Milestone marked
[attach]5003[/attach]Montcrest School welcomed home five decades worth of students and staff during their 50th anniversary homecoming celebration on Oct. 15.
The co-ed, independent elementary school located near Broadview and Danforth avenues took alumni on a nostalgic tour through the years and through the school’s buildings.
“Our school is made up of about six different houses here and so the different houses and buildings are going to be decorated and themed for the different decades the school has been around,” said Michael Dilworth, the school’s director of admissions and marketing before the event.
The school also plans to hold a ball hockey tournament that afternoon, a fashion show and a reunion of bands and choirs from years past. A 50th anniversary presentation will take place in the evening over cocktails followed by a dinner and a concert performance by singer Emilie-Claire Barlow who attended Montcrest in the ’80s.
Tickets to the dinner and performance cost $25 and alumni can register on the school’s website.
Montcrest School has spent the past year preparing and anticipating their big night. Staff have been making the anniversary a theme of all school-related events since this time last year.
“What we’ve tried to do is really make it a year-long celebration and really look at every special event that we have during the year and really have a focus on reflecting upon our past,” said Dilworth.
In the past, Montcrest did not teach grade 7 and 8 as it does now, it had less than its current 300 students and the older ones did not tote laptops to schools everyday. The school has had to make changes over the years in order to keep up with the times.
“So much has changed,” said Dilworth. “The world around us has changed so much so the delivery of curriculum and the focus that you’re focusing on is very different.”
While it may not be exactly the same, some alumni have come back to the school to enroll their children.
“We’re kind of hitting that point when you’re 50 that you start to have more and more of your alumni being old enough that their children can be at the school,” Dilworth said.