Tag Archives: PSD70

PSD Shows Leadership in All Places

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“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

While this quote from the 6th President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, was penned almost 200 years ago, his words have as much impact today as they did in the early 19th century. Indeed, this practice of inspiring others to dream more, learn more and do more captures the very type of leadership we are building in PSD – with parents, students, staff, administrators, and community partners.

In PSD, we believe that leadership has more to do with the actions you inspire than the position that you hold. As our values and beliefs statements highlights, “We value leadership in all places – everyone in our Division has the potential to be a leader.” For me personally, I believe it is incredibly important for PSD to build capacity and provide leadership opportunities for all staff, students, and parents and to provide encouragement along the way. Our success as a school division is dependent upon us working together in moving our vision and mission forward. We all have a meaningful role to play in these exciting times for PSD.

For those of you who might be wondering about the leadership and engagement opportunities that I’m referring to, here are but a few.

Student representatives from grades 9-12 meet with the PSD Board of Trustees throughout the year.  The purpose of the Student Advisory Committee is to have direct conversation with the Trustees about any matters related to education in Parkland.  Schools Councils play a significant role in advising administration at each school and their collective organization, the Council of School Councils (COSC), is a voice focused on the bigger picture of the School Division and provincial initiatives.  Exploring Leadership is a cohort group of teachers who are participating in a program that provides opportunity to learn and reflect on their own professional journeys and the multitude of leadership situations that arise for teachers.  And finally we have many staff, students and parents who participate in presentations and activities that teach others.  In Parkland School Division we are very public about our learning and very generous in sharing and so we are called upon regularly to celebrate our successes and to assist other school divisions and organizations.  Some recent examples include presentations at Teacher’s Convention and at the Shaping the Future - Engaging Healthy School Communities Conference.

I’m not saying that building leadership has to be a formal process – through a program, course, or committee. While we do have a number of quality opportunities like this, building leadership can be as simple as teachers collaborating with grade-level colleagues, students leading fundraising or awareness initiatives, or school council members working with community partners to build a playground or coordinate school lunch and snack programs.

We are incredibly fortunate in PSD to have so many talented leaders helping us become a place where exploration, creativity, and imagination make learning exciting and where all learners aspire to reach their dreams. Your actions are inspiring others to dream more, learn more, and do more. While we still have more to achieve in moving our new vision forward, it is inspiring to see so many leaders emerging throughout our division.

#PSD70 Learning Together at #NCTCA

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I am pleased to share a recent storify where teachers share their learning. One of PSD’s priorities is engaging staff.  This was exemplified
recently at the North Central Teachers’ Association convention this past week in Edmonton. The two samples from Storify that you see below, aggregated by Division Principal George Couros,  provides a small sample of how PSD teachers are truly engaged and willing to share their learning. Each of us will benefit from their collaborative efforts to share, so that we may continue to strive for PSD’s ultimate goal of student success and well being.

After all our purpose is to prepare, engage and inspire our students to be their best in a quickly changing global community.  Who
better to facilitate that learning than the dedicated, engaged staff of Parkland School Division.

Together we can achieve anything!

Check out Day 2!

Message From the Board Chair (November 2012)

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We are now well into the 2012-2013 school year, the weather has turned wintery and the children in Parkland schools are continuing their learning journey.

A lot is happening in the province at this time. As I previously mentioned, the new Education Act is before the legislature as Bill 3. This Act is designed to replace the School Act which has been in place for over two decades. The Education Act is one of the more important pieces of provincial legislation as it will provide a framework for the governance of Education in the province for the years to come. As I write this message, Bill 3 has passed first and second readings and third reading should happen shortly. Once passed by the legislature, it will take about a year for the regulations supporting the Act to be developed. Hopefully by the fall of 2013, the Act will be proclaimed and become law.

Probably the most publicised feature of the Act is the very strong attempt to address the issue of bullying. Boards will be charged with ensuring “a welcoming, caring, respectful and safe learning environment that includes the establishment of a code of conduct for students that addresses bullying behaviour”. In addition, the definition of bullying has been extended to include “cyber-bullying” and the Board’s authority to act has been extended beyond the school and school day to include any bullying that affects the school community.

