Pipestone Flyer
Just over a year ago the Alberta Government made an announcement that Leduc will be receiving a new school in the West Haven area scheduled to open for the 2016 – 2017 school year.
With the rapid growth in the City of Leduc and the new school set to be ready for the fall of 2016, it was necessary to have grade configurations and school attendance area boundaries within the City of Leduc reviewed.
A Working Committee, made up of two Leduc Principals and one Black Gold Regional School (BGRS) central office personnel, put together a report that was presented to the public in late February at a public open house. At the open house the public voiced their approval and concerns, as well as over 100 written comments were received by the division after the open house. Residents expressed a number of concerns with the Caledonia Park and Corinthia Park Area, however, over 75% of the concerns were with the proposed changes in the Leduc Estates, Lakeside, Windrose, Suntree and West Haven Area.
After consideration, the BGRS Board felt that the feedback received from the public was not good enough to put through the proposal and requested the Working Committee to develop one or more alternate options for the concerned areas.
After the alternate proposal was put through the Working Committee made presentations at School Council meetings in the three affected areas of Leduc Estates School, Caledonia Park School and École Corinthia Park School.
As a result the BGRS Board voted to accept the configuration review recommendations put forth by administration. The following recommendations made are as follows:
The following schools, East Elementary, Lindsford Park, and Willow Park will remain English K-6 with no boundary changes. Caledonia Park School will stay with the same boundaries and continue as an English K-9 school.
The newest school in Leduc, West Haven School (WHS), will be an English K-9 school. From grades 7-9 the school boundaries would extend to five neighbourhoods of Suntree, West Haven, Windrose, Lakeside and Leduc Estates.
Leduc Estates School (LES) which is currently a K-6 English school will change to a dual track school, English and French Immersion (FI). The school will also have a slight change in the grade configuration to K-5 for English students. LES will have students come from the Windrose, Lakeside and Leduc Estates neighbourhoods. Students attending this school will move onto WHS for grades 7-9.
École Corinthia Park School (ECPS) will continue to be an English and FI school for grades K-6, the only change will be the boundaries for the FI students. All students on the East side of Highway 2 will continue to attend ECPS.
For the French Immersion program, there will now be two K-6 schools in Leduc, ECPS and LES. The boundary line will be Highway 2, students residing west of the highway go to LES and students on the East side will attend ECPS. From there all FI students will attend École Junior High School and move onto the new High School program at Leduc Composite High School which will commence this fall.
Even though West Haven School may be delayed until 2017-2018 due to the Alberta Government’s latest announcement on the P3 schools, Dr. Norman Yanitski, BGRS Superintendent comments that it is still important to continue to move forward with plans. ”We are sitting in a good position; should anything need to be changed in the future we will absolutely be able to share that.”
The full report on Leduc Schools Configuration Review can be found on BGRS website.