After a nomadic few months, Summit West Independent School is finally home.
Having spent its first seven years at Red Deer Lake, the JK-12 school signed a lease last June to move into a building in downtown Okotoks across the street from Town Hall, but a planned September opening date kept getting pushed back.
Delays in renovations, along with the drawings and permits required to accomplish them, forced the school to find temporary accommodations, bouncing from the recreation centre to Bow Valley College to Centennial Arenas, before it finally got access to the McRae Street site last month.
Principal Brad Masterson said it’s nice to see life in the building as the school’s almost 70 students settle into their surroundings and develop new routines.
The independent school, which Masterson said he wouldn’t want to see grow beyond about 120 students, believes in individual learning styles with a strong emphasis on choice, accountability and responsibility.
“We don’t want to have 500 students,” the principal said. “I want to know every kid when I walk down the hall.”
The school’s mantra — Teaching how to think, not what to think — is embraced wholeheartedly as students are empowered to choose how they learn best and how to display their work. Masterson said choice is critical as it allows students to study in ways that best suit them, leading to better outcomes.
“Assignments can be done in different ways,” he said. “We want students to advocate for themselves, but at the end of the day, they have to show us what they’ve learned.”
Masterson said the school’s unwritten curriculum stresses soft skills like accountability, independence and resilience that will serve students well beyond the classroom. According to the school’s website, teachers are a resource rather than a manager, and hold students accountable for their choices.
“There’s nothing like us,” he said of the approach taken at Summit West. “We let them fly. Why would we hold them back?”
Masterson said students not only have individual learning styles, but they also have unique goals, not all of which include post-secondary schooling. He said the school supports students on whatever journey they choose to take.
“Our goal is the kid’s goal, which might not necessarily mean post-secondary. It might be working in the family’s company. We’re here to support them whatever it is,” said the principal.
Summit West is hosting an information session and open house on Tuesday, Feb. 28 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
For more information, visit summitwestschool.ca.