In other business, the board approved the operating budget for the 2012-2013 school year. Some of the highlights are:

  • Total Revenue of $113,631,142 – up over $6 million from last year, due largely to increased enrolment
  • Total Expenditures of $113,631,142 of which approximately:
    • $82M for Instruction (k-12)
    • $7.75M for Operation and Maintenance
    • $10M for Transportation
    • $4M for Governance and System Administration
    • $9M for such things as school generated funds, infrastructure renewal, debt servicing, etc.
  • This year the Board provides service to 9,839 students, employing over 1,000 teachers, education assistants, support staff and custodians

2012-2013 Final Budget Report

Work continues on our System Review with the focus this year on the Stony Plain and area enrolment and accommodation. This is a continuation of previous years’ focus on Spruce Grove and the West End schools.

If you have any questions or comments, please email me at rgilchrist@psd70.ab.ca

Richard Gilchrist
Board Chair
Parkland School Division

Assessment As Learning & Critical Thinking at #PSD70

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Today, we spent the morning with school administrators, learning coaches, and previous AISI lead teachers discussing our new AISI Cycle 5 Project, “Knowing Yourself as a Critical Thinker.”  Carolyn Jensen, put together a storify regarding the day that we would like to share:

 

Our Vision For the Future: Sharing #PSD70′s Priorities

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Here in Parkland School Division we are happy to share our latest video from Parkland School Division that talks about our Vision and Mission. We continue to collaborate, create and learn together as we pursue our vision of exploration, creativity, imagination inspiring all learners to reach their dreams. Please feel free to share comments and questions.

Welcome Back PSD!

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By Parkland School Division Superintendent Tim Monds (Storify provided by Brian Leadbetter, Director of Communications)

Wow, what an amazing opening week for PSD! I had the opportunity to visit a number of schools across our Division this morning, along with members our senior executive team. It was great to see so many bright, smiling faces of our students ready for another great year in PSD. Our staff in the schools were also incredibly engaged and eager to start off the year, and were very complimentary of last week’s Division PD Day. Thank-you to all of our staff for making this year’s professional development day very memorable as we took the opportunity to unveil PSD’s new vision, mission, values statements, and priorities. The excitement, passion, and collaboration was shining brightly. As you can see from the #psd70 tweets from the day below, we certainly have an engaged and committed staff. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to move forward together with our new vision, and mission and to build on the momentum we’ve begun the school year with. Some of the words I’ve heard to describe our opening day were passion, inspiration, amazing, and opportunities. We’re pleased that staff across PSD found the day so engaging and inspiring. Through our new vision and mission we’re committed reflecting the dynamic and future-focused organizations that we are today.

Wrapping Up a Good Year in PSD!

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As another incredibly successful year in PSD winds down, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on the many successes that we achieved together in supporting over 9,700 students across the Division. And, most importantly – I wanted to say thank-you to staff, parents, and our community partners. Quite simply, without your ongoing commitment of time, dedication, energy and resources we would not achieve what we have together this past year. On behalf of PSD’s senior executive, administrators and staff, thank-you for your service to PSD.

So, what were some of the highlights in PSD from the past year, and why do we have so much to be proud of?

Let me start by highlighting the importance of our community partnerships. Engaging our communities and stakeholders has been a significant priority for PSD over the past number of years, and these efforts grew by leaps and bounds this past year. As we all know, education is a partnership between our schools, parents and communities. In PSD, we are committed to enhancing these valuable partnerships year-after-year. This past year, our Board continued to show its commitment to community input and feedback through our System Review which examined enrolment trends and facility requirements for west end schools, and will next examine Stony Plain attendance boundaries.

As many of you know, this past year also saw the introduction of a new report card for grades K-9 in PSD. Over the course of the year we received positive feedback and some concerns from many parents, students and teachers regarding the new report card. Based on that feedback, we made a number of improvements to the report card for next school year. We know the new report card format is a big change for parents and students and we’re committed to helping parents understand how assessment has changed from evaluating knowledge to evaluating skills and competencies.

