So over the last 10 months the school board in general here in B.C. has been taking a lot of bad press and, in my opinion, rightfully so.
However, I do need to share an experience we had that does shine some positive light on the local schools and teachers, if not the district as a whole.
I had three kids in school last year. Two are twins and graduated while the third started kindergarten this year (oops!). It is the third child and Webster Elementary that I want to talk about.
Miss Marks, who was my daughters Kindergarten teacher for most of the school year, performed her duties way above and beyond what is expected or required and I want to congratulate her for being who she is and doing an excellent job.
With all this “ work to rule” stuff that has been going around the schools and the negative influence that this has had on both the students and the teachers, it is nice to see that some people can get past that and do what is right for the kids because, in the end, isn’t education about the children and not about the politics?
I don’t know Miss Marks all that well or what her background is. I imagine that being as young as she is, Webster was probably her first full-time teaching position that she has held and, as a parent, I am glad that it was here in Trail.
The effort that she put into these kids and the amount of information they gained because of it is fantastic.
I know that my wife and I are not the only parents of this class that believe that. After putting up with our darling children for 10 months, Miss Marks and Webster Elementary put on a Kindergarten graduation ceremony that certainly showed the effort she put into teaching these kids.
Each child was given a personal scrap book filled to the brim with art work, school work and photographs that had been taken and organized throughout the school year. Each book had been customized to each individual child with plenty of memories and images of our kids and all the kids in general.
Along with these was also a DVD showing another collection of customized photos, songs and videos of my daughter performing in class. With 18 other children to take into consideration, this must have been a huge undertaking for her to take on and I can guarantee that this was not all done on school time.
It is nice to know that some teachers regardless (or maybe because of it) of experience will still go that extra mile.
In the great scheme of things Kindergarten is probably the least important grade in the school system from an educational point of view, but it is the most important class for grabbing these kids and making them want to learn and participate and develop their individual personalities.
If we didn’t have people like Miss Marks to lead our youngsters and show them that school is interesting and exciting and instill that initial interest in learning, who knows what level these kids would have been at after this very important first year.
Simon Boka, Trail