Maple Ridge Christian School has had a lot of staffing changes as we continue to grow. Please see the updates below.
Welcome
Grade 4: Bethany Spyksma
Miss Spyksma will be joining our school as a Grade 4 teacher as our Grade 4 team grows to two classes. Miss Spyksma is excited to join our staff and looks forward to being able to openly share her faith with her students and help them grow and be stretched in their faith. She is also eager to become part of a welcoming and supportive K-12 community that cares deeply about whole child growth and learning.
Elementary Prep Coverage: Kimberly Fremmerlid
Mrs. Fremmerlid supported our school last year as a teacher-on-call. This year, she will be working one day a week to provide prep coverage for our K-5 team. Mrs. Fremmerlid has shown that she is competent and capable at a variety of ages and the students have grown to love her. Her son, Jaden, is our Facilities Manager. We are happy to have two of the Fremmerlid family members working at our school. We appreciate her taking on this role and supporting our teaching staff in this way.
Middle School Teacher: Manvir Johal
Mr. Johal will be joining our school as a Middle School teacher. Mr. Johal is passionate about helping students grow in both their faith and academics. In a faith-based setting, he loves the opportunities to guide them toward God’s truth and showing how it applies to real life. In a role that he sees as more than just teaching, Mr. Johal strives to be a mentor who helps build a strong, lasting foundation of faith.
Middle School FLEX Teacher: Abby Francois
Mrs. Francois will be joining our school as a Middle School flex teacher. Mrs. Francois was really drawn to MRCS because of its strong sense of community. She can see that this is a place where staff, students, and families are closely connected and genuinely support one another. Outside of teaching, she loves to spend time reading and trying out new recipes in the kitchen. Mrs. Francois is excited to become part of this tight-knit group of staff and families at MRCS and to build meaningful relationships with both her students and fellow teachers.
Middle School ELL and High School Support Teacher: Vincent Yuen
Mr. Yuen will be joining our school as a MS English Language Learners teacher and coordinator. He will also be doing some courses for our Grade 9 and 10 students to support them in Social Emotional Learning, executive function, and overall well-being. He is excited to be a part of students’ lives by walking alongside them, supporting and encouraging them, and guiding them to find their talents and abilities. He loves that, in a faith setting, students can be prayed for and uplifted into God’s hands. He is excited to support our students in the upcoming school year.
Middle and High School Band: Alexis Summers
Ms. Summers will be joining our school as the Middle and High School Band Teacher. Ms. Summers is highly qualified with a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Trinity Western University and a Master’s of Music in Clarinet Performance from the University of Manitoba. She has experience as a Masterclass Clinician for Percussion and Woodwinds and 15 years of experience teaching private music lessons. She is passionate about supporting a love of music in students. She finds great joy in seeing her students grow and develop their skills.
Operations Manager: Wes Blechinger
Mr. Blechinger is joining our school as our Operations Manager. He comes to us with experience in various trades as well as in the area of church operations and logistics. He has a passion to see Christian ministries and organizations make the best use of their spaces for the flourishing of all stakeholders.
Communications and Marketing Coordinator: Ainah Cheung
Mrs. Cheung joined our school over the summer as our new Communications and Marketing Coordinator. She has extensive experience as a designer, content creator, and marketer. She thrives on helping heart-led, mission driven brands and businesses share their story and connect with their community. She is excited to build authentic connections and use her expertise to support our school.
Middle and High School Counselor: Darren Miller
Mr. Miller will be on campus on Wednesday and Thursday to support students in middle and high school. He has extensive experience as a counselor (over 35 years working with youth) and is looking forward to being in a Christian education atmosphere. He is excited to be in an independent K-12 school where talking about and being allowed to acknowledge God is allowed. He is aware and happy to be of assistance to the MRCS students that are growing up and working through the struggles all teens can go through. Mr. Miller works through connections with staff and students using kindness, humour, and his experiences of his life’s journey as a student, friend, son, brother, husband, dad, grandfather, and most of all as a Christian. He is excited to help guide those students who wish to access his help.
Educational Assistants:
Kathy Nishidate
Mrs. Nishidate will be joining our school as an Educational Assistant. Kathy retired from 30+ years of teaching preschool but found that she thoroughly enjoyed supporting children and wanted to continue in that role in some way. She heard about our school through a friend and thought a change would be great after 22 years at her previous job. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and family, as well as gardening, kayaking, and canoeing. She looks forward to supporting our students.
Gaby Martinez
Miss Martinez will be joining our school as an Education Assistant. She loves serving people and felt that the mission of MRCS was something that resonated with her. She is excited to be a part of what God is doing in the MRCS community. She looks forward to being a small part of the faith and academic journey of the students she works with. She enjoys going for coffee, gathering around a meal-especially one with the flavours of her parents’ home country of El Salvaor, and going for walks in her free time. She is excited to serve people through her work in this role.