Our leadership role as an innovative school division was evidenced in the many successes and accolades received by our ‘Innovative Teaching and Learning Initiative’ after only its first year of implementation. We have seen exciting developments within our learning community and we want to continue to strive to create opportunities for our students to thrive in an increasingly digital age. The introduction of the Learning Leader Program, 184 Days of Learning, the Digital Portfolio Initiative, and our increased social media presence have all shown very positive results for both students and staff alike.

As famed American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan once said, “The times they are a’ changin,” and the adage holds true today as there are many exciting new things you’ll see unveiled in PSD this fall. We’ll ask you to stay tuned for more specific information, but we’ll offer a quick sneak peek now.

Our Board of Trustees is incredibly pleased that we’ll be sharing newly created Division-wide vision, mission, and values statements with our stakeholders this fall. These new statements really do reflect the future-focused and innovative organization that we are today.

We’re also pleased to unveil a new ultimate goal for PSD that focuses on student success and well-being. All of our programs and resources in PSD will be directed to this goal and supporting ‘key elements’ that include: engaging our students, engaging our staff, engaging our community, and stewardship of resources. Collectively, these goals and strategies will enable students to explore, create, imagine, and engage in lifelong learning as they develop their skills to prepare to enter the world of post-secondary studies or work.

This upcoming fall, PSD will also be introducing school-based learning coaches who work to improve student learning and achievement by removing barriers to learning for diverse learners and providing support to teachers to strengthen inclusive practices. The primary goal of the ‘Learning Coaches Program’ is to ensure that in relevant and meaningful ways all students will learn, contribute and be active members of their learning community in the most inclusive and enabling environment.

And, lastly, building on the success of the Parkland Village Resiliency Project, in 2012-2013 PSD will be introducing the Youth Resiliency Initiative across the Division. The Youth Resiliency Initiative is intended to build community capacity to provide programming and educational opportunities focused on developing prevention-focused strategies that build and support a strong foundation for mental health and resiliency in the youth who are served by PSD.

As you can see, when you add everything up, 2011-2012 was another remarkable year for PSD – and, we couldn’t have done it without you! 2012-2013 looks equally as promising, and we look forward to your ongoing contributions when we’re all back in the fall. In the meantime, enjoy a restful and enjoyable summer holiday. We’ll see you in late August with the start of a new school year as we prepare, engage, and inspire our students for another year.

Message from the Superintendent (May)

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Excellence! Teachers teach for it. Students strive for it. Parents expect it. Alberta Education praises it and the community celebrates it. So what is excellence? How do we define excellence and how do we measure it?

The accountability agenda is alive and well in Alberta and we are not shying away from it. In these times of high stakes provincial testing (Provincial Achievement Exams and Diploma Exams) we strive to achieve Excellence, as recorded by these exams. And while PSD students are doing very well at the Acceptable Standard, our schools endeavor to find ways to increase the number of students who are achieving the Standard of Excellence as measured by these paper and pencil tests. Teams of teachers pour over results and analyze the data to determine where they need to reinforce curriculum, change their teaching strategies, introduce new vocabulary, resources or activities.

At the same time, we continue to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning, skills, aptitudes and performance in endless situations beyond paper and pencil testing.

Our work is first and foremost about lifting students up to become more than they have imagined possible. As we prepare students for their place in the world – a world, that in some ways we can’t even anticipate, we are always encouraging growth and excellence as defined for the individual student. In addition to demonstrating excellence on provincial tests – our staff, parents, community and students themselves expect see excellence in many different areas of education.

Those areas of potential excellence are endless. We recognize excellence in leadership, music, art, drama and athletics. Our students have opportunities to excel in Career and Technology Studies (CTS) where we see demonstrations of amazing proficiency in Food Studies, Mechanics, Welding, Construction and beyond. Some students have a gift for language learning that is celebrated in second language instruction: French Immersion, French as a Second Language, German or Japanese. You don’t have to look far to see the incredible talents of our youth and we strongly believe that it is our responsibility to serve our students in ways that give each and every student the greatest opportunity to succeed.

Operationally, that means change continues to be the theme for the future. While the educational system of the past has met the needs of the past – today’s situation looks very different. Dr. Sam Shaw (former President of NAIT and currently with Encana), speaking to the College of Alberta School Superintendents last week, talked about the real needs in today’s work place. The skill set of today’s graduate centers around the ability “to learn”, to problem solve and to work as a committed team player. Those critical thinking, decision-making, collaboration and communication skills that we are focused on are the right ones! These process skills are the foundation of life-long learners. Gone are the days when we can focus solely on knowledge and content.

