Along one side of the brand new gymnasium children five and up sat on the floor, neatly organized into rows, all wearing brightly coloured fedoras. Along the other side, adults in business attire sat in chairs with their name tags draped carefully over the back.
Both sides fidgeted quietly through the unveiling ceremony of the new Gibsons Elementary School on May 19.
“I think it’s a fabulous asset for all kinds of reasons. Really, this school is a legacy for this community,” said school principal Deborah Luporini. “There’s only one elementary school in the town. It’s really an attraction, it’s a beautiful facility, everyone sees it. And whether they have school-age children or not, there’s something here for them.”
Wesley Nahanee and Alroy Baker from the Squamish Nation officiated the opening of the school. The school band and choir both performed songs for the opening and closing of the ceremony.
The ribbon cutting was carried out by Grade 2 students Kate Tierney and Diamond Wells-McDonell, with help from Luporini and MLA Nicholas Simons. Tierney and Wells-McDonell were the youngest children in the old school when the project for the new school began in 2013.
“A new school is an opportunity for everyone to create a new legacy in the community. To our students, it’s a place where you will learn, laugh and create memories for a lifetime. It is essentially your home away from home,” Education Minister Peter Fassbender wrote in a letter to the school.
The letter was read out at the ceremony by school superintendent Patrick Blocking.
“In a very real way this school is built around the vision of our school district. We’re a community engaged in lifelong learning and educational excellence,” Bocking said.
Although the landscaping isn’t quite finished, the inside of the school has been completed and offers some very modern features for present and future generations of children.
Classrooms are designed to be more interactive. Retractable blackboards, folding tables on wheels, rolling bookcases, and even moveable walls give students and teachers the means to adapt their environments to their lessons — instead of the other way around.
First approved in 2007 on the capital list in Victoria, the school board didn’t make the decision to move forward with the project until 2010 under the chair at the time, trustee Silas White.
In order to seek approval from the board they had to complete an enrolment survey, which Luporini said was the most challenging part of the whole process. They had to demonstrate the need for a new school.
“They look at the enrolment that you have in your school, they look at the enrolment that you have across the entire school district. So it’s not just about Gibsons, it’s about Langdale to Pender Harbour,” Luporini said.
“So you have to demonstrate a need, and a need over time. That was a bit of a challenge for us because we were in declining enrolment and we continue to be in declining enrolment, certainly at the secondary school.”
One thing that convinced the school board was that they didn’t have space for all of the children in the old elementary school. There are about 325 enrolled now — which is just about at capacity for the new building — but projections for the next 10 to 15 years show that there will be an increase in elementary-school-aged children on the Coast.
The school seems big, but “a lot of that is the design,” Luporini said. “The openness, the glass, the really high ceilings give you the feeling of space.
“We also consulted with the community about the neighbourhood learning centre because the ministry [of education] was prepared to give us 15 per cent extra capital space to meet the needs of the broader community,” Luporini said.
Among several things of benefit to older generations in the community, a day care in the school contracted by the YMCA is a place where parents can take their newborns to five year olds. A multi-purpose room provides space for community gatherings and events, and right now they are running an English language course for adult foreign language speakers who are new to the Coast.
Parent advisory committee chair Shannon Vanderwoerd thanked the community primarily for their efforts in the realization of this school. “This truly is a community school, and when you walk in and you see that beautiful playground, that’s because of you, our community members,” she said.
