Once a week, the Lethbridge Herald publishes a column written by a superintendent of one of five school jurisdictions in the Lethbridge area. This week’s column is authored by Chris Smeaton, Superintendent for Holy Spirit Catholic School Division and was published on January 17, 2018. CASS thanks the Lethbridge Herald for permission to post this …
Category: Educational Updates
Jan 16
Do you know your leaders’ future plans?
About this time every year, I hold my future plan meetings with all of our system and school leaders. It is a practice that I initiated about five years ago. There is no doubt that it is time-consuming with almost 40 administrators and meetings lasting between 30-60 minutes but it continues to provide great dividends. …
Jan 03
Invest in leadership- grow them!
I’m back in the office today after a great break over Christmas and as is the norm to my morning routine, I pulled out the book, Leadership Promises for Every Day- A Daily Devotional by John C. Maxwell and read the January 3rd reflection. But since it was my birthday yesterday and I wasn’t in the office, …
Nov 22
Divisions can’t work in silos
The following blog post was written for the Lethbridge Herald and published on November 22, 2017. Before I began to write this week’s article, I went back and read my colleague’s articles in the past. While some of the articles are about specific initiatives within a particular division, most articles highlight education from a more …
Nov 12
Leadership from the middle
A couple of weeks ago, our senior education team attended the College of Alberta School Superintendents (CASS) Fall Conference which featured Michael Fullan and Santiago Rincon-Gallardo. During one of the presentations I took the picture below (sorry for the quality) which to me, helps explain how deep and sustainable educational change needs to occur in …
Nov 05
Catholic Education Sunday Message- November 2017
The following message was read by trustees and administrators at all masses in parishes linked to Holy Spirit Catholic School Division. In addition, I’m including a short video message providing a supplementary statement from the Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Holy Spirit Catholic School Division is a regional division that serves students in …
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. …
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 …