When I first started working here over 25 years ago, I found that when I told people that I worked at Mentor/TEAM they would very rarely know about the school. My guess is that this was because there were “only” 575 students in all grades back then and we were considered a well-kept secret.

Now when I am first introduced to people and they ask where I work, I find that we have a much greater recognition in the community:

“Oh really? You must know so-and-so…she is a teacher there!”
“The kids next door to me go to school there and they love it”

and the most popular answer this past year…

“I see your field and your dome from the GO Train! That’s a really nice facility.”

Sometimes the conversations are started by someone else, though. Across from the Main Campus, there is a house under renovation. While I was on traffic cop duty one afternoon this week, one of the construction workers came and asked “Is TEAM School still around?”

Long story short, it was the father of a boy named James who attended TEAM in the early 2000s from Grade 6 to 8. He said that having his son join TEAM was the best decision he ever made and that James would have been lost in high school without us. He told me that he still recommends TEAM to anyone who asks (and was a bit upset with us for not having the TSS programme back then!). The next day, I took a yearbook over him and he got a kick out of seeing 12-year-old James in Ms. Salo’s class. When I told Ms. Salo about the encounter, she was tickled to hear that James is now managing a company that installs trade shows all over North America and told me that the stone sculpture James gave her at the end of the year still sits on her desk!

I love hearing “it’s a small world” stories about who people meet who have a connection to the school. Let me know if you have one to pass along!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School