Brooklyn Schuetz
Mrs. Schuetz will be joining our school as an Educational Assistant. Brooklyn recently moved to Maple Ridge after getting married this past October and was excited to find a workplace where her values of honouring and worshiping God were present. She loves building connections with students and walking alongside families to help children grow and reach their goals. Outside of school, Mrs. Schuetz enjoys crafting, going on bike ridges, baking, and serving at church. She is excited to join
Jordanah Dickson
We are excited to welcome one of our alumna to our Educational Assistant team. Mrs. Dickson values spiritual growth and academic development, and is drawn to MRCS’s commitment to nurturing students in a Christ-centred learning environment, as that was done for her throughout her school career. She is excited to support students and teaching staff in a meaningful way and looks forward to the opportunity to contribute to a school that integrates biblical principles with academic excellence.
Changes
Grade 1: Carina Tanious
Mrs. Tanious will return to her position as a full-time Grade 1 teacher after a year of maternity leave. We are looking forward to Mrs. Tanious rejoining us.
Grade 5: Jacqueline Fouad
Mrs. Fouad covered Mrs. Tanious’s Grade 1 maternity leave last year. As we expand our Grade 5 level to two classes, she will be moving into a Grade 5 position. She is excited to take on this new challenge and to have a core group and classroom to continue working with. We appreciated her work in our Grade 1 class during the 2024-2025 school year.
Elementary Prep Coverage: Jocelyn Groot
Mrs. Groot supported our Band 8 program last year as well as being a teacher-on-call. This year, she will be working two days a week to provide prep coverage for our K-5 team. Mrs. Groot enjoys working with a variety of age groups and areas, which she will have ample opportunity to do in this role. We appreciate her taking on this varied role and supporting our teaching staff in this way.
High School Humanities: Laura Crowston
Mrs. Crowston has been a prep coverage teacher in the middle school and elementary divisions two days a week, as well as teaching Career Life Education 11 and Career Life Connections in the high school, for the past three years. She will be letting go of her prep coverage and stepping into a role as a high school humanities teacher. In addition to continuing to teach Career Life Education 11 and Career Life Connections, she will teach English 9, English 10 and Socials 10. Mrs. Crowston has a Bachelor of Arts with a major in History and a minor in English. She looks forward to putting those skills to use in her new role.
High School PHE and Bible: Anna Ju
Mrs. Ju joined us in January of this year to take over the PHE 10 and Active Living 11/12 classes. She will be taking on a larger role next year by adding PHE 9, Bible 10, and HS Chapel Coordinator to her PHE 10 and Outdoor Education 12 load. She is passionate about sharing her faith with youth and helping them to develop their own faith. She is excited to take on these additional roles.
High School Online Supervisor: Amy Wilson
Mrs. Wilson will receive some dedicated blocks of time to support and facilitate our Grade 11 and 12 students in taking online courses that meet their post-secondary pathway needs. As we look for ways to be flexible and adapt to the needs of our students we find that we need someone to oversee that program and check-in with students consistently. Mrs. Wilson excels in creating organized processes to check in and hold students accountable and looks forward to this change. She will continue to teach HS Art and Humanities courses as well.
Farewell
High School Humanities: Spencer Lafleur
Mr. Lafleur said farewell to our community in June as he took on a new challenge of working in the real estate sector. He is most known for developing engaging HS Chapels and for his formation of our HS Chapel Team, which built leadership in faith formation for our high school students. Mr. Lafleur is very thankful for his time teaching at MRCS. Over his 4 years of teaching, he shared that he loved discovering God’s goodness with the students by reading the Bible together in class, during devotional times and in Chapel. He will always remember the servant-hearted staff and watching the students grow, thrive and flourish each year. He hopes to remain connected to the community in the future by TOCing and in whatever other ways God has in store.
Middle and High School French and High School PHE: Robyn Silva
Mrs. Silva will be saying farewell to our community as a teacher as she fully embraces focusing on her growing family. Her passion for education and desire to see students flourish was noted in her time on our teaching team. She will continue to be a welcome face in the community as her daughter attends MRCS, and she looks forward to volunteering and being able to be present with her children in their formative years.
Communications/Development Office: Clarissa Yap
Ms. Yap has taken on a new and exciting role of teaching English in Korea this coming school year. Ms. Yap joined our team last summer to support our development office in the area of communications. She quickly took on all major aspects of our regular communications including telling some of the MRCS history as well as helping secure some updated videos and photos for our website. She also helped us out from time to time as a teacher-on-call. We wish Ms. Yap God’s blessings as she has moved to Seoul to begin this next adventure.
Middle School/High School French: Camilia Rodriguez
Miss Rodriguez joined our team in January this year to take over the Middle School and Grade 9 French classes. She threw herself wholeheartedly into connecting with students, designing engaging lessons, and planning fun events-including a Grade 9 outing to Cirque du Soliel! We are excited for her next journey, which takes her all the way to Florida to work for Disney World for a year. We wish her all of God’s blessings in this new adventure.
Elementary Prep Coverage: Donna Riley
Mrs. Riley, a previous primary teacher at MRCS, came back last year to provide elementary prep coverage for our elementary team two days a week. Mrs. Riley is known for her calm, cheerful demeanor and her interesting lessons. She always goes the extra mile to find that special book or project that ties in just right with whatever she is doing. Mrs. Riley will be returning to her previous work placement in Coquitlam and spending more time with her family. We have loved having her back on our team last year and will miss her presence on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Head Custodian: Brendan Bolan
As we make operational changes at the school, we say thank you and farewell to Mr. Bolan for his work over the past three years. We appreciate his contributions and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.