As teachers and students are planning for learning they should be creating a critical question for inquiry. If you can “Google” the question and get an answer – it is the wrong question! Today’s engaged learning needs to pose questions that require students to use their skills to find answers to real problems that are bigger than contrived, isolated subject, text book questions of the past. The stage has been set for students to achieve excellence in meaningful and relevant ways.

We are so proud to say that we are on the right track. And we are so quick to say that we have not arrived. Most importantly we continue to be thankful for the amazing students who learned with us every day. Thanks also to the hundreds of staff members who come to work every day to do what is best for kids. And to our parents, families and community we appreciate your ongoing support that keeps us going and for your tough questions that keep us researching and reflecting and always staying focused on what is best for students. Excellence is always the goal and we have agreement that there is a continual need to find ways to more accurately measure, report and acknowledge a broad range of excellence. Excellence is not the same for every student!

As always, I look forward to hearing from you. You are always welcome to stop by my office, just call ahead and the door will open. Or, if you prefer you can send me a tweet @tmondsPSD70!

Tim Monds
Superintendent – Parkland School Division

Message from the Superintendent (March)

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We frequently talk about all of the changes in education and the “messy” work that is involved in transforming a good school system into a great one. Some days it seems like we are taking baby steps as it takes commitment, time and lots of work to make effective change happen across a diverse school division with 9500 students and 1000 staff. We have a century of good practice that has served us well. However, we now have decades of effective schools research, and studies in teaching, learning and assessment that provide such a powerful basis to ensure we move from good to great!

Parkland School Division (PSD) has been focused on student assessment for over a decade. Our schools have been working hard to ensure that students have multiple ways to demonstrate learning and that they receive meaningful and timely feedback. Students need to be at the centre of the assessment process so that they can take responsibility for their learning.

Back in the day, a student may have received a zero for a missed assignment. Today, we would expect that a student is not permitted to take a zero. Learning is not optional. Today there is an expectation that the assignment would be completed and handed in – choosing to skip the assignment is typically not an option. And when a student does not achieve an acceptable mark on a test or paper, he/she is likely expected to do some further learning and then redo the assessment. Back in the day, we focused on the “teaching”, today we focus on the “learning”. In other words, it is not good enough for a teacher to say “I taught that”. The question is whether EVERY student actually learned what was taught. It is a subtle but very significant shift – moving from ensuring teaching to ensuring learning.

Several years ago, teachers in PSD began asking for an improved report card format – one that more closely aligned with good assessment practice and the expectations of Alberta Education. That request was heard and schools were encouraged to consider alternate reporting formats including report cards, portfolio assessment, student lead conferences, etc.

Following three years of pilot projects and alternative assessment strategies and reporting, our Division created the Assessment Working Committee – staff from various grades, schools, departments, administrators and teachers who have coordinated the development of our new report card.

We are half way through our first year of a two-year implementation plan. Each school community is working at their own pace to transition, recognizing that there is a learning curve for all of us – students, parents and staff.

Parents and teachers are expecting students to strive for excellence and to that end we are holding students more accountable than ever! We know the importance of having high expectations and continue to set the “learning bar” high. One of the concerns about our new report card is the question of how we report excellence.

We have heard this comment and will be sure to address this as we make this and other adjustments to the report card for next fall.

We appreciate the conversation, question and debate about reporting student growth. The introduction of our new report card has encouraged some terrific interest in assessment and it has generated great conversation between home and school. Thank you to the parents who have offered feedback. Every comment is being considered as we work to improve the report card – always mindful of the goal to increase parent understanding and to improve learning.

Transitioning to the new report card will take time. We recognize the shift to a curriculum-based report card will require conversation between home and school. We invite you to visit our websitehere to find out more about the report card. In the very near future, you will find details about improvements that will be made for the upcoming school year.

As always, I look forward to hearing from you. You are always welcome to stop by my office, just call ahead and the door will open. Or, if you prefer you can send me a tweet @tmondsPSD70!