Blog Posts

Earlier this school year, leaders in our organization had the opportunity to learn from renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Shimi Kang on the subject of mental health and wellbeing.

There has been much news around the latest AI Chat Bot called ChatGPT. Some people call it a game changer; others have concerns about society’s reliance on technology to do our thinking for us.

At the Information Technology (IT) Department, we have been playing around with the platform and have even successfully used it to create, modify and troubleshoot some of the scripts we use for basic automation tasks.

For fun, I wondered how well ChatGBT might know the K-12 system. So I asked it a few questions. Here are its answers, which took approximately 2 seconds to create:

The EA Peer Mentor program started as a pilot three years ago and is now in its 2nd year of permanence. It currently has two full-time Education Assistant Peer Mentors, Connie Hampson and Alicia Kroeker, who support any/all EAs interested in the voluntary program. Upon registration, the two parties schedule their time together with the convenience of the mentees’ schedule in mind. EA Peer mentors collaborate with mentees to support them in their role and work together to help the mentee feel more confident, provide encouragement, and strengthen their skills.

“Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We are looking forward to hosting Shared Learning 2023 at Abbotsford Senior Secondary School. The Shared Learning Conference committee has been busy planning for 60 engaging sessions for support staff, operations, teachers, and leaders. This year’s keynote speaker will be Dr. Jean Clinton. Dr. Clinton is an experienced speaker that is well known for her engaging and informative keynote addresses. Dr. Clinton will share her knowledge about mental health and wellness, belonging, and human connection.

Noticing a shift in literacy instruction across the district? Wonder what is going on in the classroom down the hall?  

It has been my practice for the last few Januarys to make predictions about possible changes in the K-12 sector. This practice goes back as far as 2015 when I highlighted the top ten issues facing our education system and some things to watch for as we sought to transform it.

Imagine going to work every single day and failing to understand what your boss is saying, despite your best efforts. Worse yet, your colleagues don’t seem to be struggling at all. This could be how some of your students experience school. Next time you observe a student in your class who struggles to follow your instructions, who never seems to know what to do, who talks around and around what he wants to say, who misses jokes or sarcasm, consider DLD.

Many of you will know that I am a big football fan, (and an especially big Raider fan). The inspiration for my post this week does not come from Raider Nation, but from the Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith. If you follow the Seahawks, you will know that their Super Bowl winning quarterback, Russel Wilson was traded away and that most pundits thought that with back-up quarterback Smith at the helm, the team would be lucky to win half of their games this year.

I had the pleasure this week of meeting with around fifty of Yale Secondary’s Leadership 12 students. They are an amazing and diverse group of go-getters who help to make their school and community better through service. In addition to the work they do, they are also curious about leadership and routinely invite leaders from various parts of the community to talk about their roles and perspectives on leadership. This week I was the invited guest. Among the things they wanted to learn more about were my background, how I became superintendent, as well as the joys and challenges of the job.