Wheatland Crossing School build continues

Adelle Ellis
Times Reporter

 

Over 100 parents and community members of Standard, Rockyford, Hussar and Gleichen took part Dec. 13 in a walk-through of the new Wheatland Crossing K-12 School.
The new school was supposed to be partially open this past September for the start of the fall semester. Due to several complications including heavy rainfall, manpower shortages and equipment delays, the school is still not complete.
However, it seems that the end is finally near.
“It is exciting to be where we are, though not as exciting as where we’ll be shortly,” said Golden Hills School Division Superintendent, Bevan Daverne.
After months of delays and upsets, a plausible move-in date has been set, although it’s not set in stone.
“We are planning on a February move at this point,” said Daverne. “We have a lot of confidence around when our move-in and completion date will be.”
Possible options for move-in dates would be on the semester change date of Feb. 1. Another more likely option would be to move into the new school after the Feb. 20 Family Day week off school, making move-in day Feb. 27.
“It’s coming along really well, we’re feeling really good about our timelines to finish, and at this point, this should be a time for some pretty positive celebration,” said Daverne.
Unlike original plans of a staged move-in, students from all grades will move into the new school together.
The school, located south of Standard on Hwy #561, will hold at capacity 450 students. “It would not be crazy to see more families making the choice to come here next year. We do have additional room on the property to add modular classrooms if need be,” said Daverne.
Since the school is miles away from any amenities the nearby towns can offer, some creative space-saving decisions had to be made. For instance, the school’s main common area is large and airy, the ceilings are high and the windows run the full length of the wall, letting in a lot of sunlight. Some of the major design elements throughout the school warrant that most rooms be dual-purpose.
The best example of this is the main common area, also known as the “flex area.” This can be turned into four smaller rooms, including a seating area, a black box theatre and a classroom space, by using folding and sliding doors that can all be up or all down at a single time.
“We call this our flex area because we can do lots of different things with it; it can be adjusted to meet our needs,” said Wheatland Crossing principal, Karen Smith.
Other unique design features include a living plant wall in the main seating area, as well as four pillars that will each be decorated with something that speaks back to one of the four communities that will all join in the school.
“Because we’re not in a community, we wanted a school that kids have lots of space to move around. Lots of places to hang out and go, a place so they don’t feel they need to leave at lunch hour,” said Daverne.
“This is a student friendly school. This is a place where we’ve worked hard in the design process to make it comfortable and a place where kids will like to hang out. It’s a beautiful and bright space with lots of room for kids to spread out, be comfortable, work on projects, eat their lunch and do their homework. It can be what they want it to be,” he added.
Hallways are wide, coloured lines on the floor running throughout the school make it bright and cheery. There aren’t going to be traditional desks in every classroom. There will be tables and soft seating spread throughout the school.
The cosmetology room, which also doubles as a classroom, is set up so that eventually the students can start taking in customers.
The kitchen is filled with state-of-the-art commercial appliances, and there is plenty of room for tables for people to sit down and enjoy their lunch.
However, running a cafeteria-style lunch hour will be new for anyone coming from the four original schools.
“The first several months are going to be trial and error,” said Smith about the kitchen. “Most likely students will need to pre-order meals so that [staff] knows how much food to make.”
However nice the inside will look once fully complete, there are still a few issues overall that need to be dealt with. The regional water line is currently not in place, so water will need to be trucked in for the remainder of the school year.
“We will have to haul water to start with until regional water comes in, around September. We need a cistern and a pump for that,” said local School Board Trustee, Alan Larsen, who added that the pump was ordered over six weeks ago, but since it is made by only one company, there is no option other than to wait for it.
Another short-term issue is the playground: school councils have worked hard to fundraise, but the playground apparatus won’t be delivered until May. Thus, between the move-in date and May there will be no playgrounds for the elementary students. Programs will be put in place to make sure students have productive recess breaks during the day.
“It will be more work and planning for supervision, but only for a short period of time. Kids can play lots of soccer and ball until the playgrounds are in,” said Daverne.
Regardless of any disapproval about the location or the space in the school that some parents still hold, there are many counteracting benefits. For instance, the school will be able to provide agricultural-focused studies as well as some possible animal-related classes. There will also be a greenhouse and a pond where the students can learn about water and a water-based environment.
“On site we are looking at having a greenhouse and maybe some animal husbandry. We have an outdoor classroom that will be for pond studies. We have tried to incorporate enough space to have the flexibility to do that,” said Daverne, adding that some partnerships are already set up with local businesses and post-secondary institutions with agricultural programming.
“[We have a] state-of-the-art facility for education and it meets our educational needs from an Alberta curriculum perspective and also from working with our local communities. They have some really great plans for programming moving forward,” he added.
“I think a lot of people have not known what to expect. They haven’t seen what the inside looks like. [But] I have received lots of positive comments. I think we just need to get everything finished, furniture installed, and move in,” said Daverne. “You’re seeing educational spaces that are fit with 21st century learning. It’s going to be quite beautiful.”