A chipper adult is the last person most teenagers want to deal with first thing in the morning.But at 8:45 a.m. on a Tuesday, it’s hard for even the most bleary-eyed students walking through the front doors of C.W. Jefferys Collegiate to resist principal Monday Gala’s apparent excitement that yet another school day is about to begin.“Good morning, ladies! How are you today?”“How are you feeling, son?”Gala knows most by name. Sara. Jamal, Alvin. The lanky boys with earbuds and ballcaps, and the chattering clusters of girls with bulging knapsacks.Dapper in a grey linen suit, pink shirt and bright blue tie, he’s already put in an hour of paperwork so he can turn his attention to what he loves best — face time with the kids streaming in the front doors.Gala stands by a table laden with oranges, bananas and apples, neatly stacked cartons of milk and a giant pan of freshly baked banana bread. He chats with Imelda from the cafeteria as she dishes out the food. He trades jokes with the guidance teacher dashing to her office. The school’s breakfast program serves 425 of the school’s 730 students and is offered casually on the way in, without singling anyone out or requiring a trip to the cafeteria.His animated presence provokes slow grins and a refrain of “Morning sir, how are you?”He responds with a thumbs-up. “I’m tops!”These days, there’s reason to feel upbeat about the high school at Jane and Finch in northwest Toronto, which has seen some dark days. Ten years ago this month, the school gained notoriety as the site of the first shooting death in a Toronto school after 15-year-old Jordan Manners died in a stairwell.The tragedy shook the school, the community and the Toronto District School Board, led to a task force on school safety, a raft of changes in safety measures, and badly-needed funds and programs to support students in priority neighbourhoods. Some ...
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