More than 100 people gathered in the gym of Penhold School last Monday during an open house with Chinook’s Edge School Division to learn more about a new school scheduled to open in Penhold the fall of 2014.
“We really want it to be a 7-12 school,” said mother, Alana Van, after the presentation. Friends Jackie Arnold and Allison Teierle agreed.
“We don’t want them to move between three different schools in three years,” said Arnold, who explained the possibility of the new school not being a 7-12 right away would mean her kids would go from Jessie Duncan, to Penhold School, to the new school, before having to transfer out of town to finish high school.
“If we have to transfer one kid, we’ll transfer them all,” she said.
And without confirmation from the school division on what the school will be when first opening its doors in 2014, they’re left eagerly waiting.
Kurt Sacher, superintendent, said long-term plans have Jessie Duncan switching from a pre-kindergarten to Grade 3 school to a pre-K to Grade 2 school. Penhold School will become a Grade 3 to 6, making the new school a 7-12.
He said Jessie Duncan is already close to changing over but said there are concerns with making the new school a 7 to 12 right away, from a programming and financial point of view.
“But from the data we’re getting, it’s begun to swing the tide for the board to look seriously at a 7 to 12 school,” he said, adding that the board will look at making a decision in the new year.
He added that River Glen School, a K-12 in Red Deer, would continue to run programming until the fall of 2014 when the new school should open.
The division plans to work with parents at River Glen to transfer them to the three schools in Penhold as well as Poplar Ridge, schools in Sylvan Lake, Delburne and Innisfail.
Ray Hoppins, associate superintendent of system services who led the presentation, said the number one comment from parents he interviewed between September and October was to make the new school a 7-12.
Hoppins phoned parents of 163 students and 71 parents made that request. Other top remarks included requests for busing to Red Deer, and to keep commute times down as much as possible.
Allan Tarnoczi, associate superintendent for corporate services, outlined plans about what they know right now about the school, which will be a P3 project and will open with about 500 students.
“We want to integrate as best we can into the multiplex. Parents can get kids to hockey practice pretty easily after school.”
He said there will be about 23 instructional spaces which include a new gym. There will also be office space for an RCMP liaison and speech pathologist, something he said is relatively new to school packages.
A design team, with members of the school division administration, Penhold mayor Dennis Cooper and CAO Rick Binnendyk has formed.
“That’s also pretty unique to have representatives from the town. They will have a chance to have their say and have input on how the traffic is going to flow and best integrate.” Currently, the division is looking at sharing library space with the town.
“It’s an inclusive school,” he said. “There’s lots of kids from a wide variety of backgrounds and we want to offer them a wide variety (of programming).”
After the presentation, people were asked to go around to different stations and provide feedback on various topics from school boundaries to general inquiries.
“I think everyone really wants to see it attached to the multiplex,” said Cooper of the feedback he received. “I think the design team is working towards that, with the open pod design, which is good news. But until we see final drafts we won’t know for sure.” He said other people wanted to know more about the library being shared and whether there would be bus service in town for students.
He also offered tours through the multiplex before and after the presentations, which he said were positive.
“There were some people who hadn’t seen the multiplex before. And they were really surprised. A lot of people just think it’s a hockey arena, but when they saw it, they realized it’s so much more than that.”
