| Westmount Charter School, 2001-2011 campus | |
| Address | |
| 728 - 32 Street N.W. (Elementary), 2215 Uxbridge Drive N.W. (Mid-High) Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
|
| Information | |
| School board | Westmount Charter Board |
| Superintendent | Joe Frank |
| Principal | Dr. Shelley Robinson |
| School type | Publicly funded Charter |
| Grades | K-12 |
| Language | English |
| Team name | Wild |
| Colours | Purple, Gold |
| Founded | 1996 |
| Homepage | http://www.westmountcharter.com |
Westmount Charter School is a charter school based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; which educates gifted students from kindergarten to grade 12. It was founded in 1996 as ABC (Action for Bright Children) Charter Public School, a school for gifted children. The school started with 116 students, from grades one to three, and is now hosting a gifted student body of over 1,000 in grades Kindergarten through 12.[1] The name was officially changed from ABC Charter Public School to Westmount Charter School in 2002, though the school remains publicly funded. Westmount's first grade 12 graduation occurred in June 2006.
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Westmount has a history in debate medaling in the many tournaments, including regionals, and provincials. Westmount also had a very successful senior debate team, currently reigning champions of the North American Qualifiers, the Billington Cup, the Western Redman debate Open, and the Henry Wise Wood annual Worlds Style Tournament all at the regional level, and the University of British Columbia Open, and the North American Debate Championships at the National and International level. Two students, Alex Yuan and Alif Karmali, attained first place in the Calgary Regional Debate Championship and second place in the Alberta Beginner Debate Championship in 2007.
Westmount Charter School started out in 1996 with a small building in Bridgeland as their home. They have since progressed through a building in the old CFB Currie, and for ten years shared the Viscount Bennett Centre with Chinook Learning Services. In September 2011, Westmount moved to two buildings: Parkdale Elementary, which will house Kindergarten to grade 4, and Sir William Van Horne High School in University Heights, which will house grades 5 to 12.[2] These buildings are leased from the Calgary Board of Education, the public school board in the area.
Westmount's band program encompasses many styles and levels. Within concert band there are Beginner or Grade 5 level. The Junior, Intermediate and Senior levels all vary in grade level. It also offers numerous other music programs, those being String Orchestra, Choir, and two levels of Jazz Band. Unlike most other schools in the province, Westmount starts its Beginner band in Grade 5. Band is currently being taught by Graham Green and Gideon Choi with Wendy Mah re-joining the teaching faculty in 2011-2012.[3]
Westmount Charter School defines giftedness in this way: "Students are gifted when they perform, or show potential for performing, remarkably high levels of accomplishment in learning rate, depth of knowledge, and reasoning and problem-solving abilities when compared to others of their age, experience, and environment."[4] Since students are gifted they are required to fill out IPP's which happen to be very annoying and pointless because they don't work. If they worked the school might actually have a chance at being organized, which is a trait that most people need to work on at the school.
Previous Vice Principals include:
On October 29, 2008 at the Viscount Bennett Centre, an unknown male intruder entered the Westmount mid-high area of the school and exposed himself to 2 students at roughly 3:30 PM, after classes had ended. No physical contact was made, and the two students immediately went to the school office. The school immediately went into lockdown, and the police were contacted. The police searched the school, and at around 5:20 PM the lockdown was slowly lifted.[5]
On October 30, just a day after the first act of indecent exposure, a man entered the school who has been described as Middle Eastern with spiky black hair and approximately 6 feet tall (185 CM). At around 10:15 AM he reportedly inappropriately touched an eighth-grade male student in the school cafeteria. The school was again put into lockdown, and the police were contacted. Over a dozen police vehicles and one of Calgary Police Service's HAWC helicopters arrived at the scene, but the suspect was nowhere to be found. The lockdown was lifted at 2:00 PM[6]