Sir George Simpson and Robert Rundle students now have a new name for their shared school — one that makes a lot of geographical sense.
St. Albert Public School trustees voted March 9 to dub the joint Sir George Simpson Junior High/Robert Rundle Elementary campus as Hillgrove Campus. The new name takes effect this September.
Simpson and Rundle are two neighbouring Grandin-area schools. Staff and students at the schools frequently work together and have had a shared principal since January 2021.
St. Albert Public Schools started a series of grade shifts at Simpson, Rundle, and Wild Rose Elementary in 2020 to resolve space issues. In 2020, Wild Rose was changed to a K-to-3 school while Rundle became a Grades 4-to-6. This fall, Rundle and Simpson will merge into a single Grades 5-to-9 campus. St. Albert Public trustees asked administration to come up with a name for the new campus last fall.
Staff, students, and the community came up with about 50 names, many of which involved flora, fauna, hills, and trees, said Simpson/Rundle principal Randy Roszell. While most were rejected for various reasons — “Unity School” proved too similar to the town of Unity, Sask., for example — the school community took a liking to “Hillgrove.”
“We were looking for something that represented what we were about and bringing together the ‘hill’ and the ‘grove’ made great sense to us,” Roszell said.
“Hill” references the hill the two schools stand upon and its metaphorical state as the summit of learning, Roszell said. “Grove” refers to trees (which represent growth), the many groves of trees around the school, and nearby Grosvenor Boulevard.
The name speaks to the land the campus stands upon and reflects the botanical arts theme of St. Albert, said St. Albert Public board chair Kim Armstrong.
“It’s an exciting thing to be happening in this post-pandemic time,” she said of the renaming.
Roszell said the school community will work together in the coming months to come up with a new logo, mascot, and school colours for the campus this fall, as well as ways to honour the two old school names. Staff will wear shirts with a placeholder version of the campus’s new logo during an upcoming open house April 13.
