Chinook Winds Adventist Academy is an
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
K–12
K–12, from kindergarten to 12th grade, is an American English expression that indicates the range of years of publicly supported primary and secondary education found in the United States, which is similar to publicly supported school grade ...
Christian school
A Christian school is a school run on Christian principles or by a Christian organization.
The nature of Christian schools varies enormously from country to country, according to the religious, educational, and political cultures. In some countr ...
located in
Calgary
Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...
,
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
, Canada, that is affiliated with the
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
.
History
Chinook Winds Adventist Academy was originally established in 1945 as Calgary Seventh-day Adventist School in the basement of a Calgary Seventh-day Adventist Church as an
elementary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...
. In the early days, the school frequently moved to different locations around the city of Calgary. In 1974, the school moved to the site on which it currently stands, a twenty-acre
woodlot A woodlot is a parcel of a woodland or forest capable of small-scale production of forest products (such as wood fuel, sap for maple syrup, sawlogs, and pulpwood) as well as recreational uses like bird watching, bushwalking, and wildflower apprecia ...
near the
Trans-Canada Highway
The Trans-Canada Highway ( French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean o ...
and the
Canada Olympic Park
Canada Olympic Park (COP), formerly known as Paskapoo Ski Hill, is a ski hill and multi-purpose training and competition facility located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, owned and operated by WinSport. It is currently used both for high performance at ...
; by this point it had grown to offer K-10 education.
The first school building that was built on that site was destroyed by a
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...
on March 21, 1985. School was in session when the fire started, but all students and staff were evacuated safely. The school rented an empty public school in downtown Calgary for a year, while a fundraising campaign sought funds to rebuild the school. The school was rebuilt in September 1986, and upon being rebuilt the school was renamed Chinook Winds Adventist Academy. The school was named after the
Chinook wind
Chinook winds, or simply Chinooks, are two types of prevailing warm, generally westerly winds in western North America: Coastal Chinooks and interior Chinooks. The coastal Chinooks are persistent seasonal, wet, southwesterly winds blowing in from ...
s that are common to the area. By this point in time the school had 115 students. Shortly after moving into the rebuilt school, Chinook Winds expanded to offer a full K-12 education. That second school building is the one still used by CWAA today.
Academics
CWAA is a full K-12 academy, recognized as a Category 1 Private School by the
Alberta Ministry of Education. The school is also accredited by the Accrediting Association of Seventh-day Adventist Schools, Colleges, and Universities. The school follows
curriculum
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
guidelines set out by the Alberta Ministry of Education and the
North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists
The North American Division (NAD) of Seventh-day Adventists is a sub-entity of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which oversees the Church's work in the United States, Canada, French possessions of St. Pierre and Miquelon, the Bri ...
. Upon completion of Grade 12, students receive the Alberta
High School Diploma
A high school diploma or high school degree is a North American academic school leaving qualification awarded upon high school graduation. The high school diploma is typically obtained after a course of study lasting four years, from grade 9 to gra ...
.
CWAA employs 18 teachers, and 29 faculty and staff in total, for a teacher to student ratio of 11.3:1. Courses offered include social studies, language arts, math, biology, chemistry, physics, physical education, religious studies, and music, as well as numerous electives.
Extracurriculars
The CWAA Cyclones compete in the Calgary Independent School Athletic Association and in the Canadian Adventist School Athletics association. The Cyclones compete in boys and girls volleyball, softball, soccer, basketball, floor hockey, badminton, track and field, and co-ed flag football. Their athletic director is Rick Fowler.
CWAA has a music program which includes music classes offered from K-12. At the high school level, CWAA has a
choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...
and a
band
Band or BAND may refer to:
Places
*Bánd, a village in Hungary
*Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran
*Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania
* Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, I ...
, both of which go on yearly tours, and regularly compete in the
Kiwanis Music Festival The Kiwanis Music Festival movement consists of regional music competitions.
These festivals are named after the Kiwanis
Kiwanis International ( ) is an international service club founded in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. It is headquartered in In ...
. Their music program is directed by Rachel Miranda.
CWAA offers a
mission trip
A short-term mission (STM) is the mobilization of a Christian missionary for a short period of time ranging from days to a year; many short-term missions are called mission trips. The short-term missionary is a fairly recent innovation in the glob ...
to high school students every other year. The most recent mission trip went to
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
, in Spring 2017.
Notable alumni
*
Jennifer Sidey
Jennifer Anne MacKinnon "Jenni" Sidey-Gibbons (born August 3, 1988) is a Canadian astronaut, engineer, and academic. She was selected by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) as one of the two members of the 2017 CSA Group alongside Joshua Kutryk.
Ea ...
, astronaut
See also
*
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbath, and ...
*
Seventh-day Adventist education
The Seventh-day Adventist educational system, part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, is overseen by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists located in Silver Spring, Maryland. The educational system is a Christian school-based syste ...
*
References
{{High Schools in Calgary, state=collapsed
Private schools in Alberta
Adventist secondary schools in Canada
Educational institutions established in 1945
Elementary schools in Calgary
Middle schools in Calgary
High schools in Calgary
1945 establishments in Alberta