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 * Independe ...

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 count ...

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, maki ...

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 T ...

, 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 appr ...

near the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, 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 A ...

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 products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames ...

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 (; plural, : 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 ...

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 Br ...

. 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 sp ...

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 service clubs which generally support the events in each community. Typically, musicians and speech arts performers at each fest ...

. 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 glo ...

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, astronaut

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

History

Academics

Extracurriculars

Notable alumni

See also

References