About Derek Logan

Kingsway College School Head of School

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow?

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Derek Logan

Each year KCS holds school wide fundraising activities for three designated charities: The Terry Fox Foundation, The Get Ahead Project, and Camp Oochigeas. As well, individual students help to support many other worthwhile charities through various other service learning projects. As part of our 25^th anniversary celebration, our school decided to set a goal of raising $25K for The Terry Fox Foundation. And as an incentive, a number of teachers and I agreed that we would have our heads shaved if we met our goal by October 25^th. This goal was a bit of a stretch for our school, as all worthy goals should be, but in the first nine years of holding a Terry Fox Run at KCS, we have raised over $170 000, so the goal we set back in the summer is certainly attainable. As of the writing of this blog, we have raised $24,747.

I am looking forward to having my hair shaved off for a number of reasons:

No more hat head. I can’t wait to start wearing toques in the winter and baseball caps at the gym without wondering whether it looks like I just got out of bed once I take the hat off.
Having less hair should help my gazelle-like running speed.
I won’t have to be checked for lice when The Lice Squad comes into the school. And they will come as they do every year.
“Be Like Mark” (he’s our new Senior Kindergarten teacher)
Savings on shampoo, conditioner and hair spray during the month of November can be converted into paying the grocery costs for one of my 15 year old son’s five “snacks” a day
I will be able to sleep in two minutes longer as I won’t have to “do” my hair in the morning
A bald head will be perfect for my Halloween costume
Finally, we will have met our goal of raising at least $25K for the Terry Fox Foundation. All of our families have been impacted by cancer; every dollar counts to finding better treatments for this disease.

Stay tuned to see if we met our goal on October 25^th. Knowing our students and our community, the five teachers and I are confident we will surpass this goal.

Derek Logan
Head of School

Winning Without Coming in First Place

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Derek Logan

On Monday morning, our grade 3 cross country team went to their meet at Heart Lake in Brampton. I wasn’t able to attend, however, over the past 48 hours I have heard many comments from students and teachers that it was a great event. As usual, I heard about how hard our students competed, how much they enjoyed themselves, and how this event was a wonderful introduction for our youngest cross country athletes.

And then I heard another story. One that reminds me about the role an excellent coach, parent and teacher can have on a young person and how they choose to act.

One of our students fell at the beginning of the race. There was a question about whether or not he was intentionally pushed, but in the student’s words, “only the guy who pushed me will know…” He didn’t quit. Instead he got back up and ran until he couldn’t run anymore. After he finished running his friends came by, offered words of encouragement and checked in on him. Another student helped him by going to get his lunch off the bus. All wonderful gestures and not surprising from the students at KCS. What made this story even more heartwarming was what happened when the student realized he could not keep running. In the middle of the race, another boy stopped running himself and helped his classmate find a teacher. After he did this, the student got back in the race and finished it. The runner who was hurt said to his mom afterwards, “[He] stopped to help me”.

To Zach and Daniel, thanks for your efforts on behalf of our cross country team. More importantly, thanks for doing what is right. I’m proud to know both of you and you can be on my team any day.

Derek Logan
Head of School

Toronto TEDx Talks

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Derek Logan

On Thursday, September 26th I spent the day attending the Toronto TEDx Talks at the Royal Conservatory of Music downtown. Many of you have watched these Talks online, but it was quite an experience to see them live. The theme of the talks this year was “The Choices We Make.”

The speakers for the day included:

Ti-Anna Wang, Advocate for Chinese Dissident Families
Michael Stone, Director, Centre of Gravity
Rodolphe el-Khoury, University of Toronto and Parnter in Khoury Levit Fong
Darrell Bricker, CEO, Ipsos Global Public Affairs
Joel MacCharles, Co-Founder WellPreserved.ca, Writer, Cook
Steve Mann, University of Toronto
Gabrielle Scrimshaw, President, Aboriginal Professional Association of Canada
Steph Guthrie, Feminist Advocate and Community Manager
Mark Henick, Case Manager, Canadian Mental Health Association
Dr. Ivar Mendez, University of Saskatchewan
Brendan Frey, University of Toronto
Debbie Berlin-Romalis, Clinical Social Worker, SickKids
Mark Bowden, President, TRUTHPLANE

The organizers are beginning to post the talks from Toronto online, and most of them will be available later this month. You can find out more by going to: www.TEDxToronto.com. If you have ever considered attending a TED conference, I would encourage you to apply to be a delegate next year. September 26th was certainly a day full of thoughtful, inspiring and insightful ideas.

