Chestermere High School has been meeting the needs of the students of its surrounding area for 54 years. As the population of the area has grown and the needs of the students have changed, Chestermere High has evolved and adapted to meet these challenges head on. When the opportunity to become involved in the Alberta Education’s High School Redesign Project the local high school opted in for the 2014-2015 school year. The high school redesign project allows schools to provide flexibility in programming and program delivery to meet the needs of their students.
‘One of our greatest challenges that we face in having students attend from such a wide area is that all of our students are potentially bus students, meaning that they can only access their teachers and other supports in our school during the school day,’ commented Jordan Fenton, Principal of Chestermere High. ‘Through the incorporating Focused Learning Blocks, which are periods of time within the regular school day where students have the flexibility to access support in any of the courses that they are currently taking, we will be able to better meet the students’ academic needs.’
The biggest change will be that the students will no longer be confined to hours of instruction per credit and the biggest challenge is location; they are looking for ways to provide more support for students during the day.
Principal Jordan Fenton has outlined a few upcoming events for September that students and parents alike can keep an eye out for:
Welcome Back Pancake Breakfast
2nd Annual Lights Double Feature – for those of you who don’t know what this is, the double feature is first a football game and then they turn out the lights in the stadium and play a movie on a huge inflatable screen.
Guest Speakers – they will be having one per month speaking on different topics; positive self image, being better global citizens, leadership, bullying, mental health (OCD) – this month’s guest speaker is Steph Lang. She will be speaking on positive self image, bullying, and then will be giving an acoustic performance for the students.
Here is a short bio of Stef Lang for those who are interested:
Canadian singer, song writer, producer and performer.
In the spring of 2006, Lang won The Beat Music Awards, a talent competition hosted by Vancouver’s #1 Hit Music Station The Beat 94.5. She won a four-song recording deal with Hipjoint Productions where she worked with producers Mike James (Kelly Rowland) and Troy Samson (Moka Only, Kreesha Turner, Snoop Dogg).
After graduation, Lang moved to Vancouver where Hipjoint Productions offered her an internship in the studio and office to learn more about the music industry. She spent this time honing her songwriting skills and learning how to run the studio.
Lang worked part-time at a local grocery store as a checkout clerk while performing at clubs like The Roxy, The Railway Club, The Media Club, The Bourbon, The Main, and The Rusty Gull. She also worked odd jobs as a cashier, retail sales clerk, server, hostess and as an extra on film sets.
Within 4 years, Lang had written over 250 songs and had recorded them as ‘Volumes’ at Hipjoint Productions. 2 EP’s were released, titled ‘Birth’ and ‘Blood and Bravery’. To date there are sixteen volumes of original music acoustically recorded by Stef Lang and head engineer Phil Lehmann.
In the spring of 2009, Lang penned a publishing deal with Nettwerk One/H-Songs, who launched the careers of Sarah McLachlan and Coldplay. Nettwerk is home to world renowned artists Sarah McLachlan, Shania Twain, Avril Lavigne, Chantal Kreviazuk, k-os, Shawn Desman, Raine Maida, Barenaked Ladies, and Sum 41.
