Northern Lights Public Schools is pleased to announce that Cold Lake Middle School will become Cold Lake Junior High at the start of the 2022-2023 school year!
The NLPS Board of Trustees gave final approval to the name change following a 30-day consultation with stakeholders in the Cold Lake region. The change was requested by students at Cold Lake Middle School, Nelson Heights Middle School, and Art Smith Aviation Academy who are working together to build a new school community as the school transitions from a Grade 4 to 8 school to a 7 to 9 school that will host students from all parts of the city.
“We were very impressed by the students’ presentation to the Board and the work they did to brainstorm potential names and build a consensus about what the new name should be,” said Board Chair Karen Packard. “We hope that Cold Lake Junior High will be a welcoming, inclusive space for all of our students as they form a new school community together..”
As part of the three-year Cold Lake Configuration Plan, schools in Cold Lake are changing their grade configurations to address school capacity and enrolment pressures. The changes started in 2021-2022 with North Star Elementary becoming a K to 4 school and Cold Lake Middle School shifting to grades 5 to 8 (from 4 to 8). The bulk of the changes will occur in September 2022-2023 when Cold Lake Elementary changes to a K to 3 school (from a K to 4), Nelson Heights becomes a grades 4 to 7 school (from 5 to 8), Cold Lake High shifts to a grades 10 to 12 school (from 9 to 12), North Star Elementary becomes a K to 5 school and Cold Lake Middle (Cold Lake Junior High) becomes a grades 6 to 9 school.
The final configuration changes will take place in September 2023 when North Star Elementary becomes a K to 6 school and Cold Lake Junior High becomes a grades 7 to 9 school. No configuration changes are planned for Art Smith Aviation Academy or Cold Lake Outreach School.
“We appreciate all of the input we have received from the community from the start of the configuration consultation process through to our recent engagement on changing the name of the school,” said Packard. “Our staff are working hard to ease the transitions for students and we are grateful for the support we have received from families throughout this process.”
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Northern Lights Public Schools wants to know what the Cold Lake community thinks about renaming one of its schools.
In September 2023, the current Cold Lake Middle School will become the new public Grade 7-9 school in Cold Lake. Students from all areas of the city will go there before heading to Cold Lake High School for grades 10-12.
Students from Art Smith Aviation Academy, Cold Lake Middle School and Nelson Heights Middle School have been working together to build a new school community and sense of belonging as the school changes its configuration. As part of that process, students from all three schools were given the opportunity to suggest a new name for the school. Then they were asked to vote on a short list created from the names that were suggested. Based on the vote, the students have asked the NLPS Board of Trustees to rename the school Cold Lake Junior High.
“We were very impressed by the students’ presentation to the Board and the amount of work they have done to engage students in the process of selecting a new name,” said Board Chair Karen Packard. “Now we want to hear from community members about how they feel about the proposed name for the school.”
Under the division’s Administrative Procedure 546 - Naming New Facilities, a 30-day feedback process is required before the Board makes a final decision about renaming the school. To collect feedback, the Board has created a discussion forum on its Engage NLPS website, where anyone from Cold Lake can share their thoughts about the renaming of Cold Lake Middle School to Cold Lake Junior High as it transitions from a grades 4-8 to a grades 7-9 school.
To share your thoughts, go to engage.nlpsab.ca and choose the Naming the new 7-9 school in Cold Lake engagement. To leave a comment in the discussion forum, you will need to register with the site.
The discussion forum will be open from March 7 to April 5, 2022. All feedback that is submitted will be reviewed by the Board prior to making a final decision about changing the name of the school.