Emily Choi/ Staff reporter
This year, Gleneagle officially becomes 25 years old and after nearly two and a half years of Covid, Gleneagle will return to pre-Covid fashion.
Before Covid, Gleneagle “got to do fun things, spirit assemblies, [and] group gatherings,” said Trevor Ho, grade 12.
“Gleneagle culture has grown, we have more spirit weeks, spirit assemblies, things that student council and Con-X will and can organize, and the return of winter formal and senior sale,” added Ho. When Covid hit, Anne Lim, language teacher, has changed “to more online instruction,” she finds that it’s “very helpful,” as it “added a different element to [her] teaching.”
Before things started to open, the school was “isolated in a way, and everybody was not interacting a lot,” “There was a bitter sense of isolation,” added Lim.
“But things have gotten much better now, so I’m glad that we’re slowly moving back to being normal.”
According to Gleneagle’s Wikipedia article, Gleneagle was not planned to be built.
Parents had to protest for the construction of Gleneagle, because over twenty years ago, high schools were over capacity limit.
3000 students were cramped in portable classrooms for around 2 years, due to the $25 million provincial fund not being distributed for construction from the education ministry.
The construction plan for Riverside was reused for Gleneagle, and the interior was a mirrored image of theirs.
The area in Coquitlam was busy; children and parents were holding up posters, and putting signs on fences to campaign for the school.
Gleneagle was left out from the capital cycle. During fall of 1995, imaginary bricks were being sold for $2 each by a parent group called P.E.A.C.E. – Parents Expecting Adequate Construction and Funding for Education, for the “Buy a Brick – Build a School” campaign to fundraise for the school. Over $10,000 was raised at the end of 1995.
Set aside for over 15 years, anticipated to open in 1993, construction began during the spring of 1996.
Gleneagle officially opened on September 2, 1997.
Currently in 2022, Gleneagle has undergone many changes. “The clientele has changed a lot, [because] I’ve been here since 99’, so it was not as multicultural as it is now,” said Colleen Kennedy, mathematics teacher. Kennedy finds that “the students are nicer,” “polite, and more considerate.”
Gleneagle students are involved with “too many things, “on [their] plates at all times. She worries about student’s “self-awareness,” and “mental health.” Kennedy also feels that Gleneagle “[offers] kids so many choices,” and she is “really proud to be a part of Gleneagle.”