Derek Logan
Head of School

Volunteers

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Derek Logan

Last week was a rather busy week at KCS. We held our 10th annual Terry Fox Run on Wednesday, our 5th Annual Grandparents Day on Friday, and our Welcome Back BBQ on Saturday for about 800-1000 of our closest friends, families and alumni. In addition to those events, we held a couple of grade parties, a number of committee meetings, and various activities throughout the school. And that was just last week. All of these events were successful due to our staff working with our many amazing volunteers.

Cheering on the Terry Fox runners.

Welcome table at Grandparents & Grandfriends Day.

Making snow cones at the Welcome Back BBQ.

Extra tickets sales at the Welcome Back BBQ.

Our school has been a success for 25 years because of the outstanding commitment by many to give of their time for the current and future students of KCS. As I said to many of the alumni families who returned on Saturday for a visit, KCS has always been a great school. Throughout our history we did not always have the first class facility that we have now, but one thing we have always had in abundance at KCS were passionate and committed people, both staff and volunteers. For those of you who have volunteered to help us out in so many ways over the first month of the school year, you have my sincere thanks. Your time and efforts ensured we had a very successful first month of September.

Derek Logan
Head of School

What Can You Do But Laugh?

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Derek Logan

Today is Grandparents Day at KCS. We enjoyed a number of planned activities including a light lunch. As part of that lunch, we ordered 25^th Anniversary cookies. They are made of shortbread with the number 25 on them. Except when we picked them up this morning from the baker at 7 a.m. and opened up the box, all of the cookies had the number 24 on them. As one of our Habits state: Find Humour. It’s been my experience that it’s really not that hard to find if you are willing to look. At least we didn’t have to pay for them.

Derek Logan
Head of School

Another look back at 1989

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Derek Logan

I had a great response to my September 5^th blog from people around the school so here are a few more moments from 1989, the year our school opened its doors for the first time:

Nintendo released the Game Boy portable video game system in North America
Mme. Smith was changing diapers of her one year old daughter, Samantha.
Ms. Murphy graduated from high school in Halifax.
Thousands of Chinese students occupied Tiananmen Square in China
Mme. Lacroix met her future husband, Tom (who then waited nine years to ask her to marry him).
In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev released statements indicating that the Cold War between their nations may be coming to an end.
Mr. Kim got his Driver’s license.
First McDonald’s restaurant in USSR began construction in Moscow
Ms. Biljetina went to French camp
The first unofficial text message was sent in 1989
Mrs. Morgan was obsessed by Michael Jackson (she even had the zippered jacket).
Rain Man won the Oscar for Best Picture
Mr. Stoyles was in grade 5 in Newfoundland
In Alaska’s Prince William Sound the Exxon Valdez spilled 240,000 barrels (11 million gallons) of oil after running aground
Ms. Davis was training to be a cashier (she was in high school)
Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup
Mme. Klimenko was getting ready to graduate high school in Moscow.
Microsoft Office was first released and the 486 series of microprocessor introduced by Intel
Mr. Hayes was a provincial champion swimmer.
The song Don’t Worry Be Happy was released by Bobby McFerrin
Mme. Robins bought her first car with the money she saved up from working part time jobs: a silver Toyota Corolla. It should have been yellow as it was a lemon.

Derek Logan
Head of School

How the School Has Changed with 3-5 year olds in it

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Derek Logan

We’ve now completed the first two weeks of the 2013/14 school year, and for the first time in KCS history, we now have classes in PK-SK. Here are a half dozen observations I’ve made during the our first eight days together.

There’s a lot more singing going on in the PK-SK classrooms than in other classrooms in the school. I’ve witnessed the singing of instructions, singing goodbye at the end of the day, and singing about various topics the students are learning about. I like it. I’m considering mandating more singing by our grade 7 and 8 teachers.
There’s even more energy in the school than before. So many times over the years, I’ve heard from current and prospective families what a wonderful feeling they have when they enter KCS during a school day (and when you are a prospective family it is important to visit a school during the day; otherwise all you are doing is touring a building). We’ve just taken that feeling to the next level.
Uniforms look great on children at this age. Over the past year, we’ve had many discussions about uniforms for our youngest students. According to most moms that I’ve run into during the first few weeks of school, just for the cute factor alone, this was the right decision.
Things take a lot more time. I watched a class of 16 JK students come in from outside on the play structure, change their shoes, wash their hands and then line up to go back to their classroom. It reminded me of the times during the summer when my children were the same age, and I was taking them to the park. It always seemed to take forever to get Alyssa and Brandon ready and out the front door. It seems to me that our PK-SK teachers possess a truckload of patience as well as some magical powers in order to do all four things in ten minutes.
Days don’t get much better than when you start it with a handshake, a fist bump, a high five, or the occasional hug around your kneecap, from a three, four or five year old.
Finally, it’s a lot harder to remember the names of 154 new students. In the past we would have approximately 50 new students a year (the majority in grade 1) and I would try to know all their names in the first week. This year, I’ve given myself until the end of September. Let’s see how I do.

