New school, program some of 2025 highlights for LSD
By Lethbridge Herald on December 31, 2025.
Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald
The Lethbridge School Division had many reasons to celebrate in 2025, beginning with the opening of their West Coulee Station Elementary School which is now the home of their Spanish bilingual program.
Board Chair Christine Light said it was fantastic to welcome politicians, families, and stakeholders to celebrate the grand opening in the school gym with students and the staff
“It’s been a really exciting start for that school community and our division as a whole,” said Light.
She said the division is also continuing with upgrades at Victoria Park High School and they are hopeful and excited for the completion of that project over the next couple of years.
“We’ve had two modular classrooms being installed it Coalbanks Elementary because of a boundary shift, there’s been more space given to students within that learning facility,” said Light.
She said they also received pre-planning funds for Lethbridge Collegiate Institute (LCI) and they have submitted a facility report to Alberta Education and Childcare.
“We’re advocating for either modernization or a new build for that facility as it is an older building and it has some accessibility challenges,” said Light.
For Indigenous education, Light shared that G.S. Lakie Middle School hosted their 2025 Indigenous awards, which honors middle and high school students.
“This year we had over 350 students recognized and the areas of attendance, academic excellence, outstanding efforts, fellowship, athletic award, art and Blackfoot language,” said Light.
She added that they celebrated 45 grads in Indigenous grad in 2025 and they have an incredible Indigenous education team that continues to build capacity within their division and inspire students and teachers in the learning of indigenous ways.
“Our LCI Samurai Gold E-Sports team won a national championship at the E-Sports Canada EDU Scholastic Invitational. They won in Rocket League,” said Light.
When talking about the division’s annual education results, Light said the reports can be found in the school division’s website.
“It was great reading through that report. There are areas of continued growth that we have to work on, but we’ve seen improvement in the areas of education quality, welcoming, caring, respectful and safe learning environments, access to supports and parent involvement,” said Light.
She also mentioned that their targeted school-based interventions helped approximately 35 per cent of students from Grades 1 to Grade 3 that were initially identified as at risk in September 2024 to achieve proficiency and to no longer be considered at risk by June of 2025.
“I think it really reflects the impact and the value of the targeted early intervention and the need for continued advocacy for appropriate funding for interventions and supports for students,” said Light.
She said that research shows that the need for interventions later on decreases significantly because the children have received that foundational support and they built a strong foundation of learning.
“That’s why we continue on with early learning programming ensuring appropriate funding goes into our kindergarten students to build that as best as we’re able,” said Light.
She also highlighted that 2025 brought along a variety of Fine Arts performances by students through dance, theatre, band, and productions, and added that it was almost to the point where people could pick a month and be able to go to any school and see something being performed.
Light recognized that they continue to have incredible community support for the Lethbridge School division and one of the ways they recognize community partners is through their Friends of 51 Awards.
“This past year we recognized 31 community partners. One of our partners is Southland Trailers and they have been working with Winston Churchill High School in opening a welding shop,” said Light.
Another highlight of the year for the school division involved the Edwin Parr Award, and Light said they were thrilled to have Haley Bedard, a Grade 1 teacher at Nicholas Sheran Elementary School, be recognized as the Zone 6 Edwin Parr Award recipient.
“Zone 6 has 10 school divisions and there’s a selection process for each of the nominees and the winner gets recognized at our Alberta School Boards Association fall general meeting, which is held in November in Edmonton,” said Light.
She also mentioned their Tim Horton Smile Cookie campaign which was organized through the Poverty Intervention Committee to reduce barriers and allow students to achieve success in their learning.
“Last year we raise over $70,000 through the Smile Cookie campaign, which was a huge boost to the supports that we’re able to give students and families. And we’re hoping to be able to paint some more smiles on cookies this year,” said Light.
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If Timothy Leary were still alive, I’m sure he’d be very curious to read how LSD is benefitting Lethbridge students.