InspirEDSpring 2023 The official journal of the British Columbia School Superintendents Association British Columbia School Superintendents Association Location, Location, Location! Contextual Literacy in Action:British Columbia School Superintendents Association 5 CONTENTS 7 A Message from the BCSSA President 8 A Message from the Ministry of Education and Child Care 9 A Message from the BCSSA Executive Director 12 Exploring Contextual Literacy in the Rural Setting 15 Educational Leadership: Adaptation and Kuwega ¯ nh 21 Respecting the Importance of Contextual Literacy While Leading in a Culture of Change 26 Building on Community and Supporting Students: A look at SD35’s Approach to the Affordability Fund 29 Making Systems Change Work: Reflection on the Supportive Role of Contextual Literacy 31 BCSSA’s Mentorship Learning Partners Program: Supporting Colleagues as They Learn to Lead 33 Index to Advertisers For advertising information, please email sales@matrixgroupinc.net or call 866-999-1299. GREETINGS FEATURES Following amalgamation, Rocky Mountain’s Steve Wyer inherited three separate collective agreements, three unique organizational cultures, and three different coffee mug designs. Starting on page 12, Steve discusses how this unique situation (not to mention the District’s 300 kilometre expanse) required him to take a crash course in contextual literacy.British Columbia School Superintendents Association 7 A Message from the BCSSA President, Teresa Downs THE BCSSA BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAPTER DIRECTORS I t is an ongoing honour to serve as the President of BC School Superintendents Association (BCSSA) alongside our Board of Directors. This issue of InspireED is focussed on The Spirit of Leadership in action. Thank you to those BCSSA members who have taken the time to share their story within this edition. What an incredibly complex time we are leading in and through. On the one hand, we are leading in a time of immense responsibility and opportunity: leading learning and systems for equity, inclusion, diversity, and belonging; and seeking to reconsider, reconfigure, and realign individual and collective priorities from those that have been centered around whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, and colonial epistemology to thinking and systems centered on the voices, experiences, and needs of the richly diverse students, families, and communities we serve, especially those who have not be heard or valued in the past. On the other hand, we are seeing a persistent portion of the population that sees this change as a threat to what they know, understand, and believe. Each day, we read headlines on the experiences of our colleagues who are facing immense pressure, scrutiny, ridicule, and threats regarding books in classrooms, flags flown, shirts worn, guests in schools, the curriculum, and the list goes on and on. The Stewardship for the Future of All Children competency within The Spirit of Leadership demonstrates our role as leaders as we navigate this responsibility with this pressure, noting: System leaders have a responsibility for a quality education for all children and for the future that education empowers. A quality education, and educational systems that nurture powerful learning, must foster a future in which children feel confident and secure not only in their identity, but in their relationships with others and with the environment. The district should, in other words, both teach about and help enact a more just and sustainable society. As self, teams, and organizations, we are being called upon to amplify the voices, stories, and experiences of those for whom this system has marginalized or excluded with the intention to disrupt the status quo. This requires us to be active supporters and allies of each other – to email, call, message, and encourage each other to ensure that we get through this time stronger together as an Association and a system. Public education is the foundation future of society. While most people equate school with literacy, numeracy, and graduation, those of us proud to represent public education know that the unseen and under-appreciated gift of public education is that children have the opportunity to be immersed in communities where they meet others who are different than they are, and where they learn about and how to appreciate difference(s). I would also like to take this opportunity to offer congratulations to our BCSSA colleagues who recently launched the BC Black Educational Leaders Association (BCBELA) and to their President, Beth Applewhite. Teresa Downs President, British Columbia School Superintendents Association Superintendent, SD74 (Gold Trail) Spring 2023 - Westin Bayshore Vancouver, April 21 Summer 2023 – Fairmont Chateau Whistler, August 16 - 18 Fall 2023 – Westin Bayshore Vancouver, November 16 - 17 BCSSA in 2023! Join This requires us to be active supporters and allies of each other – to email, call, message, and encourage each other to ensure that we get through this time stronger together as an Association and a system.8 ED ❚ Spring 2023 Inspir I am a proud graduate of both the British Columbia public Kindergarten to Grade 12 and post-secondary system. I have a dual Dogwood from Earl Marriott Secondary in SD36 and still use my French language skills to this day! I also have a BA (Honours) in Political Science from the University of British Columbia (UBC). I have worked for the provincial government for almost 20 years in a range of portfolios: treaty negotiations, income and disability assistance, labour market policy, immigration supports, and now education. Although I am not an educator by training, I am now a parent in the public system and I love juxtaposing the higher-level work of the Ministry and the sector with the on-the-ground reality I see daily in my son’s classroom. Throughout my career, every time I have been promoted I have been reminded of the concept from “Good to Great” that “what got you here isn’t what will get you there” – basically, that each transition into a new leadership role requires learning a new skill set and maybe unlearning some previous habits! I also continue to be in awe of how complex our sector is, how dedicated everyone is to supporting students, and how challenging it is to be working in public education at this point in history. Someone who makes people feel safe at work so they can do their best, tells truth to power, and acts with integrity. A leader who promotes curiosity, empowers action, and celebrates sustainable