Day 1 EIPS Leadership

Day 1 EIPS Leadership Retreat


8:30 AM

Our day began with an opening address from Superintendent Beliveau, who not only welcomed us but emphasized the importance of our work over the next several days. The purpose of meeting together is to take a close look at the 3 year plan, and determine strategies that support the 4 goals and develop methods to best implement these goals in our schools and departments. A student video presentation helped to frame our day, thanks to the effort of Marianne Barrett, Les Sereda and students at Salisbury Composite and Lakeland Ridge School.

Facilitator Stephen Murgatroyd challenged us to think 'what do we want'? Our work is what we do in schools, kids talk about what school they attended, not what division they attended. How do we build a lifelong passion and make sure we have high performing schools? We need teachers we can retain, who are satisfied and we help to develop skills and expertise over time. Our teachers and staff need to be supported.

We were challenged also to think about how we can 'leverage' technology in classrooms and at the same time move past the notion of testing and diagnosing kids and reflect on our teaching and instructional practices.

Do kids and teachers know our plan? We have to deliver on:

• commitments made by the district in its 3 year plan
• commitments made when securing AISI resources
• commitments made in School Education Plans
• commitments made to teachers when they were hired
• commitments made to students all the time

Our first task at table groups was to establish our top 10 list of Challenges and at the same time redefine these challenges as Opportunities. 

We must consider also,  that there are multiple ways or many solutions to a problem. As leaders, we have to create a 'felt need' and of course have some fun in school development planning:)

In all of this, we must talk about what we should STOP doing, and what we should do better; and consider what we need to rethink completely (REDESIGN) and what do we need to START doing - something we currently don't do at all.

In our afternoon session, principals and directors had time to review the 3 year education goals and consider how these would be the basis of school education plans. It is important that school and department plans link to the 3 year plan.

Professional Development was a topic of interest for the central office leadership team. Are we being intentional and using the best model for professional development in our jurisdiction?

At the end of a long day, we were asked to look at our own 'lists' and develop 'SMART' goals and return to the discussion table on Day 2.