Overview

A Series of Helpful Monographs Developed by the Council of Ontario Directors of Education. The Council of Ontario Directors of Education (CODE) is an advisory and consultative organization composed of the CEOs of each of the 72 District School Boards in Ontario; Public, Catholic and French Language.

Objectives

From a letter of introduction by Frank Kelly, Executive Director of CODE:

"As an association, the Council of Ontario Directors of Education provides support services to its members. This includes sharing of best practices and practical information to enhance job performance. All leaders in education look to best practices. There is always value in knowing how someone else has performed a task or solved an issue."

Overview

A Series of Helpful Monographs Developed by the Council of Ontario Directors of Education. The Council of Ontario Directors of Education (CODE) is an advisory and consultative organization composed of the CEOs of each of the 72 District School Boards in Ontario; Public, Catholic and French Language.

Objectives

From a letter of introduction by Frank Kelly, Executive Director of CODE:

"As an association, the Council of Ontario Directors of Education provides support services to its members. This includes sharing of best practices and practical information to enhance job performance. All leaders in education look to best practices. There is always value in knowing how someone else has performed a task or solved an issue."

Overview

The new directors of education participate in a Mentoring program through their affiliate. This program has been a positive assistance to directors over the past several years.

A brief outline of each program will be posted here shortly.

Course Overview

This course will consist of five (5) modules:
1. Corporate Communications – Background Preparation
2. Overview of Types of Communication and Symbolic Communications – Focus on Students
3. Structural Communications – System & School Supports
4. Political Communications – Media, Stakeholders
5. Human Relations Communications – Staff Relations, Internal Audits

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- demonstrate the use of the four types of communications presented in the workshop in relation to issues from the Ontario context
- enhance awareness of strategies for symbolic communications that are effective in gaining the commitment of all stakeholders to a vision that focuses on students
- explain the present model of structural communications in their district, outlining roles and responsibilities, history and costs
- demonstrate knowledge of effective strategies for political communications to use in working with the media and the general public
- formulate effective strategies for human relations communications that ensure a "no surprises" policy for the staff
- apply the knowledge gained from this course to develop an internal communications audit to gather information about the effectiveness of their district's internal communications.

Course Overview

A critical role of educational leaders is to provide the necessary leadership for curriculum management and monitoring. This course allows participants to consider key features of a system curriculum management and monitoring model and gain insight to practical problems presented in case studies.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- analyze the leadership role of educational leaders in the area of curriculum
- become familiar with models for positive and critical review of curriculum
- examine case studies and apply their knowledge to practical problems and solutions

Course Overview

In this course, participants will be developing assessment literacy skills to enhance their ability to analyze data for improvement in student achievement. The participants will also learn about the various types of data to be used, how to integrate data sets to extract meaning from data. Through the use of specific sets of focus questions, participants will begin to analyze student achievement data, school environmental and parental data.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- know how to acquire and analyze data
- know how to sort and prioritize data for decision making establish a procedure/model for data use within a Board

Course Overview

This course focuses on difficult issues other than emergency situations or crises such as bomb threats, death of students or staff members, sexual assault on a student, a bus accident, a gun in the school, etc. It is assumed that board procedures for such incidents are in place. Participants will learn how to rethink and redesign a problem or difficult issue challenging their board, i.e. lower costs, raise quality, reschedule. This course will help participants cultivate self-managed teams, develop a communication plan that stresses consensus, support and planning during each step of the problem solving process.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- define processes for handling difficult issues
- identify and assign roles for problem solving
- develop a communication plan for appropriate stakeholders

Course Overview

The work of the supervisory officer is about assessing change and its impact on boards of education. This course includes the study of a detailed audit of recent changes to education in Ontario prepared by Kenneth Leithwood, Michael Fullan and Nancy Watson entitled "The Schools We Need: A New Blueprint for Ontario". The course also enhances the ability of participants to define what is important to change by using a decision screen of key questions. In addition, participants will, through networking, be able to identify boards with similar priority issues to those in their board.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- understand methods to assess change and its impact on their board and their job
- be able to define what is important
- gain knowledge on how to work with information in order to know what is happening in other jurisdictions

