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P223 – Sam Robertson, circa 1875.
Samuel Robertson Technical Secondary School
Named for pioneer Samuel Robertson – who was the first settler in Albion and once owned the land on which the school was built – the first technical school in Maple Ridge was completed ahead of time and within budget. “Good weather and limited delays in securing supplies and services have helped speed the construction process, which started in October. The costs are also in line with the approximately $9 million budget,” noted Don Woytowich, district secretary-treasurer, in a News article.
The ground breaking ceremony for the new boomerang shaped, 22,578-square-foot Albion school occurred on Thursday, October 16, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. The Neighborhood Bugel reported that “it may have been a wet, muddy day, but with a few sheets of strategically placed plywood and a handful of tents, the groundbreaking for Samuel Robertson Technical secondary school went without a hitch.”
The first principal was Mr. Mike Keenan, who was previously employed as a vice principal in the Maple Ridge School District.
The 650 student capacity school, located at the corner of 245th Street and 104th Avenue, is unlike any other in the district.
Alongside regular high school courses, the school offers a Simon Fraser Degree program, with partnerships with other post secondary schools, such as B.C. Institute of Technology, and the private sector make the school quite unique. The programs allow grade 12 students to take various courses that give them credit towards both graduation and their first year of university studies. The school offers other programs, which have a ‘career technical’ focus, including a core electronics program and a computer service technician program.
The goal of the school, according to director of instruction for School District 42 Rick Carruthers is “to focus the secondary school on career development. We’re going to have a focus on career development from the junior grades [to help students determine where they would best fit in to post secondary work],” according to a Times article in January 2003.
The school houses a $1.65 million lighted artificial turf field. The school district addressed residential concerns by adding shielded lights, 44 additional parking spots to help with overcrowding on the streets, and an earlier shutoff time for lights than originally planned, at 9:30pm.
In 2008, a group of students wrote short excerpts for the Times newspaper about their school. Grade 12 student Justin Walker wrote: “SRT, wow what a school. So many memories in such a short amount of time. This school has changed my attitude towards people, and everything in general. I went from a bad rebellious kid to a mature young man.”
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