Feature Article June 19,2003
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Jack Fox leaving after 42 years in educationNorthern Voice retires from Limestone School boardThe proverbial story about starting off in a one-room school house and rising to the top of ones profession is true in the case of Jack Fox, who attended Grade 1 at the Elm Dale School on Long Lake Road, south of Mountain Grove.
He skipped Grade 2 and attended public school in Mountain Grove and High School in Sharbot Lake, before becoming a teaching principal at the Harlowe School at the age of 18. Since 1995 he has been on the management team of the Limestone District School board, and for the past five years has been the Assistant to the Director of the Board, responsible for strategic planning, ongoing support, and the resolution of problems throughout the system.
For the past five years, he has also had direct responsibility for the northern district of the school board, encompassing North Addington Education Centre, the Denbigh School, and the family of feeder schools connected to the Sharbot Lake High School.
In an interview he said he is very appreciative of the fact that the Limestone Board has been sensitive to the needs of the North and has avoided closing any schools, even though the provincial funding formula does not favour that policy. By contrast, other school boards have closed small, rural schools. In Bruce County, the school in Tobermory has been closed, and the one in Lions Head is slated for closure, which will force some students to spend up to three hours a day on school busses headed for the regional school in Wiarton. While Fox did not say he was instrumental in developing the policy that has enabled the northern schools to remain open, he did admit to being an advocate for rural schools.
There are challenges in keeping rural schools open. In the past we could count on half our teachers coming out of the north, but currently we seem to be relying to a great degree on new teachers, many of whom do leave after a year or two. On the bright side, however, it does bring a lot of energetic teachers to the schools.
Jack Fox also acknowledged that some students are drawn to schools in Harrowsmith and Sydenham from the north for French immersion and the Challenge Program. We are a board with open boundaries, and we are a board with choices, especially after Grade 6, and there are some programs that require greater numbers of students in order to be offered. Still, we try to offer enrichment with the individual schools; thats really the preferred way.
Jack Fox has been working for the board under one-year contracts for the past five years. He recounts that he was prepared to retire five years ago, but at that point we had a lot of administrators retiring, and a new director (Barry OConnor) coming in, I thought it would be a good idea to carry on. Now that he is leaving, Fox does not expect his specific job will be maintained. There will probably be some change in the office, he said.
After his retirement, Fox expects to devote more time to community work, through the rotary club, the Success by Six program, and others, although he does admit he hopes to improve [his] golf game just a bit.
Jack Fox wanted to let people know that he feels he is indebted to the students, the staff of the parents of the north for providing me with an excellent opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.
At his retirement dinner this week, it was announced a fund had been set up through contributions from colleagues, which will enable the purchase of 20 art prints each year by one of the northern schools. The prints, reproductions of works by artists like the group of seven, Picasso, and others, will be used for art and social studies courses, according to Limestone School Board Communication director Jane Douglass. Fittingly, the first school which will receive the art prints will be Land OLakes Public School, where Jack Fox was the first Principal back in 1972.
Eileen MacDonald, Jack Foxs first grade teacher, would be proud.
