Most of us have to go to high school, but it’s a lot rarer to have the opportunity to help build one.
This is exactly the prospect students in School District 62 now have, literally and figuratively, with the building of two new high schools, both of which aim to open their doors to the youth of the West Shore in September 2015.
Most of the major decisions are being made by the provincial government, which is providing the majority of funding, and the Soke School District, which is paying the rest. But as framing for the schools goes up, students are also being turned to for a helping hand.
Some students in the trades programs are going to gain experience by actually getting to work on the construction sites, learning the tricks of their trade while lending a helping hand.
Other students are being asked to help design the kind of schools they will attending, especially Royal Bay school, which is starting from scratch on the former gravel pit site in Colwood.
Picking a new mascot and the school’s spirit colours is important (our vote: The Ravens and royal purple, seemingly the favourites so far), but equally so is deciding what kind of atmosphere our leaders of tomorrow should spend their most formative years in.
Administrators have expressed a desire to have the school highly integrated with the overall Royal Bay community, which is being planned around it.
We couldn’t agree more. What better way to learn about how the world outside of school works than to be a part of it? Seeing community groups using school spaces and interacting with adults apart from parents and teachers can only broaden horizons.
But in the end, it’s the students who will make the new schools what they will hopefully become: places of imagination and creativity, of positivity and budding compassion, of fun and growth.
We know both will do the West Shore proud.