I have noticed on Facebook that the latest trend is the 7 Day Thankful Challenge. One person asks someone they know to post something for which they are thankful seven days in a row and then to challenge one or more others to do the same thing.

I thought it would be an interesting thing to try this so here is my “7 Day Except That It Was All Done In One Day Thankful To Be At Mentor College and TEAM School Challenge”:

Sunday, September 21: I am thankful that our students have such a fantastic outdoor education facility in Muskoka and that our OEC and Grade 11 leadership teachers brought such great energy to their weekend.

Monday, September 22: I am thankful that we have developed the TSS (TEAM Secondary School) programme and that these students get so involved in before-school, lunchtime and after-school activities with their friends in the Mentor programme. There isn’t another small high school in the province that can provide the extra-curricular activities that TSS can!

Tuesday, September 23: I am thankful that we are able to supplement our phys. ed. curriculum with an on-site swimming pool and that our youngest students get SO excited on swimming days. I am also thankful that the pool is not an Olympic-sized one because our swim teams are VERY good at doing turns!

Wednesday, September 24: I am thankful that ALL of our students get a sense of how thankful they need to be when they give their time, funds and talent to others. Our JK to Grade 8 students took part in the Terry Fox Run today and our HS students were at the school from early in the morning (serving coffee and treats for the Alzheimer’s Coffee Break Day) to late at night (serving a BBQ dinner for clients of the Compass Food Bank).

Thursday, September 25: I am thankful that, after tonight, our students will have seen the two groups of supportive adults in their lives get the chance to see each other at Meet the Teacher Night. The vital role of teachers in education is obvious but the support of parents is critical in student success and we are blessed with a wonderful community of teachers and parents here.

Friday, September 26: I am thankful that we not only have outstanding extra-curricular athletics here but that we have teachers who are willing to organize tournaments. Our HS rugby teams host their annual tournament today on the heels of two HS volleyball tournaments in the past two weeks and our elementary teams will host 7 tournaments during the school year.

Saturday, September 21: I am thankful that our teachers believe they have chosen a career…not a job. Our golf team leaves for Quebec at 6:00am today and are the first of 7 out-of-province trips that our Grade 8 to 12 students (and over 40 teachers) will take in 2014-2015.

I won’t send out a challenge to anyone specific, but if there are any students, parents or teachers who want to send me a list of 7 Mentor/TEAM things for which they are thankful, I will put them in an upcoming edition of your Weekly Update…

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Everyone has lots of excitement for the new school year but next week, we will kick it up a notch with “Spirit Days” at our school. It is a chance for the students and teachers to dress down for a day (or three) and to get to know each other a little bit better before the school year continues.

I remember the HS election speeches when I first started at the school in the early 1990s. Almost every candidate would say “there’s no school spirit” (and then proceed to lay out their platform for increasing school spirit, which, in hindsight obviously didn’t work because the same speech was used the following year!). After the assembly, the teachers would shake their heads and say that we thought there was lots of school spirit but we didn’t get a vote so it didn’t matter what we thought anyway!

I would like to bring some of those election candidates back to the school now. If they watched one of the Play Days, came to the high school mixer, spent just 5 minutes at the Inside Ride or any number of the events on our packed school calendar, I know their reaction would be incredulous but very positive. There are only 15 days in the entire school year where our calendar (link) doesn’t have at least one event listed (including next Monday, oddly enough). We haven’t added in any sports games and many of the field trips yet, so I am guessing that by the end of the year there will be less than 5 days when “nothing” happened (as far as the calendar was concerned at least).

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

I haven’t seen the back-to-school commercial where the parents are gleefully prancing through Staples to the tune “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” as much as usual (eg: it puts the “ad” in ad nauseum) this year. The thing that always surprised me about that spot was the gloomy looks on the faces of the children. It has never been the case with my own kids and whenever I talk to parents in September, they have similar stories:

“They were SO ready to come back”
“She had her backpack all packed in the middle of August”
“He has been wearing his tie around the house since we got it at the store”

I think this enthusiasm has something to do with our schools in general. The teachers are definitely pumped up to get the year started and if you haven’t heard from the homeroom teacher yet, you will no doubt hear the excitement in his/her voice.

The Director of our schools Mr. Macdonald summed up this phenomenon of being excited for school when he addressed the staff at a meeting this week. He talked about the three different campuses and that while they all had a slightly different “feel” about them, he is always impressed when prospective parents tell him that they sense that students, staff and parents at the school are genuinely happy to be there, and they say “I think I want my family to be part of this!” So whether next Wednesday is you first day of school with us or your 21st, we hope that you continue to feel welcome and excited to be part of our school community.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

In the past week, there has been quite a buzz about a report from an education advocacy group called People for Education. The group surveyed over 1300 Ontario schools after receiving numerous complaints from parents that they had been asked to keep their child home from school because there was not enough staff support for students with a wide variety of special needs. The report claims that ALL students end up being short-changed as teachers need to focus on student safety over delivering the instruction required for the curriculum.

The report is not news to us. We have families (past, present and no doubt future) who come to us because they have been promised educational support (for everything from dyslexia strategies to gifted programmes) only to find out in September that the funding or staffing was no longer available. Students from all grade levels come to us with a learning profile that requires some variety and creativity in the way the material is presented and are finally given the opportunity to learn in a manner that works best for them. Our small class sizes allow our teachers (especially in our TEAM programme) to focus on specific, individual learning strengths and to gear their teaching techniques in order to achieve success. Parents are overwhelmed with the difference that their new school makes!

The news items with the People for Education report highlight both of the groups of students affected and at our schools, we hear the stories from both groups as well. Whether it is the family with a child requiring (and not receiving) extra support or the family with a child not requiring additional staff time (but getting overlooked for those who do), they can come to us frustrated with their situation. We empathize with the families who do not have the means to change schools but we are proud of the fact that in our schools, we have the ability to provide a creative, caring and challenging learning environment for the families who come to us.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School