A leader collaborates with the school community to create and implement a shared vision for student success, engagement, learning and well-being.
The Friday Focus was inspired by a workshop I attended with Todd Whitaker. I prepared and published it each Friday. It was distributed to my school staff, German teachers, central office leadership, and jurisdiction trustees. I had several objectives in mind with it. I wanted to
- inform everyone of where I planned to be in the coming week.
- celebrate classroom successes I'd witnessed.
- promote the jurisdiction's initiatives (literacy and numeracy).
- share some small instructional strategies or ideas that my staff might find helpful.
- inform central office and trustees (through photos and text) of the good, on-point work our teachers were
doing in their classrooms. (Trustees rarely visited colony schools.)
- promote a sense of unity among our staff members.
Five samples of the Friday Focus are linked below.
- inform everyone of where I planned to be in the coming week.
- celebrate classroom successes I'd witnessed.
- promote the jurisdiction's initiatives (literacy and numeracy).
- share some small instructional strategies or ideas that my staff might find helpful.
- inform central office and trustees (through photos and text) of the good, on-point work our teachers were
doing in their classrooms. (Trustees rarely visited colony schools.)
- promote a sense of unity among our staff members.
Five samples of the Friday Focus are linked below.
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I was honoured in 2005 to be awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award for the ATA Southwest Region's Council on School Administration (CSA). The award recognized leadership characteristics such as:
- providing instructional leadership.
- desire to keep abreast of current knowledge and trends in education.
- participation in research.
- publication of articles.
- presentation of workshops and seminars.
- community involvement.
- progressive philosophy of student learning.
The CSA has since evolved to become the Council for School Leadership.
- providing instructional leadership.
- desire to keep abreast of current knowledge and trends in education.
- participation in research.
- publication of articles.
- presentation of workshops and seminars.
- community involvement.
- progressive philosophy of student learning.
The CSA has since evolved to become the Council for School Leadership.
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The thank-you cards below are from teacher interns who I supervised in recent years.
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Teaching at a Hutterite colony school can be an intimidating undertaking. There are many unknowns that can be frightening to teachers regardless of their years of experience. One strategy I employed was to conduct an orientation day during which we could focus on elements of instruction and conduct that would help new teachers start for success. A second strategy was to simply disseminate an information sheet that highlighted many aspects of Hutterite colony school teaching. This document was initially developed via a committee of myself and 3 veteran colony teachers. It eventually became a standard inclusion in our handbook.
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