100 YEARS OF CEO LEADERSHIP
The changing role of the CEO/Superintendent in Canada
Forty years ago, in Willow Bunch SK, Guy was appointed to his first principalship.Director of Education, Alex Postnikoff, who held education positions from the 1930’s to 1984, after about 50 years of leadership, offered this advice: Guy, Guy, Guy, don’t get too excited over this issue, 50 years from now it won’t matter a hill of beans what we decided here today.
Alex knew this since he had been in education for about 50 years! He had initially been a government Superintendent, then boards of education decided that they preferred to hire their own CEOs and differentiated them from government superintendents by
naming them Directors of Education.
Circles continue, as Nova Scotia colleagues have gone from being CEO’s of boards to now adapting to no elected boards and working directly for their Ministry of
Education. Originally, hundreds of Saskatchewan school boards with rural one-room school-houses were reduced and eventually amalgamated into the 27 existing boards of today. CEO responsibilities changed when they became responsible for so many more schools. In some instances, especially in rural areas, the geography consisted of thousands of kilometres. In the 2010s and onward governments were downsizing bureaucracies across the country. As the layers of departments were stripped back so were the supports for CEO’s, leading to a rise in site-based management and the need for CEOs to develop principals for more centralized roles.
Today, CEOs need to pay much more attention to financing of education. In order to bring in innovations, revenue streams need to be created and then accessed to drive the innovations we want to see. Hence, trips to see, touch, feel other innovations happening in North America have been needed since local supports are practically
non-existent. The emphasis is on knowing what is happening elsewhere and to then ensure relevant student learning in the world is brought back to your own district. The onset of Technology forced CEOs to be more involved in changing teacher pedagogy especially since teacher education institutions are so slow to adapt to the new world. Paradigms favour status quo – and that doesn’t cut it anymore.
CEOs need to find innovative ways of changing how our learning environments will foster such 21st Century skill development. CEOs will need to find ways to create time to develop and implement 21st century support systems for all stakeholders and they’ll largely be on their own to do this as traditional supports are pulled back. Partnerships
will be extremely important and how we get involved in these to support our kids.
In September, Guy celebrates his 50th year in education. In 2020 we WILL encourage Guy to share the excitement of his leader influence and advocacy over the past half century because it makes ALL the difference.
Guy Tetrault is the Director of Education for the Sun West School Division in SK.
