After the adults finished their speeches Tuesday during the grand opening of Trail’s new Glenmerry Elementary, it fell to two students to give their insider perspective.
Neither Atharv Chaudhary, who is in Grade 7, nor Oscar Gallamore, who is in Grade 6, stinted on praise.
Chaudhary said the old school felt like home, thanks to its teachers, but it had drawbacks. “It wasn’t perfect,” he said. “There were some things to fix, such as leaky roofs, smelly old bathrooms, and especially the portables were very small and often things didn’t work.”
He was excited when a new school was announced, but waiting for its completion “felt like an eternity.”
Over the summer, Chaudhary often rode by, checking to see what had been completed and what remained of the old school before it was demolished.
The new school is “massive” compared to the old, he said. “This was a big step for the community of Trail, to have a brand new school for Glenmerry students and families to enjoy and make history.”
He rattled off its virtues: Garage doors. A library with a beautiful mountain view. Working Wi-Fi. An “extraordinary” gym. And everything in “pristine condition.”
“I feel fortunate to be able to attend and learn in this marvelous piece of architecture and also be a leader of the new school,” he said.
Gallamore said moving to the new school was confusing at first, but within a couple of weeks it felt normal. The old school left a lot to be desired, he added, “but this school has nothing that’s not perfect.”
Still, one thing remains to be addressed. “I can tell you this: I’m very excited for the new parking lot because then it won’t be a challenge to get into the new park.”
Principal Liann Nutini said she felt privileged and honoured to be part of the new school’s inaugural staff, especially given her close family connection to the old school.
When she moved back to the area in 2020 to become vice-principal at Glenmerry and teach Grade 4, she noticed her classroom had a “beautiful golden wooden floor with red, white, and green lines that was clearly an old gymnasium. I immediately fell in love with it.”
Her grandfather used to be the school’s principal, and her uncle remembered going in with him on weekends to play on that same gym floor.
“Often I would feel Grandpa’s presence as I organized my own classroom and taught my own students in a school where he once walked the hallways,” Nutini said.Â
But her time as vice-principal was often consumed with leaky pipes and floors that had seen better days. A school district carpenter invented contraptions to funnel water when leaks could no longer be fixed and garbage cans were pressed into service as catch basins.
Staff and students stayed patient because they knew a new school was in the works. But it took longer than expected. It was supposed to be ready for the spring of 2024, but supply chain issues and staffing shortages pushed the opening to last month.
What kept them going, Nutini said, was the occasional tour of the new school as it went up.
“Each visit was exciting and filled with wonder. What would it be like? Would there be a hot tub in the staff room? Where would the pizza oven go? Could we get a built-in movie theatre?”
When they finally were able to get inside in August, staff “flew into a frenzy of unpacking and imagination,” because the building presents new possibilities for teaching and learning.
The extra space, plus foldable walls, flexible rooms, collaborative spaces, and those aforementioned garage doors, are encouraging a “whole new way of teaching we had never tried before.”
Several speakers paid tribute to the district’s director of operations, Heather Simm, for seeing the project through to completion.
The 41,000-square-foot building is designed to accommodate 435 students, compared to 270 in the old school, whose first classrooms were built in 1956, followed by several expansions.
The school’s price tag was originally reported in 2021 at $33.6 million but eventually rose to $39.1 million.
School board chair Catherine Zaitsoff called the school’s opening an “important and sadly rare milestone.”
“This new school reflects almost a decade of commitment to building a strong foundation for learning,” she said. “But it is more than just a building. It is a promise of learning, of growth, and community. May it stand for years as a place where curiosity is sparked, friendships are built, and potential is celebrated and discovered.”