innovation, and someone who understands government’s commitments to reconciliation and is doing the work to unpack my own power and privilege. I consider myself fortunate to have worked in a variety of included and excluded positions in a range of Ministries over my career, and I try to always remember what it was like to be a policy analyst, or a junior manager. It is important to provide effective training and create space for people to become the experts of their own work, to experience both accolades when they are successful, and accountability for making A Message from the Ministry of Education and Child Care Cloë Nicholls Assistant Deputy Minister Ministry of Education and Child Care mistakes. As I have moved into more senior leadership I have tried to listen a lot more than I talk – in my experience staff know what needs to be done to solve problems but just need to know that they are trusted to proactively do the work. I am grateful to have started my career in Treaty negotiations, where we received training and support on Crown-Indigenous relations, cultural and community protocols, and the legal and policy history of discrimination towards Indigenous peoples. I have always tried to create spaces where people feel trusted and safe, and where we actively tackle racism and discrimination, not from a space of shame but from a place of collective responsibility. I try to build leadership teams with diverse lived experiences and career strengths, and teams that reflect the diversity of the citizens and students who we serve. I also try to chair meetings fairly, give everyone equal time to weigh in, and celebrate people who are asking tough questions, which fosters conversations of change. There are several priority areas for our division where I see BCSSA and superintendents playing a key role. The first is workforce development and supports – we are in the midst of a supply shortage due to increasing enrolment and retirements, and the tightness of the overall labour market. We need to work across multiple channels to support districts on this. The second is the work we are doing with the First Nations Education Steering Committee to align with the Declaration Act and take concrete steps to improve outcomes for Indigenous learners. I believe that reconciliation in public education is the most important topic we need to be collectively tackling and superintendents, as systems leaders and advisors to the Board, play a crucial role. The third area of connection I see is around shared accountability to enhancing student learning, using data and evidence to take action to improve outcomes. As we enter Year 3 of the Framework for Enhancing Student Learning, I am excited to work with BCSSA and superintendents to refine the existing process and continue to learn from each other. Thank you for the work you do individually and through your Board of Directors to support the Ministry, our division, and the students who show up in our schools every day. Cloë Nicholls Assistant Deputy Minister Ministry of Education and Child CareBritish Columbia School Superintendents Association 9 A s leaders, we know that context matters and can be a game changer for how we approach our roles in the service of learners. In this issue, we focus on the importance of contextual literacy and considerations for leadership. Our contributors were asked to reflect on how contextual literacy impacts their work on the ground, and we thank them for sharing their stories of practice in this Spring 2023 edition. We continue to explore and dive deeper into our new BCSSA leadership competencies, The Spirit of Leadership. We appreciate that we are all in different places in this journey. Some of us are at the beginning stages, just dipping our toes in the water to learn how these aspirational competencies can assist in guiding our leadership work. Others have dived in and are already finding creative ways to apply them to their own context. There is much collective interest from our membership to explore the competencies, and our BCSSA committees and working groups are coming together to bring alignment, coherence, and collective efficacy to this joint work. The Professional Learning Committee recently met and committed to capitalizing on the lens of The Spirit of Leadership to guide our BCSSA professional learning opportunities on a go-forward basis. To truly enact the “spirit” of these competencies will require courage and risk-taking on behalf of us all. “Walking the talk” towards true change for Truth and Reconciliation will require us to reflect A Message from the BCSSA Executive Director It may not always be comfortable, but we recognize that to see change in our school districts, we need to try it out ourselves, model it, and feel a different type of learning experience. Claire Guy Executive Director British Columbia School Superintendents Association SD34 – Superintendent, Kevin Godden SD38 – Superintendent, Scott Robinson SD39 – Associate Superintendent, Rob Schindel SD39 – Director of Instruction, School Services, Richard Zerbe SD41 – Assistant Superintendent, Wanda Mitchell SD93 – Superintendent, Michel St-Amant BCSSA RETIREES and break down our colonial structures and do things differently, including our BCSSA professional learning. As learners, we will try to model the practice we want to see in our schools, providing voice and agency to our adult learners to support engagement. It may not always be comfortable, but we recognize that to see change in our school districts, we need to try it out ourselves, model it, and feel a different type of learning experience. I recall that Dr. Simon Breakspear used to say, if we are going to fail, we should fail well. But we won’t move forward with our learning if we don’t try. All this to say, that as I write this, we are already putting plans in place for our time together in Whistler on August 16 to 18, 2023, and you may likely see the structures looking somewhat different. We have much work to do to support equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigenous education, but our collective desire to effect positive change on these vital tenants in public education is what drives our moral purpose and keeps us excited about serving our school district communities every day. Please continue to share your stories – it is how we learn! Our sincere thanks to all our contributors for modeling that courage and risk-taking for this edition. Until next time! Claire Guy Executive Director British Columbia School Superintendents AssociationNext >