“There has been hard work put in by many people, at the provincial level, at the construction and architectural level, but also in this community of Langenburg and the surrounding area.”
- Mick Parmar, principal of Langenburg Central School
The beginning of the school year is exciting for any student, but the kids in Langenburg have something bigger to look forward to. The town is celebrating the grand opening of Langenburg Central School, a new prek-12 school that opened in the community for the 2016-17 school year.
The $23 million building combines the elementary and high school into one building capable of housing 370 students. Some highlights of the new facility include a practical and applied arts facility, a community fitness centre, reading corners and a design with a large amount of natural light.
Mick Parmar, principal of Langenburg Central School, is proud of the new facility, though he admits that finally teaching in the facility is a relief.
“There has been hard work put in by many people, at the provincial level, at the construction and architectural level, but also in this community of Langenburg and the surrounding area. Hundreds for sure have put in hours of volunteer time and I just can’t say enough about their commitment to kids. It has been wonderful.”
The community of Langenburg also contributed to the design of the school, and raised money to add features to the facility. They raised $1.4 million to have a larger gymnasium, community fitness centre and an expanded Practical and Applied Arts area, Parmar notes.
The community has been in desperate need of a new school for a few years. In 2014, Langenburg High School was shut down for a month due to air quality concerns. While it reopened, large sections of the school had to be shut down for student safety. Running a school in a fraction of the space they needed, Parmar says they had to make some sacrifices to keep education going as they waited to get a new school.
“We were actually teaching classes in entry ways in the school. We had to shut down the little fitness area that we had and build a special education area.”
The building itself is finished, but some of the landscaping is yet to be complete, including play structures. Parmar expects that this part of the school will be complete by spring.
Parmar thanks the Good Spirit School Division and the Government of Saskatchewan for their support during the process of replacing the old school.
“Lots of people who have always pushed to make sure rural schools aren’t forgotten, the community of Langenburg is not forgotten, and making sure they invested in this community.”
Minister of Education Don Morgan says the province is proud of what they have accomplished with the new building, and that this is an example of what they would like to see happen with some of the other rural schools in the province.
“We are gradually going through and updating and consolidating. This is a great example of consolidation, where we took an aging elementary school and an aging high school and brought them all together under one roof... There are a lot of other places where we would like to do something like this.”
Right now, the province is focused on the nine joint use facilities that are under construction, but after that point Morgan says that they will have to start looking at other aging schools in rural communities. Those schools could look very similar to Langenburg Central School.
For Parmar, the most important thing is that the new school makes it easier to educate the kids in the community.
“I have two boys in the school, and I can’t be prouder, as a dad and as a principal, to have my kids attend this school.”
