Advancing Leadership Development in Ontario Schools with Lumina Learning

Advancing personal and professional leadership development in Ontario Schools

 Don Marshall, Lumina Learning Practitioner   

I have worked with several independent educational projects in public and separate school boards over a number of years. I have worked with people ranging from superintendents to school administrators to leadership teams. What started as a single professional leadership program intervention has now progressed to implementation at a number of jurisdictional school boards, schools, and educational settings. Programs involve large groups of district- and school-based staff and personnel, and have now extended to the student level. Implementation models include one-on-one mediation, pair coaching, and small and large group facilitation for individuals and identified teams, both locally and provincially formed.

Lumina Learning has received the support of the two Provincial Principal Leadership Organizations as well as the largest Teacher Federation:

• Ontario Principals Council (OPC)
• Catholic Principals’ Council, Ontario (CPCO)
• Elementary Teachers of Ontario (ETFO)

Business Need

 The Ontario Leadership Framework (OLF) was published by the Ontario Ministry of Education and placed into regulation in 2014. It provides a roadmap for school boards to develop and put advanced leadership concepts to work daily to meet educational goals and achieve concrete results. The framework provides principals, vice-principals, system leaders, and aspiring leaders with a clear leadership overview. It also sets out behaviors and expectations that meet the standards of provincial accountability. These are established as professional domains at both the “Personal Resources” and the “Professional Practices” level.

There was a need to create awareness and to provide school boards with a comprehensive tool that allowed for self-reflection and growth both in personal and professional leadership, while providing a means to meet the accountability standards established by the OLF.

Lumina Learning Solution

A meeting with the Ontario Principals’ Council (OPC) Director of Professional Learning garnered acknowledgement of the benefits of Lumina Learning and the establishment of an internally certified Lumina Practitioner site. A document was developed that aligned the components of Lumina Spark and Lumina Leader to the practices and expectations outlined within the OLF.

The typical program involves the leader and their coach working through a Lumina Spark facilitation and then having their learning attached to a series of structured program modules. As they approach the end of the program and/or are promoted to the next level of administration, they go through a Lumina Leader facilitation with their newly assigned mentor and continue a similar pattern of modular learning and direct experience. In some project sites, a Leader 360 is completed as they approach their formal performance evaluation. The 360 review is used to build a leadership growth plan that is shared and made functional within the establishment of the performance expectations. Lumina Learning is used as a primary resource, and the delivery is customized to connect with jurisdictional program structures and implementation models.

Results

Over 4000 individual Lumina portraits have been produced, and counting, and Lumina Learning materials continue to be integrated at many levels.

Customized programs using Lumina Learning materials are now embedded at multiple levels within the districts, from senior-level district administration down to the student level. Both the provincial professional organizations (OPC and CPCO) maintain active internal Lumina Learning Practitioner sites. Several of the public school boards have also implemented internal practitioner sites and service their constituency through the trained Lumina Practitioners and monitor through the staff and leadership development departments of their school board.