New school comes with some headaches for Langdon residents

Times Contributor

 

The Hamlet of Langdon does not have its own supermarket yet but it can boast of a brand new school.

Named after the first person to teach in Langdon, the Sarah Thompson School of Rocky View Schools (formerly the Sarah Thompson Elementary School) is ready to start classes in September 2012.

The Sarah Thompson elementary school will serve grades K to 4 for the region on the east side of Main Street, while Langdon School will continue serve grades K to 9, including the students in grades K to 5 on the west side of the Main Street. 

The school will welcome Grade 5 students in the fall of 2013. The school was built to accommodate 450 students, said Angela Spanier, director of communications for Rocky View Schools.

“I’m so excited we are opening a new school,” said Rocky View Schools trustee Bev LaPeare. “We drastically needed one.”

“My daughter will no longer be in a school with Grade 9’s. It was a big age difference,” said Natacha Brownlee. 

In spite of the good news, Langdon parents are concerned about a few things: the absence of a playground, school portables and sidewalks.

“I appreciate the Grade 5’s are coming only in 2013 as my son is already at the Langdon School. But there is a lack of foresight in the planning,” said Chantelle Everett. “It baffles me (that) we don’t have a playground when we know childhood obesity is such a problem.” 

LaPeare said the government of Alberta does not provide for playgrounds. The government provides only the school and 10 metres of ground beyond it as well as the sidewalk directly in front of the building.

“The government provides a place to learn but not a place to play and grow,” said parent and volunteer Shelagh Phelps.

When the Langdon School was built it did not have a playground. It was thanks to the efforts of the community that the Langdon School got its playground in June 2010. At the time, local businesses loaned three Bobcats, gravel was obtained at a discount and concrete was donated, said Phelps. Encana Corporation, the Alberta Lottery Fund, Compton Petroleum Corporation, Rocky View Schools and Rocky View County provided the funding.

Thanks to funding by the major donors and the community’s efforts, the playground at Langdon School was built at a cost of about $300,000 instead of about $400,000, said Phelps.

“It’s a lot of cookies at a bake sale if we had to make up the difference,” said Phelps.

To simplify and speed up the process of building playgrounds, LaPeare said Rocky View Schools now use a catalogue of pre-approved playground designs and contractors. 

“The community won’t have to worry about liability and insurance. It will just have to worry about the fundraising.”

The pre-approved contractors will do such things as stripping the topsoil, excavating, compacting and pouring the concrete, while donated services will still be allowed for the installation of the playground apparatus.

“There’s a misconception out there that donated services will not be used anymore. They will,” said LaPeare.

Remaining funds will be donated back to the school council’s society.

As for school portables though they were “hot in spring and cold in winter,” said Everett, the portables were nonetheless essential to the Langdon School. 

LaPeare said 10 school portables currently in use at Langdon School will be moved to “areas in more crisis” in the school district. LaPeare knows the Langdon area will continue to grow, and in three years it’s expected these school portables will be returned to Langdon.

LaPeare could not comment on the cost of moving school portables.

“It’s a constant juggling act to manage accommodation priorities,” said LaPeare.