Schools

The West Elgin Secondary School (WESS) is a fully composite secondary school, located in West Lorne. The area which they serve is a mixture of rural and urban, with several villages in their attendance area, including Rodney, West Lorne, Dutton and Wallacetown.

The current WESS building was officially opened on November 12, 1952, and a substantial addition was constructed in 1970. The school building features a wonderful gymnasium, a modern library and computer labs. There is a strong technical program with auto, welding, machine shops along with an updated Computer Assisted Design lab.

The school has a modern fitness centre as well as an outdoor track and playing fields. The hallways of the school are enhanced by dozens of beautiful student-created paintings and murals created by the students in our visual arts program.

WESS has two superb Specialist High Skills Major programs, in Agriculture and in Environmental Studies.  Students who take courses associated with these programs graduate with a recognized specialty in that area.  As well, our Cooperative Education program provides our students with meaningful real-world learning experiences in a wide variety of workplaces. The school motto is "Non scholae sed vitae discimus", which means  "We learn not for learning alone, but for life."

Their teams are the Wildcats, and Willy the Wildcat is our teams' mascot!