PART 18: Jennifer Offord takes a bow - Canada.com

THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2007
MIRACLE ON YORK STREET:
A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A SCHOOL
part 18
JENNIFER
OFFORD
takes
a bow
PHOTO OF JENNIFER OFFORD BY ROD MACIVOR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2007
The daughter of a renowned child psychiatrist,
Principal Jennifer Offord brings her father’s commitment
to disadvantaged children at York Street Public School
BY ANDREW DUFFY
F
or one of the final times in her four
years as principal of York Street Public
School, Jennifer Offord takes to the
front of a student assembly. Ms. Offord
launches into this year’s sports assembly
— it’s one of the traditions she has
established — by explaining the importance
of sport in her own life.
When she was in Grade 7, she tells students, her
family moved to a new town, near Brantford, Ont.
She didn’t know a single person. So her parents enrolled her on a girls’
hockey team, which immediately made her part of the community.
“I played on that team for seven years,”she says. “I was not the best
player on that team. In that first year, I don’t even think I touched the
puck. But I kept going back because of the coach.
“He understood it was all about participation: come out and give it a
try. It wasn’t about the winning — winning was great — but it wasn’t
all about the winning. He wanted us to participate, to have a good time,
to learn something, to learn to get along with each other, teamwork.”
During her four years at York Street, Ms. Offord has repeatedly
preached the value of sport. It is a faith that she adopted from her parents,
Dan and Sondra Offord.
“One of the values my dad had was to give us lots of opportunities
and get us out of our comfort zone,” says Ms. Offord, one of four children.
“We all played a lot of sports and we all watched a lot of sports.”
Ms. Offord’s father, a psychiatrist and camp counsellor who died in
2004, remains a central influence in her life — and in her approach to
education.
Dr. Dan Offord was the founding director of the Canadian Centre for
Studies of Children at Risk in Hamilton. The facility, now known as the
Offord Centre for Child Studies, explores the biological and social factors
that influence healthy child development while seeking ways to
improve the chances of vulnerable children.
Dr. Offord was a pioneer in his field. He took part in landmark studies
that found significant numbers of Ontario children (16.5 per cent)
suffered behavioural disorders which hampered their relationships
with teachers and classmates and contributed to their poor school performance.
Dr. Offord was a firm believer in skills development. He felt that
children living in poverty had to be afforded the same opportunity to
take part in the arts and in sports as middle-class children.
To that end, he spent more than 40 years as director of Christie Lake
Camp, near Perth. The camp imparts outdoor and wilderness skills to
economically underprivileged children, some of whom also have emotional
and behavioural problems.
Jennifer Offord spent many summers at Christie Lake and she remembers
it as a remarkably compassionate place, a place of frequent
hugs and quiet counselling sessions. But she also remembers her father
telling camp counsellors in no uncertain terms: “It’s not enough
to distract these kids or simply entertain them; they need to be taught
skills.”
Ms. Offord has brought many of her father’s philosophies to bear at
York Street Public School. Indeed, she likes to say that her job is to run
Christie Lake Camp inside a school. She constantly strives to level the
playing field for York Street students when it comes to recreation and
Jennifer Offord
likes to say that
her job is to run
Christie Lake Camp
inside a school.
the arts. Ms. Offord has helped engineer a raft of
programs that introduce York Street students to
swimming, tennis, drama, and music. The programs
are stripped of the barriers — enrolment
fees, transportation costs, equipment — that normally
frustrate the participation of disadvantaged
students.
What’s more, Ms. Offord has been instrumental
in providing York Street with what some might
consider “frills.” The school gymnasium, for instance,
has a shiny new scoreboard, and as Ms. Offord
is about to announce, there is a wealth of new
sports equipment on the way.
The Education Foundation of Ottawa, a local charity that funds special
projects within the public school board, has handed the school a
cheque for $7,500 with which it will buy new basketballs, volleyballs
and soccer balls. There’s even enough money to equip a games room
with shuffle board, fusball, air hockey and a ping pong table.
“Every piece of equipment which we have always wished for, which
we could never afford, we will now have,” Ms. Offord tells the cheering
sports assembly.
The newly stocked sports locker and games room will ultimately be
part of Ms. Offord’s legacy.
She recently told the staff that she won’t be returning to York Street
next year: the school board has reassigned her to Greenbank Middle
School. Aphone call from her superintendent late one night in May informed
her of the transfer. She told her shocked staff the next morning
at a 7:45 a.m. meeting.
The board regularly moves its principals after three or four years,
but many York Street teachers —even Ms. Offord herself —believed
she might have one more year at the school. She’s still trying to imagine
her life without it. After four years of investing so much emotion
and effort in York Street, the school has become an extension of herself
and what she believes in as an educator.
“Four years is a long time, so I know it’s going to be hard to leave:
you always feel that there are things you still want to do,” she says. “But
I certainly want to leave when things are going well ...
“And I also think, well, what would my dad say about the move?He’d
say, ‘It’s a tremendous opportunity. It’s part of career growth. It’s a new
challenge.’”
Two weeks from now, on the last day of school, Ms. Offord will stand
at the head of the stairs and shake hands with departing students, in
much the style of a reverend after Sunday mass, with tears in her eyes.
But now, in the sweltering heat of York Street’s gymnasium, Ms. Offord
is being called upon to stand up. The school’s coaches and athletes
have all been honoured for their efforts —and now it is Ms. Offord’s
turn.
“I’ve been at many tournaments on weekends, Friday nights and Saturdays,
and she’s always there supporting our teams,” says Bruce Mc-
Nicoll, one of the school’s most dedicated coaches. “And she’s always
trying to get us equipment and getting us money for tournaments. Really,
without Ms. Offord, we wouldn’t have the sports program we have
today.”
To the enthusiastic applause of York Street’s student body, Jennifer
Offord, principal, takes a bow.
aduffy@thecitizen.canwest.com
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