Course Overview

This course will introduce participants to concepts of networks and networking; to networking skill development; to assessing one's own networking ability; to planning and maintaining a network. Each person's network will differ and will reflect his/her personal knowledge, expertise, skills, interests and professional background.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- understand how to contact colleagues with similar portfolios
- gain awareness of the value of associations
- be aware of how to maintain effective participation with colleagues

Course Overview

This course will assist educational leaders to consider their personal expertise with technology as related to their current workflow. As well, this course will examine and assist participants to plan personally appropriate alternatives and how to improve their own mobility and communication skills through technology.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- acquire a greater awareness of available supportive technologies
- discover how innovative uses of technology can make educational leaders better communicators and can improve their personal productivity and mobility
- appreciate how technology supports educational leaders in working with communities of interest in the information age

Course Overview

Presently there is a global focus on examining what boards, all kinds of boards, should and should not be doing. Senior administrators recognize that there are a variety of beliefs about the purpose of school boards voiced from a variety of different viewpoints. Acknowledging these beliefs, helping boards develop a sense of purpose, fulfilling the required mandates and leading the organization forward are critical elements of the role of senior administrators and are to be covered in this course.

Course Objectives

- study alternative forms of governance
- analyze strengths of different models
- understand governance processes
- determine how to enlist key community leaders in supporting public education

Course Overview

Directors and Supervisory Officers are accountable for the implementation of Ministry and Board initiatives. In this course, participants will examine critical factors that are necessary for the successful implementation of a system wide initiative. Recent research on effective professional development will be presented to help educational leaders in their work in this area.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- analyze factors necessary to implement a system wide initiative
- become aware of potential pitfalls
- become familiar with recent research on large scale implementation for improvement
- enhance their knowledge of the key factors by examining recent Ontario Ministry of Education publications (Building Pathways to Success, The Report of the Program Pathways for Students at Risk work group)
- apply new knowledge to their own Board context

Course Overview

This course consists of five units:

1. Political Information, Provincial and Local Contexts: political astuteness
2. Government Sources: Accessing
3. Soft Skills: Knowledge, Communication, Thinking
4. Global Trends in Education: Academic Thinking, Student Achievement
5. Knowing your Board: Policies, Procedures, Local Sources

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- be able to define sources of information
- establish how to acquire information of value
- be able to work with day to day information to make it useful to the supervisory officer

Course Overview

With an emphasis on how the supervisory officer can manage effectively and efficiently, this course will deal with all aspects of the provision of learning environments. This course will include leadership strategies, teamwork, best practices, analysis of techniques for improvement and a framework for developing effective learning systems.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- develop a "personal" vision of NEW education and to express it to stakeholders
- understand how to identify priorities and establish focused direction for student achievement
- become aware of required need to upgrade leadership and management skills

Course Overview

This course has been designed to provide educational leaders a forum to discuss change theories and stress management practices. The understanding of managing change and maintaining balance in one's life is a key component to effective leadership.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- be able to provide leadership training in dealing with change
- increase their understanding of the change process
- analyze and gain facility with effective change implementation strategies
- explore stress and its management relative to change as a stressor and change as a management strategy

Course Overview

Educational leaders understand that effective communication, decision-making and problem-solving skills are essential to positive relations between the school and community. This course includes an examination of the sources of conflict and the factors that lead to an escalation of conflict. Managing conflict is key and so the course also includes theory and practice of negotiation and mediation.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- develop an understanding of the specific skills/strategies necessary to resolve disputes
- further develop skills in building trust with members of the community, learn to engage others through shared problem solving and conflict resolution
- reinforce their support of student character
- act as role models who demonstrate life-long learning and engage in collaborative learning opportunities

Course Overview

With an emphasis on how educational leaders can manage effectively and efficiently, this course on project management will deal with all aspects of the provision of learning environments such as models of leadership, team work, problem solving and removing barriers to effectiveness.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- gain knowledge about managing group processes and setting clear targets
- understand the structure needed to have deliverables which influence changes
- understand accountability based on available budgets and resources

Course Overview

Educational leaders have the responsibility to recognize the diversity in their school system, at the board and school level. This course sets out to provide participants with resources, processes and strategies to address their mandate of recognizing diversity that exists in urban, rural, large and small boards and within their communities.

