“You have here in the City of Grande Prairie the finest new high school in the province of Alberta that I have ever seen.”
That’s high praise coming from the province’s education minister David Eggen, who was in the Swan City Friday for the grand opening of St. John Paul II Catholic School, as well as visits to École Nouvelle Frontière and Aspen Grove School. The new high school in Arbour Hills opened up to students at the end of April 2018 after construction started in October 2016.
The facility is considered to be state-of-the-art, with flexible classroom spaces, a 350 seat performing arts theatre, as well as commercial cooking, welding, construction, fashion, and cosmetology labs. Eggen says the Grande Prairie & District Catholic School Board dreamt big in its proposal, and he encourages other school districts in the province to do the same.
“Each community builds to their own needs and the degree to which people can have partnerships between community and the school board, that can look many different ways,” he says. “Your imagination is your only limitation in this regard.”
The school’s gym was filled for the grand opening and blessing with students, parents, local dignitaries, representatives of all three local school districts, and the companies that built it. Speaking to the crowd, Superintendent Karl Germann said the vision for a second Catholic high school was created by board trustees nearly five years ago.
“They took the risk and imagined a school that was different; one where teachers and students interacted more, where opportunities were available like commercial cooking, cosmetology, construction, welding, Celtic Academy, fine arts and more, and they could all live together.”
St. John Paul II is open this year to grades 8 to 10, with grade 11 to be added in 2019 and grade 12 in 2020. It offers both English and French Immersion programs to students from the City and County of Grande Prairie. 750 students can fit right away, but the building has room to grow to 1,000.