Looks can be deceiving.
When a person looks at Neerlandia Public Christian School (NPCS) they see a school that is a little more than a year old and they would be correct. The school officially opened its doors to students in December 2015. But at the same time they would be wrong. Neerlandia Public Christian School is actually a centenarian and on Thursday, March 9, the current tenants celebrated that milestone with the community as well as former staff and students.
The festivities started at 2 p.m. with an open house and tea, where the public could roam the hallways and look at historical displays spanning the history of the various incarnations of the school. Depending on how you count them, there have been four (the original Shoal Creek School, the Neerlandia three-room school, its major expansion in 1959 and the current school).
After the open house portion, the public was invited to a school assembly where students and teachers, past and present, helped celebrate the occasion.
Lisa Gehring, NPCS principal, kicked off the assembly.
“I want to welcome each and every one of you to celebrate something amazing, 100 years of Christian education in Neerlandia,” she said, noting that the start of Christian education predated the actual school.
The Shoal Creek School District was officially formed on March 5, 1917, with the purpose of providing area residents with a Christian based education. The first school in Neerlandia opened two years later.
Richard deVries, a former student teacher and administrator at the school, agreed.
“One hundred years of God’s faithfulness. What a reason to celebrate,” he said, adding the school’s impact was much larger than the students and staff who walked through its doors. “Graduates from this school have gone on to be pastors, teachers, lawyers, doctors, farmers, scientists, carpenters, business people and every other occupation. They have gone on to make a difference in their communities and churches that they now call home.”
As part of the celebration event, the organizers invited two former teachers to share some of their experiences at the school. One of them was Clara Schoonecamp.
Schoonecamp’s association with the school began in about 1930 when she moved to the area with her family.
While her parents worked on fulfilling the federal government’s requirements for homesteading, Schoonecamp started Grade 1, at what was then the Shoal Creek School. When she was in her teens she and her parents moved to Edmonton where she graduated high school and attended the Edmonton Normal School in preparation to be a teacher.
“I wanted to become a teacher so I attended the school, even though I really wasn’t normal, but that’s what they called it,” she joked, adding after graduating, in 1941, she took a job at a one-room school just north of Neerlandia teaching Grades 1-8.
A year later, she took a job in Neerlandia in an effort to decrease her workload. It was still a one-room schoolhouse, but she would just have to teach Grades 1-4.
“However, instead of 19 students, there were 49 and the students were seated at double desks from wall to wall,” Schoonecamp said, adding the school was heated by one wood stove and there was no indoor plumbing.
Supplies were limited to a few maps, a chalkboard and slates that the students would use to write on.
“Each day would start with devotions, a bible story and singing,” she said.
In 1944, the new three-room school opened and Schoonencamp was moved into a Grade 2 classroom.
“Central heating replaced the stove in the centre of the room and we had added space for activities and games, which was really appreciated, especially in winter,” she said, adding while the extra space was appreciated she felt there were too many students in a classroom. “With class sizes between 32 and 46 students, it was impossible to provide the special help the children who had difficulty learning needed.”
She continued to teach on and off in Neerlandia, taking time to get married and have a family, until 1967, when the Schoonecamps moved to Edmonton.
