A saint provided words of wisdom for the school that bears his name, even before it was recognized as St. Francis of Assisi Academy.
“When we started on the project, we had a quote on the whiteboard from St. Francis,” said Trevor Moser, the general contractor with Golden Triangle Construction. “That was before we had done anything or even before we had the name.”
St. Francis’s words of wisdom – “Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” – are wise words to live by and ideal for the building of the new K-Grade 7 school in Davisburg. Grade 8 will be added in September 2017 and it will be a complete K-Grade 9 school in the following year.
Mother Nature has delayed things by about a month, but the school will be ready when it opens on Aug. 15 for teachers to prepare their classrooms.
“It’s been a good project, schools have tight deadlines and you have to meet those deadlines — the kids are coming Aug. 30,” Moser said. “We had a lot of rain out here, but fortunately we will be ready.”
Golden Triangle Construction has experience when building schools as they worked on Notre Dame Collegiate in Calgary.
St. Francis Academy principal Diana Atkinson is like a new homeowner — she can’t wait to get into her new digs on Aug. 15 and then later greeting the approximately 270 students when the K-Grade 7 school opens later this month.
She’s been at the school a lot this summer, but it’s been like a holiday.
“Typically, I wouldn’t be here at this time of the year,” Atkinson said. “They have been letting me walk around and see the progress, every week you see the improvements and we’re getting a little bit closer.
“I’m super excited, I can’t wait. And my staff is too.”
Atkinson and St. Francis vice-principal Niki Doyle thought they had things in place when hiring staff earlier in the year.
“We, Niki Doyle and I, started hiring in April-May and we thought we were done,” Atkinson said. “But since then we had more students come in and we had four more teachers in June and we’ve since added an educational assistant.”
At present there will be 18 teachers, the education assistant, Atkinson and Doyle. The students are also coming — 276 pupils are projected for opening day.
“Registrations keep coming in and we keep meeting with new families and getting them set up,” Atkinson said. “Even as early as this week, we had two students come in.”
There will be two classrooms in each grade, ranging from 16 to 24 students. The larger classrooms are in the Grade 5, 6 and 7. At present the lower classes at K to Grade 3 have less than 20 students.
She said there will be some minor work going on for the first couple of weeks of school.
“Some of the millwork will be worked on and the gymnasium they are starting to do the floor and it might be ‘don’t step on it’ kind of deal for the first week,” Atkinson said. “There are little things like that. But all, in all, we will be ready to go. We will be in classrooms, the library full of books and we have a starter playground taken from HTA and brought to here… I’m very excited.”
The school is planning to work with the Scott Seaman Sports Rink right next door with learn to skate programs. She said there is potential for a hockey option course for Grade 7 to Grade 9 students in the future. The gymnasium will be home to the school’s sports teams, the St. Francis Storm. For information about the school, go to redeemer.ab.ca
