With the school year wrapping up, David Gowan has a foot in one door and heading out another.

Come August, he's officially the new principal of the St. Timothy High School, bringing with him 25 years of experience in the Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD).

He's already been here to interview every current member of the school's staff, whether they are teachers or support staff. He's also listened to the input provided by parents in an extensive consultation that's taken place over the last few months.

"Soon I'll be meeting with the staff to start to set the vision for when they arrive back in August so we know what our plan will be moving forward. What's our short-term vision? What's our long term? Right now we're in that very critical planning stage of just setting ourselves up for a great start in August."

He says ideas provided by parents have been valuable.

"One of our goals is to really expand our student population so we can do more, and the parents had some great ideas moving forward. So definitely in the short term, of the ideas that they threw out there, one of the most predominant ones was increased communication. And that's huge."

He says they have been making the accomplishments of their students and school wider known.

While seeking to grow their student population he says it's important they don't lose sight of their current strengths. He says partly because of its size, a strength of St. Tim's is its ability to create strong bonds with its students and parent community.

"Like, you can't be anonymous in this building, and that's a true strength of the building. So that as we get to know that student, we create that wonderful and safe learning environment, and we create a school that respects diversity. We create a school where every student has a sense of belonging. That's our current short-term goal and that's got to be done through a partnership with the students, staff, and our parents and guardians within the community."

He says they will continue to encourage students to take advantage of the leadership opportunities they provide.

"We've got students that are involved in sports, fine arts, music. taking advantage of our school trips, and by having that smaller student base, it's a lot easier for a student to be part of our social justice, our Catholic community caring, and just get involved on so many levels, not just their academics, but so many other things at the school brings to that community."

At the same time, they don't intend on being disrespectful of what is offered at Bow Valley or Cochrane High.

"We have a very different model than those high schools, so we want to emphasize what we can do best and that's developing those relationships and offer those students a very safe and supportive environment to take those risks and work on exploring and realizing their own full potentials."

Registration is now open for the 2023-24 school year and it follows an open house held earlier this year, and an upcoming event slated for Aug. 26 that will showcase all the schools of Cochrane.

While people wishing to learn more about the school can visit their website, Gowan encourages them to drop by the school.

"We will give you a personalized tour of the building so that you can feel what the people that are there now have done and worked very hard to create a building that is just filled with kindness and respect and a great safe learning environment."

Gowan may be new to the school, but he's an avid outdoorsman and has come to know the Cochrane area well over the last 20 years.

He's wrapping up his principalship at Saint Jean Brebeuf School, a grade 7 to 9 junior high in Calgary. He'll be using that experience, as well as his work at the high school level, both as a teacher and a vice-principal, in his new role.