Derek Logan
Head of School

Prince-Able

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Derek Logan

One of the parents came up to me today at the New Student Presentation this morning. She told me that she was having a conversation with her JK daughter before they arrived at school about what was going to happen at the presentation.

“Mr. Logan is going to introduce you to the rest of the students.”
“Oh, the big guy?”
“Yes. He’s the principal.”
“He must also be a prince because the word prince is inside the word principal.”

In less than a week, I’ve been called a magician by a grade one student, and a prince by a JK student. I hope my wife is reading this.

Derek Logan
Head of School

Things I Heard at School in the First Week

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Derek Logan

One of the joys of this job is what you hear students say to you or to each other. Every time I hear a gem like the ones below I think of the old television show, “Kids Say the Darndest Things”. Here’s three quotes from the first week. There will be more throughout the year – you can count on that.

While standing at recess on the first day of school a grade 5 student rushed up to me and said, “I love the new student planner. It has tabs in it that look like your tie.”

The second day of school began with me standing in the plaza out in front of the school. It was about 8 a.m. and still relatively quiet, when one of the grade 1 students was dropped off. She walked up to me and said, “Are you waiting for me?”

About fifteen minutes later one of our grade 3 boys (Daniel) arrived. I asked him, “How was your first day in grade 3?” His response, “It was easier than I thought.”

Finally, on Friday I was reading a story to all of our grade 1 students. In part, I do this each year in the first week to help me learn their names. Before I started reading the story, I went around the room and correctly called each of them by name. After this happened, and just before I started reading, one of the girls put up her hand and asked me, “Are you a magician?”

Derek Logan
Head of School

What Were You Doing 25 Years Ago?

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Derek Logan

On September 5, 1989, KCS opened its doors to 50 students from grades 1-5. Seven staff members and a host of volunteers worked tirelessly to make our school a reality back then. From such modest beginnings, we have grown to a school of 411 students from PK-8 and with a faculty and staff of 61. Over the past 25 years, we added on to our facility four times:

September 1995: our library, a couple of classrooms and some change rooms
March 2003: six classrooms
December 2009: eight classrooms, a new science lab, two music rooms, a small gym and some office space
June 2013: renovated and upgraded former SGNS space as a result of an amalgamation that was announced in Fall 2012

And now we are preparing to build a high school by September 2016. Given all that has been accomplished so far in KCS history, I am confident that next 25 years will bring many more successes and memories. But before we look forward let’s take a look back to 1989 and what some of our KCS people were up to 25 years ago…

The song Walk Like An Egyptian topped the Billboard Charts
Mrs. Hoggarth, our teacher-librarian, got engaged.
The Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan and The Berlin Wall began to be dismantled
Mr. Kolozetti went to his first RUSH concert…he’s been to 15+ RUSH concerts since then
The World Wide Web was first conceived of in Switzerland by Tim Berners-Lee, which would be opened to the public for free use in 1993
Meghan DeCaria, one of our teachers, was born
The television show Seinfeld premiered
Mrs. Borg had a French poodle named Pierre
An earthquake in San Francisco disrupted the World Series
Anatoli Guelfgat, our Facilities Manager, was living in Leningrad, Soviet Union (emigrated to Canada in November 1990)
First episodes of The Simpsons shown
Ms. Gaudet won a grade 9 basketball championship in Nova Scotia
Price of gold was approximately $381 (U.S.)
Ms. Dulmage was going to CFNY concerts at the Etobicoke Olympium
Brian Mulroney was Canada’s Prime Minister; David Peterson was Ontario’s Premier; Art Eggleton was Toronto’s mayor
Mr. Sawyer started his undergraduate degree.
The SkyDome (now known as the Rogers Centre) opened
Madame Barchuk was in two musicals: Annie and HMS Pinafore.
Toyota launched Lexus
Mrs. Freeman was pregnant with her daughter, Rebecca
The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit