By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
‘A BRILLIANT career’ written in bold blue letters headlined a canvas sitting in the corner of Marj Scarce’s office on her last day as principal of Tooradin Primary School.
After 17 years in the top job, Ms Scarce had an office overflowing with hand written letters and drawings, handmade cupcakes, flowers and sentimental gifts.
“I have a lovely lot of cards from the children and they’ve done them from the heart with love and affection and that, to me, is so touching and special,” Ms Scarce said.
Notes read ‘I love you Mrs Scarce,’ ‘We will miss you,’ ‘Thank you for being an amazing principal to me,’ ‘I wish you could stay at Tooradin Primary School it really won’t be the same,’ alongside smiling drawings of their beloved principal.
“This is a box of the school, two grade one girls collected bits and pieces they found around the school and put it in a shoe box and that is so special, that is what kids are all about, it even smells like the school,” she said.
On Friday 29 May the school community attended its last assembly with Ms Scarce and presented her with two trees to plant at home and at school, framed photos and a time capsule decorated by the students with a message from each child inside.
“They are very special presents, it’s so wonderful to be able to look back at the photos and remember.
“I’ll miss most the children, always the children, and the teaching staff and the joy and friendships,” she said.
Long-term friend and colleague office manager Sue Tobin said Ms Scarce’s legacy will always be with the school.
“I’ll go into withdrawal when she leaves, it’s been a fun journey, we’ve done nothing but laugh,” Ms Tobin said.
Ms Scarce started at the school in 1998 and, with the help of Ms Tobin and the school community, built it from the ground up.
“All of what you see here today is what I have done, when I started it was all relocatable classrooms.
“Twelve months after I was here I was able to get funding to build the school,” she said.
Ms Scarce started the school magazine, changed the green polo shirts to red, protested against a Telstra tower being erected 500 metres from the school, put in reverse cycle air conditioners, water tanks, solar panels and even a wind turbine.
“It was like building a house because we chose everything together, we chose the colours and we did everything right down to where the power points went and the lights,” Ms Scarce said.
Ms Scarce got rid of the leaky tram that was the art room and built a new one which the rest of the school was built around.
“We furnished the school on second hand stuff, we would go to schools and kinders that were closing down,” Ms Scarce said.
With that type of ingenuity Ms Scarce got a kitchen up and running, vegie patch, green house so their seedlings and plants to get a good start, a three-year-old and the pre-prep learning links program and a dry creek bed and garden that wraps around the school.
Ms Tobin remembered the early days.
“To help get us out of a deficit Marj would be the CRT (casual relief teacher) for all classrooms when a teacher was absent.
“At the time we thought nothing of it but it was just a part of what made her special,” Ms Tobin said.
After sharing her life between Wonthaggi and Tooradin Ms Scarce said she is looking forward to a holiday overseas.
“I’m going to Europe that’s going to be the first venture with my husband.
“I usually take a couple of months off and this year I thought it’s time I actually went and went for good,” she said.
“I’ve shared my life between Tooradin and Wonthaggi so my family is really pleased I’ll be home all the time, I have a house in Tooradin as well and for 17 years I’ve lived half the week in Tooradin and the other half in Wonthaggi.”
After hugging almost every child goodbye on their way out of the assembly, two boys stopped by Ms Scarce’s office to say their own goodbyes.
One student explained where he lived and told her she was always welcome in his home and the other said: “Thank you for all your hard work, we really appreciate it.”
With a hug and a kiss she sent them back to class and said: “It’s time to move on but they’ll always have a special place in my heart.”
