There were dozens of smiling faces as children watched the ribbon being cut at the grand opening of their new Beacon Hill Elementary School this morning.  

After eight years in the making, the new kindergarten to grade five school welcomes 280 new students, with the capacity to hold 500 and will expand to grade six next year.    

Kurt Sacher, Superintendent of Chinook's Edge Schools Division, said the school was built with the motto "Where Students Come First" in mind.

“They involved students in thinking about the design and put this together thinking about how students would move, learn and interact in the building,” Sacher explained.

“They also put a lot of thought into thinking about staff and what would support staff and create the best possible learning environment for our students, so the creativity that went into the building is amazing.” 

After a two and a half month delay the school was officially opened last November. Sacher said during the delay they created a school within a school as students were divided between Ecole Steffie Woima and C.P. Blakely.

“It actually turned into a positive for us because they built collaborative bonds and now that they’re back in their appropriative environments they will be sharing and learning from each other,” Sacher explained.

“It’s the way they do things in Sylvan Lake, they just have a positive way of rolling with challenges and they literally turned into what would be a major frustration into a success story.”

Joe Ceci, Alberta’s Minister of Finance was on hand and said the new addition is part of the government’s commitment to making sure there are schools in place and teachers in the classroom.

“The previous government although they identified many schools needing to be done they didn’t put the budget moneys in place to build them,” Ceci said.

“We said that’s what we’d do and then you need money to operate and we said they would be fully staffed, enrollment would be fully covered and there would be predictable funding for enrollment growth.”

Sylvan Lake Mayor Sean McIntyre said with the town’s continued growth, the new school will be home to students living in the west and south part of the town.

“It will be a great advantage as far as being able to go to school in their own neighbourhood and it’s such a beautiful school with a modern design, I think it’s really exciting.”

Beacon Hill Elementary is Sylvan Lake’s fourth elementary school which includes three public schools and one Catholic.