Course Objectives

- gain knowledge of gathering current data on diversity in their systemse
- be able to establish process to assess needs
- be able to develop and implement a plan to work with diversity

Course Overview

This course has been designed so that participants learn how to measure their own leadership performance; find ways to help their Board to improve the performance of the leadership team; address succession planning and discover the potential of the OPSOA Leadership Model.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- analyze and understand the leadership model developed and approved by supervisory officers across the province
- gain knowledge and understanding of how to measure his/her own leadership practices against the OPSOA leadership model
- develop a practical application for the model involving its intended uses: goal setting, professional development, job performance measure, etc.

Course Overview

This course will examine the rights and responsibilities of Ontarians, primarily children, youth and families, within the context of Ontario law (mainly education) and federal law (mainly criminal). The course will seek to map the landscapes which provide our rights and connect them to our responsibilities as individuals and members of the educational community. The interaction between the education community and other specific communities such as law enforcement, social agencies and unions or associations will be explored through case studies.

Being a legal/political based course, it will introduce an overview of the legal and institutional structure of Ontario political culture. The profound impact of the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, and the implementation of the Equality of Rights (Sec. 15) will have significant influence on the course content. Although, predominantly focused on Ontario law and social policy, as such relates to education, it will be comparative in nature by providing a national context with regard to precedent setting decisions in other provinces that have shaped or will shape education decision-making in Ontario.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- develop skills in dealing with current legal problems
- develop an understanding of the law that will enable them to assist senior staff to find positive ways of handling legal difficulties
- gain knowledge in order to avoid costly prosecutions for educational systems
- be able to interpret and apply legislation, regulations, policies and procedures to resolve pertinent issues

Course Overview

In this course participants will learn about frameworks and models for effective, efficient organizational operations. Participants will discuss problem-solving scenarios which will involve the application of a framework.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- gain knowledge and understanding of identifying critical factors when determining appropriate problem solving processes
- gain knowledge of and understanding of the role of data-based decision making in effective, efficient organizational operations
- enhance awareness of the importance of enlisting the critical support of stakeholders in order to foster positive school board relations
- enhance understanding of the essential elements of a plan when reporting at a board or community level
- enhance ability to describe key elements of effective communication with all relevant stakeholder groups
- provide opportunities to think critically about and evaluate a variety of frameworks / models for organizational effectiveness

Course Overview

Directors and Supervisory Officers in remote boards encounter similar challenges and opportunities as their colleagues in urban centres but also face unique problems that require an additional set of skills. This course is designed to assist educational leaders with strategies to assess resources in a realistic manner; to examine their broad scope of network opportunities in order to increase effectiveness at all levels of the board's operation; and to identify the key components in a yearly plan for the senior team of the board.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- be able to effectively assess resources
- gain knowledge on taking advantage of networks
- understand the method to develop an effective yearly plan

Course Overview

This course has been designed to provide a forum for the discussion of effective team building. Participants will explore criteria for effective teams, individual leadership styles, communication plans and decision-making processes. This course is designed for Directors of Education and Supervisory Officers, but the principles for effective teams and the criteria to assess effectiveness also apply to Board Office personnel, school administrators, teachers and students. By changing the case studies in the course, all employee groups can benefit from this course which focuses on qualities of effective teams.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- gain knowledge on how to communicate team direction
- understand how to recognize strengths
- learn how to provide and delegate clear assignments
- understand the essential elements of real empowerment

Course Overview

This course is designed to give participants an opportunity to acquire knowledge of current policies and protocols pertaining to effectively interfacing with business officials at all management levels. Course content is structured to foster a deeper understanding of how to manage educational change within current parameters and specified provincial requirements.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- develop an understanding of the financial, legal, academic, political and cultural context of working with business officials within local structures
- recognize the importance of being able to collaborate effectively and in a timely fashion with all key stakeholders while managing educational change
- develop processes and identify contacts for using the knowledge gained to successfully manage a project
- develop an understanding of the legal context of the business official
- foster the essential qualities of leadership identified in the OPSOA Leadership Review, 2004

Course Overview

Strong relationships and trust between elected officials and senior administration can have a positive impact on decisions which promote student performance and achievement. This course has been designed to assist participants to work with elected officials in a variety of situations. Participants will examine strategies to use in order to make connections and decisions at Board, Municipal and Provincial levels.

Course Objectives

In this course participants will:
- study various political scenarios
- develop leadership skills
- raise their awareness of current political climates within and outside Ontario
- increase awareness of the new role of the trustee in the 21st century