”
In areas such as Chestermere and Cochrane, for instance, schools are very close to or well over capacity, which “obviously makes for challenges,” Brand says.
The Calgary Board of Education, the largest school division in the area, will be opening one new school — Joane Cardinal- Schubert High School.
The three-storey facility features lots of open flex space for students to work and a tonne of natural light, so much so that principal Gary Tink doesn’t anticipate having to turn the lights on most days.
“It’s not a traditional school,” he says.
When it opens in the community of Seton, the school will boast about 1,140 students in grades 10 and 11. That number will jump to 1,900 the following year when Grade 12 is added.
“I am most excited about having kids back. It’s been a weird year for me being away from students. For 28 years, I’ve always had students,” says Tink, who began working on setting up the school more than a year in advance of its opening.
“To start something from the grassroots doesn’t happen a lot. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I feel privileged.”
He says it will not only open new doors for students, but pave the way for staff to try things differently as a team.
“It’s a chance to put everything in place that is going to make learning and success greater for students,” Tink says.