One of the founders of St. Albert’s Logos Christian school program is moving on from teaching at the end of this year.
St. Albert Public Schools announced last week that Glenys Edwards, the district’s associate superintendent of programming and planning, would retire at the end of this year. Replacing her is Krimsen Sumners, the district’s current director of student services.
Edwards has served with the public board for about 30 years as a teacher, principal and district administrator, and was one of the founders of the Logos Christian Education program in St. Albert.
Superintendent Barry Wowk praised Edwards for her years of work developing a “culture of caring” between schools and families.
“I’m honoured to have had the time to work with her,” he said.
Edwards spent 10 years as principal of Leo Nickerson Elementary School. She was a phenomenal principal whose caring, compassionate approach helped the school triple its population, said Nickerson teacher Andrea Daly.
“Fourteen years later, her legacy is still definitely felt at the school,” she said.
Edwards, who has spent the last six years as a district administrator, said she first came to St. Albert around 1980 as a teacher along with her husband, Al.
“I was a lover of English,” she recalled, so she got a job teaching it at Paul Kane High School.
“It was a very bustling, busy place,” she said of that school. It was the only Protestant high school in town at the time, with about 1,300 students crammed between its walls.
“The kids had to use their cars as their lockers because we had no space,” she said.
Edwards moved on to the just-built Bellerose Composite in 1988, spending nine years there before becoming principal of Leo Nickerson Elementary in 1997.
One of her first challenges was to set up the Logos program.
Local parents had approached the then-Protestant board to ask for the creation of a Christian education program in St. Albert, Edwards said.
“What they were looking for was a Bible-based Christian program that would be non-denominational.”
There was no such program in St. Albert at the time, and parents had to send their kids to Edmonton to get such an education.
It was a struggle to find the staff and space, Edwards said, but they managed to launch the program in September 1998. Starting with just 80 kids in three split-classes, Logos is now a full K-to-9 program with 200-some students spread across two schools (Nickerson and Elmer S. Gish).
Edwards hired Daly in 1998.
“She was everything you’d want in a principal,” Daly said: kind, compassionate, empathetic – “the kind of principal who would leave little notes in your mailbox telling you what a great job you’ve done.”
Edwards took a hands-on approach to parents and students, Daly said, often giving them personal tours of the school. The nurturing, welcoming air she created helped start the “Nickerson boom” that saw the school grow to 600 students today from about 225.
“People just wanted to be there,” Daly said.
Daly recalled walking into work feeling shaken and sad the first day she came off maternity leave. Edwards took one look at her, put her arm around her shoulder and said, “Let me make you a cup of tea.”
“That was just the kind of person she was,” Daly said. “She’s the ear you can go to at the end of the day.”
Edwards said she decided last year to join her husband in retirement. She plans to travel the world golfing, and hopes to tee off at the famous Pebble Beach golf course.
“I loved my high-school English classes,” she said, when asked about the highlights of her career, and she has many fond memories of acting out Shakespearian plays during them.
“I still see kids now that I taught that recall the things we did,” she said.
Edwards said she wasn’t completely hanging up her teaching hat, and would welcome a chance to keep working with educators in the future.
The secret to being a good teacher is being able to connect with your students, she said.
“Kids don’t care what you know as a teacher until they know that you care.”
