Coming Soon: Edsby!

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edsby-horizontal (1)Mentor College and TEAM School have made a change in our online portal for students and parents. We are pleased to present Edsby to our students and parents and will provide login information in the next few weeks.

Students will receive their login code at school, and parents will receive their login to Edsby using the email addresses we have on file. Edsby provides course, class, and school information. By the end of September, everyone will have access to Edsby as a replacement to our previous service, Edline.

Both teachers and administrators have been enthusiastic about the many possibilities available in Edsby and we know you will enjoy the information that is available to you as you access information about everything from course work, club and sport activities, to current news and events happening at Mentor College and TEAM School.

Chuck Macdonald
Director
Mentor College/TEAM School

Safety First This Year … And Every Year!

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img_0633Every year I enjoy listening to the evening news on the first day of school (“Principal Caught Speeding in a School Zone” is my personal and, unfortunately, annual favourite). I think that as staff members, parents and students, we obsess over having all the proper “stuff” and forget about the more important back-to-school item…routine!

As parents, we hit up Costco for things to pack in lunchboxes and our kids agonize over which red pen at Staples has the best underlining feature but we don’t think about the more important things. How many of us didn’t have the “Where will we meet after school?” conversation until we were driving for the 5th time around the school on Wednesday (unsuccessfully trying not to look like we are not texting our kids). Have you waited at the afternoon bus stop to find that your child didn’t get on the bus and were prepared to request an “amber alert” before your high school student FINALLY called you back to say “Sorry I forgot to tell you I was trying out for basketball!”. This admission is usually followed by “When are you coming to get me?” and replied with “When you have graduated!”.

Now that we are back in the swing of things, please make sure you are being mindful of your surroundings. High school students who are out on lunch break need to go to an intersection and look both ways before crossing the road. For staff, parents and students driving around the schools (and in the parking lots), please ensure that you are paying extra-close attention behind the wheel. If the past 30 years are any indication, we will be paid visits from both police and parking control officers as early as today. We flood the sidewalks and parking lots with staff members to keep foot and vehicular traffic moving but we cannot get you out of a ticket for stopping, parking or U-turning in the wrong place. Our city works on the complaint system so as long as we are all doing our part to move around the schools safely, we should see fewer visits from enforcement patrols. I think that all of those signs are there for a good reason but you can post a message below if there is any signage you want me to try to get changed (as I have had some success in doing this in the past).

Enjoy the weekend and get rested up for the first five-day week of the 2016-2017 school year!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School

Near The End Of The Line For Our Weekly Update

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Today is the first day that we allow our teachers to come in and start preparing for the new school year. Some of them will be teachers who have been with us for 30 years, some of them have been hired in the past 30 days and in some cases, they will be “paired” with each other. The pairing is done so the new teacher can learn the ropes from the veteran but inevitably it ends up working both ways as techniques and technology from the two generations are shared.

I reluctantly admit that I am one of those veterans now and technology has changed many aspects of my job in the 26 years I have been with the school. This update actually began as a quarterly newsletter (on paper!) I put together 25 years ago before evolving into a Word-based weekly email update. Mr. Petrosian had showed me with his work on our websites (my version of the school’s first website is humbly presented here!) that there was a more effective and attractive way to present the information and came aboard the update train in 2007. In the past few years, we have noticed that our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Blog feeds are becoming more and more popular and at the same time, the number of weekly update “opens” has decreased. Just as the paper newsletter had its day, so too has the weekly update. Once the school year starts, we will be using our five (and counting) social media channels to bring you up-to-the-minute school news (more on that next week).

We still have three more weekly email updates, though, so please note the “back-to-school” information in this edition…particularly the entrance assessment date next Tuesday.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

This Will Be a “Lot” of Fun

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This is the time of year when we have lots of guests at our schools. The year-end musicals (tonight at the Primary Campus and next week at TEAM School and Mentor Intermediate), year-end assemblies and Grade 8 graduation ceremonies see many smiling parents and friends of our students in the audience. It puts a bit of a strain on our parking lots and we need to utilize street parking so make sure you give yourself a little extra time in order to get to that school event before it begins.

This is also a time when we have some “fun” and a few folks have been asking “What is happening with Fun Day since we can’t have it on the field anymore?” Don’t worry! In addition to the usual selection of exciting amusement rides, we have added some extra attractions (including an inflatable soccer field!).

The catch? The rides will be placed in the north parking lot (the section along Queen Street) at the Main Campus and this will mean that everyone will need to be a bit more creative (and patient) at that campus during pickup and dropoff times. The evening performances of “Beauty and the Beast” will also be affected by this. Our high school students are in the midst of their final examinations and do not attend every day so this will help with the number of vehicles moving through the lot during the day but even if it gets a bit busy, Mr. Macdonald and his crew of lot attendants (Mr. Philbrook, Mr. Cowle, Mr. Milkovich and I) will keep things moving for you.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Doing Our Part to Maintain “Forest” Avenue

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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