April 12, 2006  

The first Sherwood Park children in grades one through eight attended the Salisbury Rural School (located where London Drugs is now). The influx of students was so great that the teacher did not have room to walk across the back of the classroom between the students' desks and the wall! In 1956, only grades one, two and eight could be accommodated! Other students were bussed to various schools, including Clover Bar School which was located at that time on Highway 16 and which is now (2006) used as a sales centre for The Palisades of Sherwood Park. The Salisbury Rural School eventually housed Broadmoor Junior High until it was demolished in 2001.

Campbelltown School opened in the fall of 1957 to meet the needs of the growing community, with 198 students in grades one to eight. Even when it opened, there was not enough room for all the students. Grade five classes were transported to East Edmonton School. In 1959, Sherwood Heights School opened and the grade five classes returned to Campbelltown. As the population of Sherwood Park grew in the 1960s, grade five and six classes from Campbelltown were relocated to Ellerslie and Sherwood Heights schools and portables were added, along with a new wing in 1964.

Sherwood Heights school had 600 students in grades one through eight when it opened, with grade nines attending Salisbury High and Ellerslie schools until 1963. In 1969, Sherwood Heights became an elementary school when F.R. Haythorne Junior High School opened. Responding again to a change in community needs, Sherwood Heights reverted to being a junior high school in 1971.

Sherwood Park high school students attended Salisbury High School, located at the intersection of Highway 14 and the Sherwood Park Freeway until 1969, when Salisbury Composite High opened in Sherwood Park. There were 850 students and 43 teachers at that time. The "old" Salisbury High School became F.R. Haythorne Jr. High. Of course, we now call this the "old Haythorne School," since the new one opened in 1993 at the corner of Clover Bar Road and Colwill Boulevard.

Darik Johnson, who moved to Sherwood Park at the age of five, says, "I went to three brand new buildings during my years of schooling" (Campbelltown, Sherwood Heights and Salisbury Composite), "They had to build to catch up with the flood of kids!"

Darik's mother, Eileen, taught in the public school system, first as a substitute teacher and then as a remedial reading teacher. She recalls being asked to teach full time at Salisbury High where her sons attended, but declined, believing it to be unfair to her sons who were uncomfortable when she was substitute teaching and would have to discipline their classmates!

The Salisbury Roman Catholic Separate School District formed in 1962 to serve Roman Catholic students (watch for more on this in a future column).

Most of the information in this article came from "The Schools of Strathcona County," written by members of The Strathcona County Retired Teachers Association and available at the Strathcona County Museum and Archives.

The Public Schools of Sherwood Park

• Salisbury Composite High School 1953/1969*
• Ecole Campbelltown School 1957
• Sherwood Heights Junior High 1959
• Pine Street Elementary School 1963
• Brentwood Elementary School 1965
• F.R. Haythorne Junior High 1969/1993*
• Wesboro Elementary School 1970
• Mills Haven Elementary School 1971
• Clover Bar Junior High 1972
• Glen Allan Elementary School 1972
• Wes Hosford Elementary School 1975
• Broadmoor Junior High 1979
• Woodbridge Farms Elementary School 1979
• Strathcona Christian Academy 1980/1998**
• Bev Facey Community High School 1981
• Lakeland Ridge School 2004

*new building constructed
**joined the public school system in 1998

See also: Information on current local schools.