Superior-Greenstone District School Board (SGDSB)
When a young man walked into then, Principal Maria Vasanelli’s office holding a file folder, it represented the culmination of a journey that had started years earlier. He was there because as a 13-year-old student, his teacher had looked past his struggles and seen a leader. For Vasanelli, now the CEO for the Superior North Catholic District School Board, that moment—helping a former student refine a resume for his dream job—is the "why" behind every systemic decision she makes.
"This job is about relationships and it's about people," says Vasanelli, who is looking ahead to retirement after a remarkable career in education spanning more than three decades. "It is not about you as the leader. It is about the people you are serving."
A Lesson She Has Never Forgotten
Early in her teaching career, Vasanelli had a student who changed how she thought about education. He came from a challenging background and struggled in school. After presenting a current events article on poverty to his class, he came to Vasanelli with an idea: a "Toys for Tots" campaign.
She asked him to put together a business plan. He thought it over, came back with a strategy, recruited classmates, made morning announcements, and organized the school to collect donations. By Christmas, her classroom was overflowing with toys.
"You could see his confidence grow," she recalls. "I thought, this is what education is about. It is not just about informing students—it is about forming them, where they take information and move into a transformative stage where they actually do something about it."
That student eventually tracked Vasanelli down years later when she was principal at another school to ask for her help with his resume in hopes of becoming a sports announcer. They spent the afternoon working on it together.
It is that kind of full-circle impact that has guided every decision she has made throughout her career in education.
The Path to the CEO's Chair
Vasanelli came to Canada from Italy at an early age. Her family came for the opportunities provided. Education was a symbol of what was possible.
A mentor encouraged her to work in K–12 schools before pursuing her original goal of becoming a professor, and she fell in love with it. She spent nearly a decade as an intermediate teacher before moving into administration, then principal, then superintendent. She has also worked at two universities in the faculty of education. Her path was deliberate: she worked at a large southern Ontario board, a mid-size board in Thunder Bay, and the rural northern board she now leads, where roughly half of all students are Indigenous. That breadth gave her a perspective no single system could provide.
To better understand how to run a complex organization, she also earned an MBA in community economic development. "You need to understand organizational leadership if you are going to run something effectively,” she says. Vasanelli holds an MBA and has long seen project management, stakeholder analysis, and financial accountability as essential tools of the role.
Building a System That Works for Every Student
As CEO, Vasanelli moved away from rigid hierarchies toward a flat organizational model where every department—from IT to human resources to plant and custodial services—contributes to shared decision-making. Twice a month, her full management team meets together, and titles take a back seat.
"We are all on the same level," she says. "No one ever looks at somebody and says, 'That is not your area expertise.” All ideas are welcome.
That culture is anchored in the board's multi-year strategic plan—a living document, not a shelf decoration. Once a month, a principal comes to a Board meeting to do a presentation using real classroom visuals to show exactly how the plan's four pillars—including teaching excellence and Indigenous education—are playing out for students.
The positive outcomes are unmistakable. Upon her initial visits to the facilities, Vasanelli recognized an urgent need for structural modernization and aesthetic upgrades. Good lighting, air quality and accessibility are essential for student learning.
After learning that the outdated, stark architecture of the older buildings carried painful historical associations with institutional schooling for some Indigenous families, she launched a comprehensive five-year renovation initiative. By introducing vibrant colors, spacious open layouts, and culturally reflective artwork, the physical environment was transformed. This intentional redesign profoundly altered how our parent community connected with the education system, resulting in stronger parent engagement and improved relationships.
Bridging Policy with Creativity in the North
CEOs are the bridge between provincial policy and classroom reality—and sometimes those two things may not appear to line up. Vasanelli has been willing to push that boundary when students needed her to.
When provincial rules made it nearly impossible to recruit teachers to remote northern communities due to lack of financial incentives, she found a creative solution: providing free housing in small towns where none was available, so schools could stay open. "You have to be able to take informed, calculated risks in order to make a difference," she says. Her favourite saying captures her approach to problems: Let's figure it out.
She also led a technology push that equipped every student with a laptop and placed 3D printers in classrooms, connecting rural students to opportunities that had previously been out of reach. The board's current strategic plan adds another layer: a library in every classroom, because technology and books belong together.
Governance, Integrity, and Knowing Your Role
As she approaches retirement, Vasanelli is direct about what helps a CEO succeed in serving their unique community of students: understanding exactly where your authority begins and ends—and having the courage to own it.
When the question of flying a Pride flag became a flashpoint at some boards, with some trustees getting involved in decision making, public conflict followed. Vasanelli treated it as an operational decision within the CEO's authority to make. "Knowing the difference between governance and operations keeps things from escalating unnecessarily," she says.
Her leadership philosophy has been shaped by years of reading widely. The book that impacted her most early in her career is Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, the story of a leader who held his crew together through impossible conditions by putting their well-being above everything else. "He is an optimist grounded in reality," she says. “That makes sense to me.”
A respected voice among her CODE peers, Vasanelli has mentored many directors and superintendents, who reach out to her on an informal basis, working through difficult decisions at their own boards.
For those aspiring to the CEO's chair, her advice is simple: put students first and keep your values intact. "If you can keep 75 to 80 percent of the people you work with moving in the same direction," she adds, "you are doing something right."
"I've stayed true to my values no matter the challenges" Vasanelli says. "It is fantastic to look back and say, I would have done that again."