It’s interesting to watch the debate concerning my old high school. Now it’s called Langley Secondary School, but back in the old days we went to Langley High School.
It seems that there are many renovations and repairs required to bring the old girl up to current seismic standards and the question is, should the repairs be done or should the building be closed up and students dispersed elsewhere?
But after much debate and public consultation, the money slated for the seismic upgrade will be spent to do some upgrades and add some new classrooms, and keep the school open.
I was going to go to the meeting wearing my old black school sweater with the “L” and singing “Boys and Girls of the Langley High” or “When the Saints go Marching In,” our old fight song, but the sweater is pretty tight now and I’m not sure how many people are left that remember the words to those songs. I didn’t want to stand alone.
This past fall about 25 people had lunch at Newlands to celebrate the 65th reunion of the first graduating class from the classy new high school that opened in the fall of 1948. Until the high school opened in Aldergrove some years later, LHS was the only high school in the area and all the elementary schools in Langley fed into the one high school.
When I was going into Grade 7 at Langley Central School, I was looking forward to being one of the big kids. But I had signed up for band and a brand new band room had been built at LHS. All the Grade 7 kids in the district that had signed up for band were re-directed to LHS.
In one day I went from being one of the big kids at elementary school to one of the two classes of little kids at high school.
That’s a big difference, and many of the people who spoke against the closure of LSS referred to the domino effect that it would have on the other schools in the area. Students would be redirected to other schools and many programs in place would be disrupted or even discarded.
Even though we were the little kids, there was excitement at being in the ‘big school.’ There were always airplanes taking off and landing across the street, there were sock hops at noon, basketball games and football games with pretty cheerleaders and the Langley Loafers with their hot cars.
As long as I remembered not to acknowledge my big sister in any way, things went pretty smoothly.
We had a metal shop, a woodworking shop and of course our state of the art band room. None of that existed at our old elementary school and when we did see guys that were still at the old school, we would give them that nod that said, “Too bad you’re stuck at the little school.” We were cool.
I don’t like to drive by any of our schools and see them boarded up. I’m glad they’re not closing my old school or bringing in the wrecking ball.
Schools should be part of our neighbourhoods, an extension of our families. If we are going to invite people to live here we should be ready to look after them when they arrive, instead of playing catch up and always being five years behind. At least that’s what McGregor says.
