Students, parents and teachers will get a chance to suggest potential names for the new Westmount school in town and Okotoks council has already submitted its choice.
The Foothills School Division announced Feb. 16 a contest will be held to select the name for the school. Two days earlier, Okotoks council unanimously approved a motion asking the division to name the school after retired Okotoks teacher Mary Gillard.
Coun. Stephen Clark proposed the idea, saying it’s a fitting recognition of her decades of service to the community both in and out of the classroom.
“As we talk about honouring people in the civil service, I can’t think of anybody who’s more deserving,” he said. “If not for anything else, for her kindness, for her dedication to education and to children and to a long teaching career.”
Gillard is well known to many foothills-area students, past and present. She retired from teaching in 2009 after 65 years in the classroom including 40 years working in Okotoks.
The contest will likely be done through an on-line poll on the division’s web site and could be open to teachers, residents in the community, parents and, most importantly, students.
“What we are after is to go ahead and have a name-the-school contest,” said Drew Chipman, the division’s assistant superintendent.
At present, the K-9 school in the Westmount area, located west of the Cornerstone Mall, is informally called Westmount School. However, a charter school in Calgary already has the name.
The school board’s trustees were unaware of Okotoks council’s decision. While the school board welcomes the input and in no way is against naming the school after the hard-working teacher, Clark’s proposal would have to go into the queue like everybody else.
Foothills School Division chair Diana Froc said the naming of the school is outside town council’s authority.
“But they are welcome to submit a suggestion,” she said.
Clark said he recognized the decision is in the school board’s hands, but he hopes it ultimately agrees with town council.
“When you think about education (Gillard is) at the forefront in Okotoks,” he said.
Mary Gillard said it was humbling just to be considered.
“It is very, very good,” she said. “It’s phenomenal if they’re going to do that.”
Although Gillard retired in 2009 she still volunteers some of her time to help in the community.
She began her teaching career at a one-room school during World War II. After marrying, she took a 14-year break from teaching to raise her family and returned to the classroom in 1959 and went on to become a substitute teacher in Okotoks after moving to town around 1967.
Gillard has had a profound impact on the students she has taught. For example, the Foothills Composite High School graduating class of 1982 set up a scholarship in her name.
Joyce Loucks, Foothills Composite High School vice-principal, said it would be a deserving tribute and it’s one that would make a lot of people happy.
“She has touched so many lives and so many people it’s phenomenal,” she said.
Gillard had a special connection with her students, said Loucks, and she knew how to motivate them.
“She can walk into the room and get the kids to do incredible things,” she said.
Gillard became a mentor to Loucks early in her teaching career.
Loucks first started working as a teacher mid-way through the school year and she said it’s not an easy time of year to step into the classroom and Gillard took her under her wing to help her adjust.
The Foothills School Division would like to have a name selected for the Westmount school by May. The name will be chosen with input from the parent committee who worked on the forming of the new Okotoks school, which is scheduled to open in September of 2012.
