Principal of Garden Valley Collegiate (GVC) Carrie Friesen will be stepping down from her role at the end of this year, to be replaced by current vice-principal Mike Friesen.
Though her time at GVC is coming to an end, Friesen says that doesn’t mean she’s ready to hang up the hat just yet.
“Many people have congratulated me on my retirement, I’m not retiring.”
She says she will actually be taking on a new role at the Garden Valley School Division office, “I do feel that the sand in my hourglass is starting to fall a little faster, and what I’m feeling is I have one more adventure left in me before there is a retirement.”
Friesen expressed that though she loves GVC, staying where she is happy and comfortable might keep her from taking the risk of trying something new — something that she has been doing since the start of her time in education.
The road so far
Starting as a choral conductor for Brandon University, Friesen taught choir in schools and worked as an educational assistant before she had her education degree.
“I was taking some courses and eventually really wanted to pursue education, but our kids were already born, and it was quite a challenge to be a good mother and a good student.”
Eventually able to finish her education degree while living and working in Killarney, Friesen shared that it was when her youngest was diagnosed with autism that they uprooted and moved closer to Winnipeg to be nearer the resources that they needed.
“We relocated and I started working at J.R. Walkof... when J.R. Walkof split and became J.R. Walkof and Emerado, I moved over, and Garth Derksen hired me for Emerado.”
After spending some time at Emerado, Friesen’s family moved to the Dominican Republic for two years, before returning home to Manitoba and rejoining Emerado.
“I owe a lot to Garth Derksen, because he hired me three times and each time I kept quitting.” She laughed.
From there, Friesen moved to the resource position at GVC, where she also worked as a guidance counsellor, eventually moving to become vice-principal, before moving briefly to Parkland as principal, and then back to GVC, where she has served as principal for the past six years.
“So, as you can tell, I do look for ‘how can I stretch myself one more time’?”
Related stories:
- GVC Jazz Café a smashing success with over 200 guests
- Garden Valley Collegiate students thank business community at Awards Gala
Challenges in the adventure
Though Friesen shared that one of her core philosophies is pushing herself and finding that next adventure, with that comes the pursuit of growth, which she says is not always an easy thing.
“Growth is never fun. There’s always pain involved, which is why it takes courage,” she said, “Though leaving Parkland was devastating, I was only there for a year, and so that felt like I was only starting to really dig in and starting to really be passionate about the group there.”
Ultimately, when Scott Jantzen retired as principal of GVC, Friesen shared that her love for high school won out, pulling her back to the school where she had previously served as vice-principal — this time as school principal.
“Mike, Brendan and I had needed to become a new team... That was 2019, and as you know, early 2020 came this great pandemic,” she said, “That could have really torn us apart, but we decided... that we are going to do the strongest Red Rover, link arms, and no one’s getting through.”
She pointed to that partnership, saying that it was a major contributing factor to GVC becoming what she called a strong fortress.
“We were better. We were leaning on each other. And I wouldn’t have done that with just anybody. Mike and Brendan are just exceptional humans.”
The students
Looking back on a career filled with students, before moving forward to a division office job, Friesen said that it’s the moments spent outside of the classroom that, for her, have left the biggest impact.
“The last several years, I was the manager for the Varsity Girls basketball team... Watching the girls win games they shouldn’t win — fabulous, lose games they should've won and leaning on each other and rallying — all of my stories are based around the human spirit. Leaning on somebody when they felt just a little bit tippy.”
That feeling of mentorship and passion for people is something the Friesen says got her into education in the first place. For students looking to do the same, she cautions that creating their own boundaries is imperative.
“You are never done, you can go on until there are no more hours left in the day.”
What comes next
Though Friesen shared that when she originally requested to step down as principal of GVC, she wasn’t sure what her next adventure would be, she said that the position she has accepted with the division office is something she has a lot of passion for.
“It’s really exciting... It’s a brand-new position. The division has me doing a feasibility study — there is a wondering, if there is a place to add another way to do high school in our division,” she said, “The model that we’re looking at is called Big Picture Learning.”
She continued to share that this schooling model strives to create a way of schooling designed to build a personalized, student-driven practice with a few core principles.
“It focuses on global competencies — character and citizenship, collaboration, critical thinking,” she said, “to really individualize student learning and embed it in the community so that some of it is done in the classroom and lots of it is done through mentorship, through community projects.”
Friesen shared that she will be preparing for when the feasibility study takes place in September until sometime near the end of the year.
“It works out really well for the passions, my interests and studies that I have done in the last little while.”
A closing word
Friesen said that even though she elected to step down as principal of GVC, that decision wasn't any easy one. And as she moves on to that "one more adventure", she is at peace in knowing that she is leaving the school in good hands.
“My gratitude to my immediate team with Mike and Brendan, the student services team, our Advisory Council, they are so good to us... the parents, the students, the Student Council, everyone has worked together to ensure that GVC continues to get better and better, and to be able to sit on the train with these amazing humans — I just feel indebted and incredibly grateful, and quite emotional.”
- with files from Carrie Friesen -