Parents of young children living in Calgary’s northwest communities of Nolan and Sage Hill can look forward to enrolling them in a new school as early as winter 2026.
Provincial and municipal officials joined members of the Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) on June 19 to announce that construction for a elementary/ junior high school in Nolan Hill is underway.
Locals were invited to attend the ground blessing and sod turning ceremony, which was emceed by the CCSD’s Chief Superintendent, Bryan Szumlas. Indigenous Elder, Shirley Meguinis, introduced the event with a prayer.
In between speeches, a grade four class from Blessed Marie-Rose School serenaded attendees with a trio of choir performances. Afterwards, Father John Luxbacher from the Ascension Catholic Parish blessed the site with dashes of Holy Water.
The school will serve roughly 550 students from K to 9, with the possibility of taking on another 350 with the addition of portable extensions. Support services Superintendent at CCSD, Brad MacDonald, said that the plan was first suggested in 2016.
“It’s been a bit of a long time coming,” he said.
“It’s nice to finally be able to bring a school back to the community.”
Currently, MacDonald said that students in North Hill attend schools that are 30 to 40 minutes away. When MLA for Calgary-Foothills, Court Ellingson, did door-to-door campaigning two years ago, he said that the demand for a school was a common theme among community members.
“This is not the last school that is going to be built in this area,” he said.
“When you’ve got kids being bussed from one end of the city to the other to go to school, they’re going to school with kids who don’t live next to them. It doesn’t help build a place-based community.”
The CCSD underwent a three-year capital planning process, and MacDonald said that they have now achieved a public-private funding model. Managed by Alberta Infrastructure, he said that it has been designed as a “LEED” school — one with leadership, the environment, and energy as top priority.
MacDonald says that this means the blueprints embody environmental friendliness in terms of power and water consumption. Aside from this, he said that the Nolan Hill school will have the CCSD’s traditional cross etched into nearly every nook and cranny.
The school name has not yet been released, but will soon be selected by members of the parents committee, the parish priest, and the CCSD board trustee for the area, Myra D’Souza.
“This school will be more than bricks and mortar,” she said.
“It will be a sanctuary of learning, compassion, community, engagement, and joy.”
