Principal named one of Canada’s best

[attach]6875[/attach]Bowmore Road Junior and Senior Public School’s Thelma Sambrook says she’s honoured to have been named as one of the country’s top principals.

“It’s an incredible list of people to be part of,” she said of the award from the Learning Partnership.

Teacher Peter Gazzellone says he has enjoyed working with Sambrook.

“She has brought a positive energy to the school,” he says. “She always has a silver lining.”

Gazzellone says he appreciates Sambrook’s dedication to the students and community and is motivated by her positive outlook.

“She makes you want to do better as a teacher,” he says. “We want her to stay forever.”

Sambrook, who says her goal is to help students succeed beyond the academic level and to become leaders within their community, helped bring the Me to We program to her school and has done outreach to install wheelchair ramps at local businesses.

“There are not enough ramps in the community,” she says. “We want to make the businesses accessible to all.”

Students are working with Luke Anderson, a Toronto engineer and wheel chair user who sustained a spinal cord injury while biking in British Columbia, to educate business owners on the need for more ramps and to plan their installation.

Sambrook says 30 businesses have committed to installing ramps.

She also helped publish a book called The Ramp Man, which chronicles the struggles Anderson faces and his plans to overcome them, while she was at Summit Heights.

“I like to see others shine,” Sambrook says. “A leader is someone who works with others to get things done.”

Sambrook says she embraces the opportunity to learn from these leaders at the awards presentation and improve at her job.

“I’m looking forward to hearing the ideas [of other recipients],” she says. “I’m looking to get better at what I’m already doing.”