With low enrollment, CBE votes to close Juno Beach Academy

At one point it had almost 200 students, but now with only 15, the Juno Beach Academy of Canadian Studies will end this summer.

Calgary Board of Education trustees voted unanimously to end the school effective June 30, which has had a focus on Canadian military history.

The trustee of the school’s jurisdiction, Judy Hehr, said no matter what the circumstance, it’s always a difficult decision to close a school.

“I think what we can take from this is that we’re going to learn about what things can change,” she said.

The school is slated to have just 10 students next year and is currently sharing a campus with Lord Beaverbrook High School under one principal.

“It’s very difficult to program for just 10 students,” CBE Chair Joy Bowen-Eyre said, adding students have already begun planning to change schools.

“You have to look at enrollment, the financial costs, programming, the safety of students, the location.”

The school opened in 2003 at Sir William Van Horne High School and moved to Lord Shaughnessy High School in 2006, hitting a peak enrollment of 1985 two years later.

But due to the development of the Career and Technology Centre at Lord Shaughnessy, it was moved again to Dr. Norman Bethune School, on the same site as Lord Beaverbrook.

While the school is closing, the building it’s in is not, since it serves as a CBE area office.

When Lord Beaverbrook modernizes, parts of the school will be temporarily closed and displaced students will be accommodated in the building.

Around $150,000-$200,000 are spent on the operating and maintenance costs, which will obviously continue.

“It [savings] would be on the costs for the instructional staff and for the administration of the program,” Bowen-Eyre said. “Half a million dollars for sure.”

Teachers will be reassigned and the CBE will retain the Juno Beach name for any future possible uses.

Bowen-Eyre said students have appreciated the subject matter, but prefer focusing more on their military education in programs like cadets, while wanting to go to school with the regular community.

“Just like a hockey team, you go hang out with your hockey buddies when you’re playing hockey, you go to cadets and you hang out with your cadet friends,” she said. “That’s in essence what we’re starting to see now.”

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