Testimonials

“Mabin Cares” was the parents’ association’s idea, but when almost all of the school’s population, including the teachers and their children, turned up on a Sunday to pack backpacks for children in shelters, make sandwiches for the homeless and educate neighbourhood residents about the environment, Caroline Harvey wasn’t surprised.
She has watched her three children benefit from the Toronto school’s strong parent–teacher–student partnership.

“This really interesting thing happens at Mabin. When the parents give, so does the school and it’s a pretty fantastic situation.”

— Heather Greenwood Davis

The sounds start early in the morning and carry through long after the official school day is done. Structured before- and after-school care programs allow Rotherglen students a bit of extra school time. Almost 25 per cent of the students at this Oakville, Ontario school participate, allowing parents time to get to or from work. Some kids would balk at more school time, but these kids who participate in organized play activities and structured homework times don’t seem to mind. In fact sometimes the plan works too well. “The young ones can get quite upset if you pick them up too early,” says head of school Laura Crumb. “Usually, they don’t want to leave.”

— Heather Greenwood Davis

Every Thursday morning, Zoë and her classmates were at school at 7:15 a.m. to catch a bus that took them just a couple of miles to a very different world from the jewel-like modern architecture of Greenwood College School in North Toronto. Their destination: a tough inner-city school.

“We worked with a class of Grade 3 and 4 kids,” Zoë says, 15, “preparing them for the (government’s) standardized tests.”

The learning went both ways: “The kids acted the way we do,” she says. “But they have few of the privileges. You can see how tough it is. They could do so well, but they don’t have as many people pushing them.”

The best day, with school already over, was when the Greenwood kids volunteered to take their young friends to the zoo. “We know them so well now,” Zoë says. “It was all such a positive experience—we wanted to keep going. We’re going to expand it to two classes next year.”

— Frank Jones

When Jacqueline Sloan saw her father working on a PowerPoint presentation, she wanted in on the action. So her parents asked her school, Mississauga’s ABC Montessori, if Jacqueline (in Grade 2 at the time) could conduct a Power Point presentation for her class. “They said yes. I really liked that,” recalls mom Mary Jo Sloan. Jacqueline wound up receiving some unexpected extra credit for her presentation on blue whales. She is now in Grade 5, and recently mastered a required PowerPoint assignment on energy conservation.

ABC Montessori has both before- and after-school care programs that the Sloan’s have utilized since Jacqueline enrolled in the school when she was three and a half. “I have dropped her off as early as 7:30 a.m. When she was younger, she did activities like colouring. Now she uses the computer lab before school,” says Sloan. ABC’s van drops Jacqueline off at her grandmother’s house every day after school so the Sloan’s don’t have to worry about getting off work early to pick her up.

Sloan appreciates how the school embraces all religions and recognizes religious holidays like Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas. “They’re not afraid to say Merry Christmas, like many schools now are,” says Sloan. She wishes the school carried on to Grade 8, rather than Grade 6 as it does now. “It’s going to be difficult to leave—we couldn’t have hoped for a better experience.”

— Annette Bourdeau

Eric Vosko, 13, quickly sums up his reaction to starting at the Rosedale Day School in Toronto, Ontario, in Grade 7 after attending public school. “It was weird for me because the school was so small.”

The size of Rosedale, though, impressed Eric and his parents. As he entered junior high, the public school that Eric would have attended was so large that his parents worried he’d be lost. “It would have been a huge school and I wasn’t really looking for that big a school,” Eric says. “There were a lot of kids.”

Eric’s parents listened to his concerns and he spent his junior high years at Rosedale, where more intimate classrooms made it easier for the teen to discuss things and get help. “It was the right decision for sure,” Eric says. “It’s been a great school.”

— Lisa Van de Ven