The Wild Rose School Division Board of Trustees and administration recently hosted a community engagement tour to discuss their future capital plans, specifically for Rocky Mountain House.

Wild Rose School Division (WRSD) has acknowledged that Ecole Rocky Elementary and Lochearn Elementary buildings are both getting to a place where they need to be modernized. Division officials admit this is still a few years away, however, noting the importance of starting to plan now.

One potential idea the board has is considering to ask Alberta Education to build one new elementary school in Rocky Mountain House rather than modernizing both schools. The WRSD said this idea is the most attractive one for the province in terms of overall cost and effectiveness as well as improving the overall efficiencies and improving the overall utilization rates in Rocky Mountain House Schools.

When asked if the plan involves demolishing both Ecole Rocky Elementary (ERE) and Lochearn, including where the students would go during demolition and construction, WRSD said, “Lochearn would be demolished first, followed by the construction of a new elementary school on the Lochearn property”.  As for the students, , division officials said, ” all students from Kindergarten to Grade 4 would fit into ERE and all Grade 5 students would be moved over to Pioneer Middle School”.

Another topic brought up at the meeting was if it was possible to move all of the elementary school students into just one of the modernized schools, as opposed to demolishing them both and needing to build a new school. Wild Rose School Division said it would be possible to move K-3 students into a modernized Lochearn, with the Grade 4 and 5 students moving into Pioneer Middle School, with possibly Grade 8 students moving to West Central High School. In this case, however, WRSD fears Ecole Rocky Elementary would be the only school demolished and the government would not build a new school in Rocky.

The board of trustees also touched on what would happen to the French Immersion program, and what the possible name for the new school could be. The board stated, the French Immersion program would continue at the new school and Pioneer School, as long as their are enough students enrolled to keep the program viable. WRSD officials also added that a naming committee consisting of staff and school council representation from both Lochearn and Ecole Rocky Elementary, would be formed to determine a process seeking public input into the name of the new school.