Today marks the official closing of the old building we have come to recognize as Westbrook School.

Serving the community well for 67 years, the time has come to say goodbye to the old school building, to make for safe and convenient access to the new school building.

Christine Parker has been the principal at Westbrook School for the past nine years. Parker says that the building was scheduled to be demoed at the end of this school year, but due to the COVID-19 health crisis, the date has been moved up.

Parker says "Our building was going to be demoed at the end of June, but since the students won't be coming back before then, the last day for teachers is now going to be tomorrow."

The Kindergarten to Grade 8 school which is located on Highway 22 north of Cochrane has been in operation since 1953. 

With a school population of just over 160 students and only seven classrooms, the school is known for being a little school with a big heart.

Parker says that they were planning on having a large gathering to honour the old school before the pandemic. She says "We had a plan to have a  huge barbecue and people would have been able to tour the school. That was the plan before COVID, and unfortunately, we were unable to follow through with that."

Although that won't be possible now, the staff still wanted to give the building a proper send-off. Parker says "We found out last Tuesday that we have to be out of the building by Friday. Some of the parents and staff thought that since this building is getting torn down after 67 years we wanted to give it a proper farewell for both the students and the building."

This afternoon at 1 pm the staff will be hosting a drive by-good bye outside of the school. Families and community members are invited to drive by, wave and say farewell to a place that has been a big part of their day to day lives for many years.

The new Westbrook School is currently in the finishing stages of construction and will be located on the same site as the old school.