By Grant Granger, Burnaby NewsLeader
Aug 31 2007
When Monty Bell held his first assembly as principal of Marlborough elementary, he’d barely uttered a syllable when the door opened and more students began filing in.
So he stopped and patiently waited before beginning a second time. But alas, the doors opened and more students filed in. And then it happened again. The parade seemed endless.
That’s when Bell realized just how big a school it was.
Marlborough is the largest elementary in the province with more than 1,000 students. The head count in June was 544 in the English program and 504 in French immersion. That‘s more than either Alpha or Cariboo Hill secondaries.
“It’s quite amazing,” says Bell as he prepares to begin his fourth year at the school. “Our graduation class last year was around 140 and my biggest concern was saying their name right, so I was practising them because there was so many.”
Most elementaries in Burnaby have 100 to 350 students with an administration consisting of a principal and a head teacher. Not only does Bell have a head teacher, Eva Young, but he also has an associate principal, John Harrison, and a vice-principal, Karen Logan. There are 64 teachers, counsellors and support staff. The school has 43 divisions, six to seven classes per grade.
“It doesn’t feel like a big school. It’s so strange, the only time it feels big is during assemblies,” insists Bell.
Marlborough is a merger of two school buildings between Royal Oak and Nelson avenues. On the east side is the original Marlborough, a long, one-floor rancher-style school typical to Burnaby built in the early 1950s. It houses about 450 kindergarten and primary students.
Across a closed-off block of Marlborough Avenue is a three-storey building, originally opened in 1966 as Royal Oak junior high. The district closed Royal Oak and leased the building to Columbia College from 1980-1997. When French immersion was introduced, the first floor was renovated and incorporated into Marlborough in September 1998. The second and third floor opened up a year later.
The biggest excitement for the Grade 4s is the chance to have their own locker in the big building. “It’s really quite entertaining,” says Bell with a smirk when describing what it will be like Tuesday morning when the kids show up for the first day of school.
Bell is a Burnaby boy who attended Nelson elementary, MacPherson junior high and Burnaby South, graduating in 1975. He’s also a Simon Fraser University grad. He’s been a principal for 12 years with his previous posting being at Lochdale, which has 340 students.
“I’ll be honest, I was reticent about coming because I really liked the smallness, I liked knowing, I liked being involved,” Bell says. “But when I came here I was shocked by how much you can be involved and what a good feeling and a good vibe this place has. I’d tell you if there were huge issues.”
The biggest challenge, claims Bell, is perception. People think because it’s so big instead of having two or three bullies it will have 50.
“Well, it’s not like that,” says Bell. “This is the nicest school I’ve been in, by far. That is due to the community support itself, particularly the parent support and involvement. The teaching staff here is second to none and our kids are amazing. The perception is because we’re large we have 10-fold the issues, but we just don’t have that level of issues.”
Personally, his biggest difficulty is staying involved in everything. Bell figures he has about 70 conversations of intensity a day dealing with a variety of topics and issues. He’s big on communication, collaboration and breaking down barriers to make things happen.
“It’s interesting, there’s no doubt about it,” says Bell.
Most elementary principals know all the kids in the school by name. Not Bell, although he tries to get to each class once a week and walk the playgrounds during recess and lunch.
Still, Bell strives to achieve Marlborough becoming a “cul-de-sac” school by recreating the feeling he had growing up when neighbours looked out for all the kids on the block.
“You had a bunch of fake aunts and uncles, the ones that would take care of you,” says Bell. “Schools are all about relationships. Everyone gets focused on the academic part, where do you stand, how you’re doing in provincial exams. I care that kids really love to learn, that when they leave here they love what they do. That’s essential.”
Teacher relationships thrive in a big school like Marlborough, he says, because he believes teachers learn more from their colleagues than anyone else. Student relationships thrive because the school has leadership programs where the older students help out the younger ones. There’s even a program for those coming to Marlborough for the first time where parents will greet them, tell them not to be intimidated and show them around.
Patricia Finlay is a teacher-librarian going into her sixth year at Marlborough. She’s also a Marlborough mom. Daughter Megan is about to begin Grade 6 French immersion. In running the library, Finlay comes in contact with almost all the school’s students.
“Of course, the kids all assume I know every single one of them. It would be impossible to know every single child,” says Finlay.
She doesn’t, however, really realize how big the school is until she starts planning something that goes across more than one grade.
“Then when you think about that many kids to organize or that many classes to communicate with, then you feel the hugeness of the school,” Finlay says.
Cliques tend to develop in smaller elementary schools. But Bell believes Marlborough’s size allows it to place kids in the right classrooms.
“Kids like the variety. Kids are very proud to come from a big school. We don’t have kids leaving because it’s a big school. We have kids wanting to come here,” says Bell.
Because it’s a former junior high Marlborough’s west building has a much larger gym (with a stage, change rooms and showers) three music rooms, and a kitchen. What used to be the industrial arts wing west of the gym is the District Learning Resource Centre. An ESL reception centre is also being put into that wing.
Like most schools, parking is a problem. But it’s exacerbated at Marlborough because it is bordered on three sides by heavily-travelled routes – Royal Oak, Nelson and Dover Street, the east-west connector between Grange and Oakland.
The school has a committee looking at making access easier. For instance, the north parking lot off Dover has just one entrance/exit. Bell wants two.
“What we’re trying to do is not put up blockades, but to ease the traffic flow,” says Bell. “Try to create it so it actually works for people instead of putting up barriers because people just get frustrated and we don’t want them frustrated when they drive here.”
Security, admits Bell, is an issue. Some of the entries are closed off and everyone, including parents, are encouraged to question everybody that comes into the school that isn’t familiar.
There was a time when no one believed the area’s high rises would house school-aged children, but they do. And there’s even a couple of more going up within view of Bell’s office.
A few years ago, the school district received approval from the Ministry of Education for a new school in the Kingsway corridor. But there’s no land available to build another school, so extensions to some schools are in the works starting with Brantford and Nelson.
ggranger@burnabynewsleader
