After nearly a 35 year career in education, I retired as the Superintendent of Schools in January 2020. While in the role as superintendent, I sat on two national committees, ERDI and C21 and also was an adjunct professor for Gonzaga University. I now work as a leadership consultant supporting the work of school boards, system and school leaders.
Chris Smeaton
Author's posts
Nov 03
From the Desk of the Superintendent- November 2017
Since Wednesday, I’ve been in Calgary attending our annual CASS Fall Conference. This year, it was structured as a team format and led by education gurus Michael Fullan and Santiago Rincon-Gallardo . While I’m less familiar with the work of Santiago, you would be hard pressed to find an educational leader who hasn’t read a …
Oct 18
Knowing the why
Last week I had the pleasure of listening to Sarah Prevette, Founder and CEO of Future Design School. She is a strong advocate for ensuring that students develop a strong creative confidence and an entrepreneurial mindset. She also speaks passionately about equipping students with the right tools to be successful in life. While assisting students …
Oct 08
Trustee Elections- October 16th
Municipal elections in Alberta are just around the corner and part of those elections include trustees for school boards. Initially I wanted to write this blog post for nomination day, which was September 18th, but between the excuse of time and maybe waffling a little bit, I didn’t get around to it until right now. …
Oct 01
From the Desk of the Superintendent- October 2017
October 1st…it is hard to believe that we’ve already galloped through September and I’m shocked because 30 years ago, Donna and I welcomed our first child, Jordan into the world. Time does seem to fly by and so I start this blog post with my reminder from our opening of ensuring to keep our priorities …
Sep 10
Focusing on our First Nations, Métis and Inuit students
Let’s begin by confronting the brutal facts, the education system throughout Canada has failed our aboriginal students. While there may be pockets of excellence scattered across our country, there are too few examples where our aboriginal students are achieving equitable outcomes compared to their non-aboriginal counterparts. The stats are too clear for anyone to dispute …
Sep 04
Focusing on literacy and numeracy
Each school year, prior to the start of students, our entire staff comes together as one community and I have the distinct pleasure of providing opening comments. Due to the structure of the day this year, I was able to provide more of a presentation around our three priorities as opposed to simply making opening …
Aug 27
From the Desk of the Superintendent- August 2017
The summer is quickly coming to an end and this week we welcome back staff officially on Wednesday and administrators (LLT) tomorrow. Our first Learning Leadership Team is always characterized with a fair amount of “need to know” information preparing our leaders for the first staff meeting and first day of school. But it would …
Jul 03
Life’s a dance- St. Michael’s Bow Island Graduation Address
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, honoured guests and St. Michael’s Graduates of 2017. I want to begin by thanking the graduating class for choosing a theme that has a song that I actually know and don’t have to Google to find out the words! “Life’s a dance, you learn as you go. Sometimes you lead, …
Jun 30
Learn from yesterday, live for today, dream for tomorrow- St. Mary’s Taber Graduation Address
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, Honoured Guests and especially to our St. Mary’s Graduates of 2017. It is always a pleasure to attend our graduation ceremonies and bring greetings on behalf of the entire school division. I want to speak briefly about your grad theme, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, dream for tomorrow” but …
Jun 29
From the Desk of the Superintendent- Year End Message
June 29th…only two more official tie days! What a year it has been. We opened a new school, St. Teresa of Calcutta; we are in the final months of our modernization of St. Michael’s in Pincher Creek and we are in the beginning stages of our modernization of St. Patrick’s in Taber. And that is just …