Calgary’s Brentwood School closes after ceiling falls in

Students at Brentwood School in northwest Calgary are being relocated after a chunk of ceiling fell in last week.

On May 8, the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) reported to parents a “partial detachment of a suspended ceiling” in a hallway. The CBE said the incident occurred near the end of the school day and no one was in the corridor at the time.

The school board engaged an engineer to visit and assess the school, with repairs expected the next morning.

But on May 9, students moved to online learning, which lasted through the rest of that week.

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On Thursday, the CBE announced, “we have learned that the ceiling will require long-term repair work running for multiple months, and students must be relocated for the remainder of the school year.”

As a result, all 738 Brentwood students would be relocated to surrounding schools:

• Captain John Palliser School taking kindergarten students
• North Haven School taking Grades 1 and 2 students
• Eric Harvie School taking Grades 3, 4 and half of Grade 5 students
• Tuscany School taking half of Grade 5 students
• Ranchlands School taking Grade 6 students

In-person classes for those students resumed Monday.

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Shuttles will run from Brentwood School to the surrounding host schools and the school board asks parents to have their children at the school by 8:50 a.m. to allow for staff to organize student into the shuttles.

Bruce White, whose daughter is a Grade 1 student at Brentwood, was “quite impressed” with the school board’s response.

“I was actually quite impressed at how quickly they turned it around from when they discovered the problem,” White said. “And how quickly and well-organized it was, especially today with all the kids and getting everything organized on the buses, to get them to where they had to go.

“It went quite well from what we could see.”

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On May 23, students who take the bus to school will be transported directly from their congregated bus stop to the host school(s).

The CBE said the Brentwood students will act as a “school within a school” in those new buildings.

“The ‘school within a school’ model helps make the transition easier by keeping students together with their teachers and allowing them to maintain relationships with their peers,” CBE said.

“We use this process when factors outside our control affect access to a school building.”

The Brentwood community was established in 1960.