As the new school year approaches, there will be some new faces in the Foothills School Division—and not just students.

Over the past two years, FSD has seen more than 40 teachers take their final bow and retire, leading to a new era of educators taking their place.

Assistant Superintendent of Employee Services Al Davidson says it's been quite the turn around for employment.

"Quite the number of retirees the last couple of years," he says. "We had 37 teaching staff retire (in 2013-14), and this past year we had 12. We had quite a number of new-to-the-division employees as a result, and I expect this year we'll have about 25 new teaching staff to the division."

The division is attracting new employees from all over the province and heavily in Southern Alberta.

Davidson says it helps when the school division is located in an ideal spot for teachers to start their careers.

"Foothills is a real attractive place for young teachers," he says. "It's close to an urban centre, our mentorship programs are known in those faculties, and we do so see lots of interest from those universities and the University of Lethbridge as well as another one that has quite a relationship with the Foothills School Division."

Davidson says he has seen an interesting trend in new teachers. He's seeing the children of retired teachers follow in their parent's footsteps.

"We've got children of teachers from our system that's certainly part of the foothills family tradition," he says. "We've got some young teachers who've come into our system whose parents were teachers as well; they bring a tremendous energy and they're very well trained."

Davidson, a former teacher in the division, has noticed a few of his former students taking on the world of education and says it's a great sight to see.

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