Service with love

St. Margaret’s School groundskeeper Ian Holt stewards the land and girls’ education

Walk onto the St. Margaret’s School (SMS) campus in Victoria, and you’ll see Ian Holt’s handiwork on every inch of the 22-acre property. As groundskeeper, he meticulously maintains the park-like premises from the treed entryway to the chip trail through the forest; the manicured garden beds to the Garry oak meadow; and the sports fields to the outdoor gathering spaces.

The campus is a haven that underpins the education of the approximately 300 students at the all-girls, K–12 independent school. A member of the SMS chapter of the Professional Employees Association, Holt serves as steward of the campus, ensuring it looks healthy, flourishing and orderly, in complement to the learning experience. He is also responsible for the set-up of indoor spaces in the eight buildings on campus, including the academic facilities, athletics centre, library commons, four residences and dining hall. As part of this work, he prepares the spaces for special events such as assemblies, school fairs and sports tournaments.

His enthusiasm for the school pours out of him. “It’s the most rewarding thing ever, to know you’ve made a difference,” he says. “I love this school. I love the kids, I love the teachers, I love the staff and the parents. I love the campus. It feels like home.”

As he speaks with The Pro this day in late fall, he is hanging white twinkle lights in the junior school library to create a fairy-tale ambiance. He hopes the lights will fuel the girls’ imaginations as they read, learn and create in the space. Through special touches like twinkling lights, Holt uses his groundskeeper role to support positive learning experiences for the students.

“I’m very proud of my work; I want everyone to think it’s awesome,” he explains. Then, he laughs. “You’re going to hear the word ‘awesome’ a lot,” he adds. “This job is awesome. It’s the best.”

Born in Blackburn, England, near Manchester in the north-west of the country, Holt led a varied career before arriving at SMS five years ago. No matter the field he’s worked in, what remains constant is the high level of achievement he’s reached in every role. By his own admission, he never does anything “halfway; I always go full send.”

As a teenager, he was offered an opportunity to play professional soccer, but he turned it down because it would have required a move and a shift in loyalty away from his home club. Instead, he earned the equivalent of four Red Seals in carpentry, joinery, painting and decorating. With this broad skill set, he worked for various companies in England and Jersey in the Channel Islands, where he lived for many years after leaving Blackburn.

While living on Jersey, he developed a taste for scuba diving, so he followed that interest and became a scuba diving instructor. It was while taking an eight-year-old for her first dive that his passion for children’s education surfaced.

“I remember it to this day, helping this eight-year-old take her first breath underwater,” Holt recalls. He describes the scene in vivid detail: the outdoor swimming pool overlooking the ocean, the bright blue sky overhead, the girl with her child-sized scuba tank and face mask. He remembers how the girl grew increasingly courageous with every breath and eventually how she swam around the pool underwater. “It was the greatest feeling ever, teaching a kid how to do something,” he says. From that moment, he knew he wanted to work in a school to help children learn, grow and achieve.

When Holt and his wife emigrated to Victoria eight years ago, Holt set out to find his dream job in education. Upon arriving, he worked at Bear Mountain Resort as a landscaper on the golf course and then at the Hotel Grand Pacific as a painter. When the SMS opportunity came about a few years into their tenure on the island, he was thrilled. “I found my perfect job,” he says.

Holt has embedded himself into the fabric of the school and embodies the school motto, Servite in Caritate, which translates into “Service with Love.” In addition to his groundskeeping responsibilities, he volunteers as a coach for multiple sports teams, including swimming, soccer, cross-country running, basketball, track and field and badminton.

“Coaching the kids is the best. It’s just awesome,” he says, using his favourite word again.

His impact at the school is tangible. Before he stepped in as assistant coach, the soccer team had never, in the school’s 150-year history, earned a berth to provincials. Under his leadership, the team made it to provincials twice in the first two years he coached. The swim team has also blossomed under Coach Holt. The club had been shut down for eight years when Holt started it up again, building it into the school’s largest sport with 45 athletes participating despite the 6:30 a.m. practices.

Holt has garnered such respect at SMS that he is frequently invited into classrooms when his areas of expertise can complement the curriculum. Recently, he led young science students along the one-kilometre chip trail on campus to examine erosion. He also teaches about plants and maintaining vegetation, for example, the crowd-favourite Milanthus Major, also known as the Peanut Butter plant because it smells like peanut butter when it’s touched.

The students adore Holt. Any given lunch period, as many as 20 students will run to his office to visit. Last school year, grade 5 students built him a cardboard mailbox for his fan mail—cards and letters of thanks from students, colleagues and parents. One recent letter from a grade 6 student credits Coach Holt for helping her learn about herself through participation on the swim team. One line stands out, written from the heart in pencil in her homemade card: “I’ve found so much in myself that I never knew I had—thank you for showing me that.”

Contributing to the girls’ education and seeing them progress is what drives the groundskeeper and coach. He and his wife don’t have children—they’ve been on the adoption list for eight years and are ever hopeful—so he gives everything he has to the SMS students, he says. Not afraid to change careers again, he has begun an educational assistant course online through Langara College in Vancouver, with a goal of moving into the classroom permanently, preferably at SMS.

“I want to spend more time in the classroom and retire at the school,” he explains. “I love it so much. I just love having a laugh with the kids. I’m so myself here. It just feels perfect.”

The SMS community supports Holt’s education. Three parents wrote him letters of recommendation, sharing how Coach Holt has changed their children’s lives for the better.

As he has done throughout his life, he will chase his dream and do all it takes to become proficient at this work. He is guided by a clear goal: to be of service to the students. “It’s remarkable when you get to see the difference you’ve made in a student’s life, say, from grade 3 to grade 7,” he says. “Watching the students grow and mature into young adults is the best job ever.”