WEYBURN - As a firm believer in the adage, “It takes a village to raise a child”, Ken Sampson brings 38 years of experience to the position of education director for the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division.
His official first day in the new position was on Aug. 26, but he spent some time before that talking to previous director, Gwen Keith, as well as at a retreat with the division administrators getting to know them first.
A native of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, his schooling was there and afterward attended Acadia University to initially take a Bachelor of Science degree, later switching to a Bachelor of Education degree, majoring in special education.
Sampson began his teaching career at the Calgary Catholic School Division, moving up from teacher to vice-principal before making the move to the Bahamas, where both he and his wife taught at a high school with the Bahamas Catholic school board for nine years. This was followed by five years as principal of a K-6 Catholic school on the island.
In 2007, he and his wife returned to southern Alberta, where he joined the Holy Spirit Catholic School Division based in Lethbridge, and served in positions ranging from assistant principal to director of support services.
Sampson then “crossed the street” to the public school division, where he served for four years before returning in 2019 to Holy Spirit as the superintendent and CEO until he made the move to Weyburn to the Holy Family School Division as education director.
Outside of education, he has varied interests that include travelling, woodworking,boating, water sports and doing landscaping with his wife.
He was a hockey player in his younger days, playing up to the Junior A level, then he refereed and coached, including coaching school-related sports like volleyball and badminton.
He and his wife had seven children, four boys and three girls, and tragically one of their daughters died 20 years at the age of 15 from a rare brain disorder.
The children all live and work in southern Alberta, so it’s relatively easy to have family get-togethers with their family.
Asked what it’s meant for him to work in Catholic education, Sampson said, “We’re especially blessed to work in a Catholic school division, because I have the ability to live and work in my faith.”
He noted there are many students in their schools who are not Catholic, but their parents want their children to have a Christian-based education, “and as a publicly funded education system, this is a golden opportunity.”
Sampson said growing up in Nova Scotia as a Catholic, they do not have publicly-funded separate schools there, and he didn’t realize what a gift it is that it’s available publicly here and in Alberta. After spending four years in a public system, he also realized how much he missed being in a Catholic system where he could work and proclaim his faith and live it out with the staff and students.
“It helps students to grow in their own faith and experience the richness that many people who went before them have experienced,” said Sampson. “To be able to share the good news of Jesus is particularly important. I consider myself to be a faith-filled man.”
Coming from a small town in Cape Breton, then living in cities like Calgary and Lethbridge, he’s found Weyburn to be a city that has much to offer, and was bigger and more developed than he thought it would be. The transition from Holy Spirit to Holy Family was helped by the mix of urban and rural schools here. The Lethbridge-based division had 10 schools in that city plus five rural schools in the outlying area, similar to the schools here in the cities of Weyburn and Estevan, and in the smaller communities of Radville and Wilcox.
The biggest difference, he said, is there are no Catholic high schools in Holy Family,where in Alberta he had K-12, 7-12 and 10-12 schools to work with.
Prior to coming to Holy Family, Sampson said the school division is held in high regard in the Catholic education community, and has a “highly-functioning well-organized family-oriented atmosphere.”His primary goal when he arrived in Weyburn is make connections with those in leadership in the schools, the parish and the community.
Sampson noted he first met Gwen Keith back in 2018 when he was with the public school system in Alberta, and has talked with her numerous times since then as members of the C21 CEO Academy.As soon as he was appointed as education director for Holy Family, Keith reached out to him, and they talked several times as she sought to make the transition here easier for him.
“She is a very highly-regarded leader in the field of education, and I feel honoured to be following in her footsteps here,” said Sampson.“I’m certainly enthusiastic to come here, and I look forward to my time here in Weyburn, offering my strengths and talents with the people of Weyburn and the outlying communities. I’m excited for the time that lies ahead. I’m a firm believer that it takes a village to raise a child, because I’ve lived it.”
