Three Canadian Rockies Public Schools will have new principals to begin the 2015-16 school year in the Bow Valley this September.
Taking over principal duties at Exshaw School is Debra Anstey, who replaces retiring Paula Hanson. Anstey is the current principal at Elizabeth Rummel School. She will be replaced by Brian Wityshyn, current principal at Lawrence Grassi Middle School. Nadine Trottier, who has been LGMS vice-principal for the past two years, will move into the principal role and Craig Kestle will take over vice-president duties.
While roles at CRPS may have interchanged, the division’s “inspiring learning” direction remains the same, said Superintendent Chris MacPhee.
“Research shows very clearly that moving principals after three to five years in schools can be an extremely beneficial piece so their understanding of the challenges at all levels of different schools face are understood throughout the entire administrative group, especially because we function as a school division and not as a division of schools,” said MacPhee.
In addition to the principal changes, CRPS has recently added a new assistant superintendent of learning and innovation to its fold. Violet Parsons-Pack brings an “extremely beneficial” skillset to the division with over 25 years of educational teaching background, said MacPhee.
For the past three years, Parsons-Pack worked as a senior education officer in achievement and accountability in Newfoundland under an amalgamated division of 259 schools.
“She will help move forward our goals of improving student learning and equality of education within our schools,” MacPhee said.
Parsons-Pack was struck by the “unified vision” at CRPS in her short time on duty and said it’s been great to see an innovative approach she believes is being practiced and utilized in schools.
“When I looked at the districts that are in Alberta and some of the innovation that’s going on here, and certainly the focus of this district, instructional leadership and distributional leadership and instructional excellence is really quite fascinating,” Parsons-Pack said.
“Coming here, where it’s smaller with the same kind of work I was doing there, it’s a more intense nature, I guess, because of the proximity of all the schools and the familiarly that you can develop with them.”
This will be Parsons-Pack’s second stint in Alberta, as she previously spent five years teaching in St. Paul in the ’90s.
