With three new schools on the horizon, the Grande Prairie Catholic School District will be working hard over the next year to prepare.
Superintendent Karl Germann says there is a lot to be done to prepare to move into both St Mary’s in Beaverlodge and their next K-9 school in Royal Oaks next year, and then the new Arbour Hills high school in 2017.
“So a lot of that work is in the planning and discussion of how the programs will change and then also talking to parents and students about some of the changes that we’re going to make because we’re probably looking at moving to a grade 8-12 system, so how do we have an elementary and middle year system and how do we have a junior high and a high school system kind of run parallel to each other.”
Students from the current St. Mary’s school in Beaverlodge are expected to move into their new building around Easter. Germann says that timing that has worked well with their Sexsmith school in the past.
“People kind of thought it was the wrong decision to move into a school around Easter time but in fact, the students settled before the end of the year and when we started in the fall all the hiccups were out of the school and kids just flowed into the school smoothly. It just worked really, really well.”
After that the former building will be demolished, and the district will turn its focus to getting the Royal Oaks school in order for next fall.
