Couple of class acts
Edmonton Public Schools on Tuesday released the names of three new facilities due to open in 2021. Two of the schools will be named after artist Alex Janvier and former teacher Aleda Patterson. Garth Worthington, not pictured, is also being honoured.
When Tammy Patterson decided to nominate her mother-in-law as a namesake for a new Edmonton school, she and her husband Wes carefully pumped her for information about her life’s work.
“We have to do a little subterfuge with your mom,” Wes recalls Tammy saying, as they tried to avoid raising suspicion.
Their stealth operation paid off Tuesday, when the Edmonton public school board announced a new primary years school in the Afton neighbourhood would be called Aleda Patterson School.
“It’s just been a wonderful process,” Wes said Tuesday. “We’ve learned more about her, in-depth, in the last several months because of asking all these questions.”
Patterson, 83, was a teacher with the school district with an urge to solve problems. In the 1980s, she helped establish a free family counselling service that is known today as The Support Network.
After seeing a similar program in Colorado, Patterson also brought the ABC Head Start program to Edmonton. Now a charitable organization, it offers free early education classes to hundreds of tots and parents to help kids be developmentally ready for school.
Given her interest in early education, it was fitting to name the district’s first K-3 school for Patterson, board chairwoman Michelle Draper said Tuesday.
Patterson said she was “shocked and thrilled” when she learned of the honour.
Draper announced the names of three new Edmonton Public Schools Tuesday — Aleda Patterson K-3 school and Alex Janvier middle years school will be constructed in the Westlawn area and will replace three aging elementary schools and one junior high.
A new K-9 school in East Chappelle in the Heritage Valley will bear the name of Garth Worthington, also a former Edmonton public teacher who taught music, choir and band to thousands of youths in his 33-year career.
His son, Trent Worthington, said he didn’t nominate his dad — he doesn’t know who did. He still hears from his dad’s students, even five years after his death. Relationships were everything to him, he said.
“He felt that music was one of those languages that could bridge so many gaps,” said Worthington, who is also a teacher. “It could help so many children and young people to function better in life. ... I think every teacher, every principal would want that to be part of their school culture.”
To have a school bear his name is a huge honour for him and the family, Worthington said.
A replacement school in Westlawn that will teach students in Grades 4-9 and focus on the arts will bear the moniker of Janvier, the renowned Alberta artist.
A Dene man from the Cold Lake First Nations, the residential school survivor’s works appear in the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, the Alberta legislature and Rogers Place.
Janvier’s advice to the future students is, “Stay in school.”
An arts education gives students a chance to find their voice, he said.
“Sometimes you have to push them back to be heard, or to be known,” the 84-year-old said. “It was not an easy trail that I came to, this day here. But it’s enjoyable, now that I think back on it. It was the right trail.”
Draper said the board received nearly 160 name suggestions for the three buildings, all of which are set to open in fall 2021.