A new Ukrainian charter school is set to open in Calgary this September, offering bilingual education to help preserve Ukrainian language and culture. The school, named Yuzyk Academy, has already enrolled 100 students and has capacity for up to 600.
Community Effort Leads to School Creation
When Tatiana Osypenko learned about the new school focusing on Ukrainian language and culture, she was in disbelief. 'I didn't believe it,' she said. 'It has been ages since the Ukrainian community was trying to open a school like this.'
Last year, the community launched a petition in support of a Ukrainian school, collecting more than 300 signatures and securing the support of Calgary lawyer and former provincial health and justice minister Tyler Shandro, who is of Ukrainian heritage. Shandro now chairs the school board for Yuzyk Academy, the first-of-its-kind Ukrainian school in Calgary, according to Andrea Taylor, the school's superintendent.
Inspired by Need
Taylor said Shandro got involved when he realized neither the Calgary Board of Education nor the Calgary Catholic School Board could take on the project. 'He heard about this and figured, if the Calgary Board of Education and the Calgary Catholic School Board aren't able to take this on, maybe we should go with a charter school,' she said.
Yuzyk Academy, named in honour of the late Canadian Senator Paul Yuzyk, will open in September for students attending kindergarten to Grade 4. Yuzyk, a senator from 1963 to 1986, was a long-time advocate for multiculturalism and Ukrainian language education. The school has been in the making for decades, Taylor said, especially in the last five years following an influx of Ukrainian families to Calgary due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Bilingual Curriculum
Students at Yuzyk Academy will study in both English and Ukrainian. 'We have English language arts, science and social studies and then in Ukrainian, we have Ukrainian language, arts, maths and phys ed,' Taylor said. The school will eventually offer classes for students between kindergarten and Grade 9, but is currently enrolling only up to Grade 4.
Osypenko, who moved to Calgary in December 2022 with her daughters, then aged 14 and four, said the school will help maintain cultural ties. While her older daughter retains memories of their life before the war and knowledge of Ukrainian, her youngest can only repeat basic phrases. This makes conversations with their father, who still lives in Ukraine, difficult. 'I see she has a huge accent now,' Osypenko said. 'She can only speak basic phrases like 'how are you doing, what did you do today' and that's it. But when she is asked those questions, she actually cannot answer them, so I see this barrier between father and child. They are losing the connection.'
