EWING - After more than 100 years, the Ewing Public School District will be ending after this school year, becoming a part of the brand new Summerland School District this spring.

Ewing will be joining Clearwater and Orchard in the new district, and Ewing Principal Greg Appleby says it has taken a tremendous amount of coordination between staff at the three schools to put Summerland together.

"We're really meeting on a weekly basis, just last week we set a common calendar, a common bell schedule, we're sharing some teachers next year, so all of that is in place," Appleby said. "Since the bond was passed in November we know that we're not just building a new school, we're also building a new school district which includes curriculum, policies, handbooks, and everything that's part of putting a new district together."

Construction on a new school building to serve all three communities is underway, but isn't expected to be ready until the fall of 2021. With the district officially forming this June, the 2020-21 school year will see the three schools operate under the Summerland banner in their separate buildings, which will create some unique situations with regards to school events.

"We're going to be having one prom, so one of the sites is hosting the prom dance, one of the sites will be hosting a homecoming dance, and one site will have a mid-winter formal," Appleby said. "Next year we also expand pretty much all of our extracurricular activities, including football, one-acts, and speech, so we're all working together to make that as smooth as possible."

Appleby says the Ewing community has been very supportive of the transition to Summerland, and he feels that being part of the district will be a great benefit for the students of Ewing.

"Ewing has always had great pride in their school, they really support everything that we do, but we were all behind this change of going to Summerland Public Schools," Appleby said. "It's going to make our community stronger, it will make programs for our kids stronger, so we're really excited for this."