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Calgary’s Brentwood School Closes After Ceiling Collapse

Calgary’s Brentwood School Closes After Ceiling Collapse

Students at Brentwood School in northwest Calgary are being relocated after a significant incident occurred last week. On May 8, during the end of the school day, a partial detachment of a suspended ceiling in a hallway occurred. Fortunately, no individuals were present in the corridor at the time of the incident.

The Calgary Board of Education (CBE) promptly responded by engaging an engineer to assess the school. Repairs were initially anticipated to be completed the following morning. However, on May 9, students were transitioned to online learning, which continued for the remainder of the week.

Subsequently, on Thursday, the CBE announced that extensive repair work would be necessary, spanning multiple months. As a result, for the remainder of the school year, all 738 Brentwood students will be relocated to surrounding schools:

• Captain John Palliser School will accommodate kindergarten students.
• Grades 1 and 2 students will attend North Haven School.
• Grades 3, 4, and half of Grade 5 students will be temporarily relocated to Eric Harvie School.
• Remaining half of Grade 5 students will join Tuscany School.
• Grade 6 students will attend Ranchlands School.

In-person classes for these students resumed on Monday.

To facilitate transportation, shuttles will be available from Brentwood School to the respective host schools. Parents are requested to have their children at the school by 8:50 a.m., allowing staff to organize students efficiently.

Bruce White, whose daughter is a Grade 1 student at Brentwood, expressed his admiration for the school board’s response, stating, “I was actually quite impressed at how quickly they turned it around from when they discovered the problem. 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."

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

The CBE has implemented a "school within a school" approach for the Brentwood students in the new buildings. This model aims to facilitate a smoother transition by keeping students together with their teachers and enabling them to maintain relationships with their peers. The CBE stated, "We use this process when factors outside our control affect access to a school building."

The Brentwood community has been established since 1960.