The two new high schools to be built on the West Shore now have principals, principles and, in the case of the school in the Glen Lake area, a shortlist of designers.
At a public meeting at Isabelle Reader Theatre on Tuesday officials from School District 62 revealed a series of significant steps propelling forward the construction of the new schools.
District superintendent Jim Cambridge announced the principals for the new schools. He explained having principals in line for the new schools, even though they won’t be open until 2015, will help with the planning of programming for the schools.
As previously announced, the new principal of Belmont secondary school in the Glen Lake area will be a current Belmont vice principal Ray Miller. The new principal for the high school at Royal Bay in Colwood will be current Millstream elementary school principal Windy Beadell.
Beadell was interviewed the day before the meeting and found out she had the job about 20 minutes before the announcement. She has worked for the district for more than 23 years and has been an administrator for the past eight.
“I’m excited. Ever since I found out about this opportunity, it’s always felt like this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my career,” Beadell said. “The vision I have of where we’re going with education, it so comes alive when I think of [the new school].”
Board of Education chair Wendy Hobbs announced the shortlist of three builders which will be submitting designs for the Glen Lake area high school.
EllisDon Corporation and Kinetic Construction Ltd. (Vancouver), Heatherbrae Builders Ltd. (Nanaimo) and Yellowridge Design-Build Ltd. (Port Moody) are the three companies chosen to submit designs for the new school in the Glen Lake area.
“They all have great experience with design-build and they all have had in some way dealings with building schools,” Hobbs said.
Those companies will now have four months to each come up with a design incorporating everything on the school district’s wish list. Only one design will be chosen, but the other two will become the property of the district and elements from them may be rolled in to the ultimate design.
The company with the winning design will also be the company to build the school.
The shortlist of builders for the school at Royal Bay will be announced in March.
The total budget for the two schools are $50.8 million for Belmont and $38.6 million for the school at Royal Bay.
Assistant superintendent Dave Betts laid out some of the basic principles and features of the two new schools.
Belmont at Glen Lake, which will house 1,200 students, will be geared towards more traditional learning models.
The high school at Royal Bay will feature an educational model that is more flexible and will allow students to have more choice about how, when and where they learn.
“We will not have two schools that are identical. We will have two schools that are a little bit different,” Betts said. “We want to provide an option for students who are going to school in our district to chose a learning style that best suits their needs.”
For more information visit sd62.bc.ca.