New Willoughby secondary school named

December 14, 2017

Langley, BC – The Langley School Board has announced that the new secondary school being built in Langley’s Willoughby neighbourhood will be named R.E. Mountain Secondary School when complete. The current R.E. Mountain Secondary School, adjacent to the new construction, will be renamed when it is converted to a middle school.

The Ministry of Education announced a new 1,500 seat secondary school would be built on the Willoughby Slope in September of 2016 and construction began in August of 2017. Completion of the newest Langley secondary school is expected in the Summer of 2019 for a September 2019 opening. The Langley School Board began accepting submissions for name suggestions in September of this year and many people in Willoughby and the greater Langley community expressed interest in maintaining the legacy and tradition of the existing R.E. Mountain Secondary School by applying the name to the newly constructed school. R.E. Mountain Secondary was named for Roy Mountain, a respected educator in Langley for 44 years after attending Milner School, Belmont Superior and Langley High School as a student.

Board Chair Robert McFarlane expressed his thanks to all those that provided suggestions and said, “that name [R.E. Mountain Secondary] was selected out of 76 submissions based on feedback and overwhelming community support, to maintain the connections built over many years that R.E. Mountain has been in existence”. The announcement was made at the Regular meeting of the Board of Education December 12th, in the presence of the REMSS Chamber Choir who performed as an opening presentation to the meeting. The announcement was met with applause and cheers from the students, staff and public present.

The naming process for the to-be converted middle school (formerly R.E. Mountain Secondary) will be initiated by the Board of Education in January 2018.