The new school in Penhold will open as a Grade 7 to 12 school, explained Chinook's Edge School Board trustee Sherry Cooper recently.
Cooper met with Mayor Dennis Cooper and MLA Luke Ouellette Feb. 29 to showcase the erection of a sign outside the Penhold Multiplex featuring news about the school, expected to open in 2014.
“We will be taking a look at such things as programming and how the rooms get set up for delivering education,” she said of the next step. “Basically all the finer details now that the big work is done and now the fine-tuning starts.”
The board approved a motion to configure the new school as a Grade 7 to 12 school at its Feb. 8 meeting. It also approved reconfiguring Jessie Duncan School as a kindergarten to Grade 2 school and Penhold School as a Grade 3 to 9 school beginning this fall.
Plans had always been to offer a 7-12 school, but there were concerns over viability of starting it as a 7-12 school right away from a financial and programming point of view, superintendent Kurt Sacher explained during an open house in November last year.
But data received from the public suggested the grades would be able to work immediately.
“The single most frequent comment from all parents was to open the new school to serve students from Grades 7 to 12 right from the start,” said Ray Hoppins, associate superintendent of system services in a prepared statement.
“The demographics show this is a thriving region with a growing population, and these families will be very pleased to know that the school will open fully equipped and prepared to meet the needs of our high school students straight through to graduation.”
The school will serve students outside the City of Red Deer. Currently, students from the area are bused into Red Deer to attend River Glen School.
River Glen students will transition to the new school once it's open. The River Glen buildings and property will be transferred to Alberta Education.
The plan is to fully equip the new school with Career Training Studies options in fabrication, welding, construction, food studies and media arts. The plan is to provide music and arts programming as well as sports and fitness.
