After a series of provincial school division amalgamations in 2006, Prairie South School Division 210 of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, was created. It consists of 40 schools in the south-central portion of the province and caters to approximately 6,700 students from 19 diverse rural and urban communities spread across 12,643 square miles. The past five years has been a significant period of transition for Prairie South, which has brought new challenges and opportunities not only to the staff and students, but also to the surrounding communities, according to Director of Education Jeff Finell.
Our success is based on our values,” Finell states. “Our working and learning environments are inclusive and transparent. This is essential for the success of our students, schools and communities throughout our vast and diverse division. This is based on the shared belief that all students can learn and that all teachers can support students to be successful in their communities. And it’s not just our students who are learning – we are inquisitive life-long learners who are passionate about learning and are results-oriented.”
When Finell took over as director, the division was suffering from initiative fatigue and a lack of focus. To address these issues, Prairie South worked with an HR consultant to reorganize and align its people with its priorities. It developed a new organizational structure, which strategically grouped schools into clusters based on the context of each school. This enabled Prairie South to customize its services per school and strengthened peer support and networking within the school clusters.
Each school cluster is assigned a learning support team composed of a learning consultant, a student support consultant, a psychologist and a speech language pathologist to serve the unique needs of each school. Prairie South also created areas of strategic focus and specialization for its superintendents. “The combination of a strategic focus and cluster groups is an important part of addressing our geography and diversity issues, Finell explains. “Our goal is to build consistency in the delivery of our courses and in grading practices throughout the division, as well as gain clarity, focus, alignment and engagement.
“In order to be truly inclusive, we need to move beyond a central approach,” Finell continues. We can provide the framework and the support, but we need leadership at the local level to enable our stakeholders to address their issues in a very dynamic and ongoing way. Also, as part of that training, we want everyone to work with data and develop plans where they are actually able to measure progress and monitor improvement.”
New Learning Framework
Prairie South also teamed up with renowned learning leader Dr. Douglas Reeves, founder of the Leadership and Learning Center in Englewood, Colo., to create a Comprehensive Learning Framework (CLF) that best addresses the needs of its schools and communities. “Our CLF creates alignment and a common focus throughout the various aspects of our organization,” Finell says. “This is an exciting and arduous project that has truly been comprehensive right from the start. A diverse group of 50 of our stakeholders participated in the design of it, which included teachers, parents, board members and senior administration.
“Our goal is to engage staff, students, parents and the community to create coherency and consistency,” he continues. “The CLF ensures we are all focused on the same goals and priorities, and understand why they are important and how they are being realized. It promotes clarity of focus and fidelity of implementation. It also helps us to determine where the organization needs to be tightly coupled. We’re not looking to create a cookie-cutter process – we’re looking for dynamic ideas and solutions. This is a very positive shift for Prairie South.”
All Prairie South schools have received training and are implementing an enhanced learning improvement plan based on the CLF. In addition, nine pilot schools will work their cluster groups as learning improvement teams, which will expand to the rest of the division over the next couple of years. “Our main focus this year will be to strengthen the framework,” Finell says. “We are also in the process of realigning ourselves with a new mission, vision and positioning statement that ties into our CLF. It will also be included in the development of our Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP), which is mandated provincially by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education. Together, this will help us to articulate our vision of organizational development for enhanced capacity.”
Continuous Improvement
Through its CIP, Prairie South will improve learning outcomes for all students based on the ministry’s four prioroities: higher literacy and achievement, equitable opportunities, smooth transitions, and system accountability and governance. Prairie South has embarked on a number of strategic initiatives to achieve ongoing success, Finell says.
One example is its focus on early education. From 2008 to 2010, Prairie South participated in a national study to better understand the learning needs of children between 3 and 5 years old. “The study indicated that many of our children entering kindergarten have insufficient readiness skills,” Finell notes. “This has long-term impacts on a child’s ability to learn and build social skills, which can require more resources at school and in society. A child’s vulnerability is influenced by their early experiences; family and community dynamics are an integral part of their development.”
In partnership with early learning professionals in the area, Prairie South implemented pilot projects in one urban school and one rural school. “These programs have created continuity and efficacy in the delivery of the play-and-learn curriculum,” Finell says. “In 2011 and 2012, our board has committed an additional $800,000 to add capacity to the existing pre-kindergarten programs in our schools and establish new programs. There will also be further exploration for early learning possibilities in our rural areas.
“Supporting our students from birth to graduation and onto employment is proving to be successful,” he adds. “We’ve formed partnerships with our local health region to encourage healthy pregnancies and infant care. And we have many extremely valuable partnerships with businesses and industries, which help our high school students transition successfully from graduation to post-secondary education or meaningful employment.”
A significant portion of Prairie South’s CIP is its engagement with the surrounding communities through its School Community Council (SCC) program. According to Finell, the purpose of the SCC governance model is to strengthen relationships and address individual needs at the community level through engagement. “The diversity within our communities is not an obstacle to overcome, but a point of celebration and inspiration,” he remarks. “Our schools are a part of their communities, and we want to prepare our students to succeed as individuals and give back to their communities.”
Finell began his career in teaching in 1976 and spent 10 years as a principal before moving onto senior administration roles for the past 16 years. He joined Prairie South in 2006 and was appointed director of education last year. “Certainly there’s a great deal of growth going on for everyone right now,” he notes. “As we’re moving to a real focus on learning for all students, we have restructured, our roles have changed and we really have an opportunity to progress.
“We realize we need more tools and more training to support each other,” Finell continues. “We need to be able to communicate and focus on things that are important. As we grow, we are directed into either new growth or a deeper understanding of growth. And I think that’s what makes this so exciting and personally rewarding – being able to see the growth as it generates momentum.”
