Rocky View Schools (RVS), Bow Valley High School, and local leaders gathered in the rain to celebrate the ground breaking for Bow Valley High School's new addition and modernization expansion project, on Sept. 26.
The project aims to increase their capacity by 485 students. It will feature 16 classrooms, a wood working shop, a metal working shop, full cosmetology room, and a new facility for their drama program.
Construction is scheduled to take place between 2024 and 2026, and the project is estimated to cost around $55.1 million.
Bow Valley High School principal, Shane Dempster, said both faculty and students are very excited for the expansion. With construction already underway through the last few months, he looks forward to the different opportunities this will bring students.
“I think Bow Halley High has always been the other high school in Cochrane, and because of the lack of facility and lack of being a big school because of that, I think this will take us to the next level,” Dempster said. “We’ll be the largest high school in Cochrane when the expansion is completed.
“Bigger allows us to offer more to kids, our sports, and allows us to just be a big school with a lot of kids.”
According to RVS Superintendent, Greg Luterbach, the project has been in the works for a long time. After lifting the first pile of dirt with a shovel, he said it is truly amazing to see this vision become a reality.
“I think it’s really going to provide, not only traditional classrooms, but also some shop, mechanic, small-engine repair opportunities,” he said. “The learning commons will be enhanced, so it’s really going to be an expansion that will support all students, no matter what their passion and interests are.
“They’ll have an opportunity to have that at Bow Valley High.”
Airdrie-Cochrane MLA and Minister of Infrastructure, Peter Guthrie, remembers the project being on the horizon since 2019. Five years later, he said it feels good to be part of the ground breaking event that will shape the school’s future.
With this project falling under his purview, he outlined that the province understands the need for more learning spaces across Alberta. This will be addressed through the School Construction Accelerator Program which aims to create more than 200,000 new and modernized learning spaces in Alberta, and will cost $8.6 Billion over seven years.
“One of the things we are doing is between budgets, we’re going to be bringing forward any project that is ready to move to the next phase,” he explained. “One of the things we are just going to the Treasury Board to get approval to take it from planning to design, and design to construction, so that we can speed up the pace on which we can deliver.
“And that can move some projects by as much as six to nine months.”
With new facilities under construction for the Bobcats, Guthrie said this will help attracting new, high-quality candidates into the halls of Bow Valley High School.
Minister of Education, Demetrios Nicolaides, echoes this sentiment, adding that this will greatly shape the future of students within the halls of Bow Valley High School.
“High schools are critical for students and their future success in life, be that in career or academics, but it’s also incredibly important centres for the community and families,” Nicolaides said. “This will be a significant expansion that will additional spaces, help more families benefit from the programming here, and also expand programming.”
Nicolaides notes that this will play a critical role into both the future of RVS and Cochrane.
“Cochrane, Airdrie, and other communities that they serve are some of the fastest communities in all of Canada,” he said. “That’s why we want to prioritize projects like this in the Division, so that we can continue to be a destination of opportunity and hope for people from across the country and around the world.”
