Mr. Philbrook loves trees so when he passed along the “tree” portfolio to me a number of years ago, I made a point of ensuring that the schools would remain environmentally-conscious when it comes to our leafy friends. The need to remove four trees to allow for the construction of the field and track, switching from a natural grass field to artificial turf, and the fact that we had a number of ash trees at the Primary Campus succumb to the emerald ash borer made it difficult to appear that we are an earth-friendly school.

Over the past few weeks, however, we have been doing our best to preserve and build the canopy at the schools. A dozen new trees have been planted at the Mentor campuses along with another dozen bushes and shrubs and more work will be done in the next few weeks with mulching, watering and trimming. The company that consults me on all of our tree needs says that they see fewer and fewer companies every year that invest in their trees the way we do. They say that the TEAM and Mentor properties have a very nice mix between old, new, deciduous and coniferous and that they are proud to be part of our commitment. They also like some of the surprises they find at TEAM and Mentor; the arbourist who declared a hackberry tree in the southwest corner of the field “on its last legs” in the fall couldn’t believe that it budded and is now in full leaf. Perhaps Mother Nature appreciates our efforts as well?

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Unless you are so technology-averse that you get this news update printed off and mailed to you on a weekly basis, I don’t think that you can say that you did not know that the “Bell Let’s Talk Day” took place yesterday. It was a big topic of conversation on TV, radio and the Internet and with some celebrity help, over 125 million calls, texts, tweets and shares were logged during the day.

I know that my experience with mental health is similar to many. Throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I either did not know anything about mental illness and/or it was not discussed. Even when I did become more aware of mental health issues, my own opinions and experiences meant that I was approaching the issues with pre-conceived notions about the person and the issue. The End the Stigma initiative is an excellent resource on how you can take five easy steps to being more aware of what you can do (and more importantly, what NOT to do).

While I am sure that many of those 125 million messages fall under the umbrella of “clicktivism”, this past week I have read the stories on my Facebook news feed who made the “Let’s Talk” decision. These brave, heartfelt and extensive stories are from relatives, friends, people from my church, former students and colleagues; they are not just a simple “re-tweet” or “share”. Some of the stories are auto-biographical and some are from the perspective of a parent, sibling or friend but the important thing is that they are talking and creating a dialogue and not a debate. I know I only saw a small percentage of the stories told by staff, students and parents so congratulations to all those who participated in this initiative.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School