School Leadership

They shared an overview of the vision, values, and guiding principles that shape both their leadership and the student experience at Whytecliff Agile Learning Centres.

Ilona Davidson, Principal

At Focus Foundation of BC we work from a strength based approach with a focus on students' strengths and abilities. Each student has an IEP that helps them set and meet their educational, social, emotional and physical goals. This approach has a proven track record; this year we had a 95% graduation success rate with our grade 12 students.

Teaching Philosophy:
I want to create an exciting leaning environment that is challenging, interactive and respectful. I believe students learn best by being engaged and knowing it is okay to make mistakes. When students leave my classroom I want them to feel confident and have a passion for life long learning.

Why I work at Whytecliff
I work as a Teacher and Principal for the Focus Foundation of BC. I work here because I can’t imagine another job existing that has the perfect combination of challenges and successes.  Whytecliff School has become a part of what defines me as a professional and as a person, and it is a part of me that I am extremely proud of.

We asked them about their approach to education, the mission of their school, and the vision guiding their decisions.

We talked with the leadership team at Whytecliff Agile Learning Centres to learn about their approach to education, their philosophy and school culture. Our interviewees are Stephen Paras (Educator & Site Coordinator), Robert Kissner (Executive Director & Principal), Vanessa Stanley (Educator & Vice Principal), and Shelley Donald (Principal & Educator).

• Highlights from the interview

  • In our model of education, the student is in the middle. Everything is designed around the student, not designed around the curriculum.

  • For some eager people, the grades motivate them. For the majority, they don't. They feel bad about what they can't do. If we can translate that to an intrinsic motivation, like I feel important, I feel valued by what I do, I'm contributing to a bigger project, then all of a sudden, they have a new identity and a new connection to education, and they start to like education.

  • The moment they [the students] begin to like education, things happen. And that is our goal is that they would enjoy the process because it's working.

  • In our school, it isn't the identity as in 'What am I good at within the curriculum?' It's what you bring to the table. What talents do you have that you can offer to do a project or to engage in a group setting that if I'm there, this will work better.

  • We are less of an institution. We are more of a family. In a family, all the dynamics that exist where everybody has equal worth and they all contribute in a different way. What we're trying to do is we want the group to be engaged. We want all of them to be able to contribute.

  • When we're talking to the staff, we say there are two things that have to take place in every conversation: letting the students know they belong here and that they belong because they're contributing to the group. And they have value. We have to help them find what it is that makes them unique so that they are valued.

  • We keep adding to our collection different ways to make the learning experience be something that is intrinsic, it isn't extrinsic.

  • We often will arrange for an interested parent to bring their child with them and to coordinate and to experience the school while it's happening. Why? It's easy to say, Oh, we're this or we're that. But it's when they walk through and experience something, they go, I get it. I understand.

  • One of our regular procedures is to arrange a shadow day where we tell the students at the school that we're going to be bringing in three or four new kids. We want them to be able to find out what is life like here … if they can walk through the experience, they then will come home to the parents and say, I could see myself in the school.

  • In providing positive opportunities for kids, you help grow their emotions. Education is really about how you think and you can help children to think differently, more positively about themselves, and learn to love learning.

  • We operate from what we call an ethic of care. Ethic of care is where I care for you in the way that you want to be cared for versus the way I think you should be cared for. We want to help kids to love learning, not to graduate. That's what's different about Whytecliff. Because when you love learning, you know how to think.

    We operate from what we call an ethic of care. Ethic of care is where I care for you in the way that you want to be cared for versus the way I think you should be cared for. We want to help kids to love learning, not to graduate. That's what's different about Whytecliff. Because when you love learning, you know how to think.

  • That's why we call them Agile Learning Centres. We actually coined the phrase Agile Education in 1994 … The focus is on the skill and the focus is on the experience. And that's really what the public, in a broader sense, are wanting for their children.

  • To my knowledge, we're the only school in North America that's also accredited by CARF as a Positive Youth Development Center. So we're using growth, and we're not trying to fix kids or position kids. We're just giving kids experiences of growth. Here, kids become so motivated that parents can't believe it. That's the effect that places like this have. They're a catalyst for families that are looking for directions to grow.

  • In traditional schools or in most other schools, they don't necessarily have staff attuned to truly listen, to hear, and understand those gaps. So it's always marching ahead, forgetting who you're leaving behind.

  • We look for people who love kids, and it's really easy to find people who love kids. What's hard to find is people who also love to learn and who really themselves are motivated by growth… We want people to drive home at night and say that I do the best possible job I could today because this is a garden. It's the right soil, the right sunshine, and the right water.

  • This really becomes the kids' home … We'll have kids asking if we're open on Saturday and Sunday. We get kids wanting us to be open in the summer.

  • What's so nice about it is that we don't differentiate the learning needs kids have, because we're not treating you by that. And so kids are able to help each other. The biggest shock for parents is the fact that everybody can be who they are and there's no judgment from the other kids.

  • The care and the student-centered education leads to intrinsic motivation, which is what is most important to us.

  • When you think about the trends in education, we are already doing so many of them, be it competency-based assessment, individualized education, experiential learning, or outdoor education. The list of trends are things that we are at the forefront of, and we can do that because we have such small class sizes. I think most education models at this time are trying to move towards what we already do because it has been identified that all kids need this.

  • We don't really consider ourselves teachers. We're not teaching. We're facilitators and collaborators and mentors and learners. Students come with so much of their own knowledge, especially when it comes to IT and things. They know more than I do. I learn alongside them. Then they are willing to learn alongside me.

  • We don't really assess growth, but we do think about process and progress with the students and it's their growth in what they choose to be doing. What area do they choose to grow in and how do we facilitate them in that area? Then how do they decide if they've accomplished a goal or not? It's always very collaborative.

  • I love it here because I get to teach the way I want to teach, and I get to build better relationships with kids. I love working with small groups of kids and helping the “underdog” kids.

  • I took kids to a wildlife rescue place, and we built things for the rescue center. So the kids got the experience of woodwork and math, but also volunteering. It was a real project where they were building things that would help animals, and they got to see the animals using the things that they had built. It was transformative for some kids.

  • It would be great for all students to get an education like this, but in a public school system, it's just not practical. We can do this because we're smaller. We don't have classes of 30 kids, and it makes our program more welcoming, feel more safe, feel more individualized to the to the kids.

  • I got a letter from a parent to say that her son woke up and told her that he wasn't feeling like he wanted to go to school today, but he felt he had to be here because it was a shadow day for some new kids, and it was his job to come in and make the kids feel welcome… He did that just out of his own volition. No one told him that that was his job, but he knew that he was part of a community and that he felt responsible for helping other kids feel welcome.

  • When you see the kid's faces light up with what they're learning and what they're suddenly able to do that they never thought they could do, and they understand, and they get so excited in their understanding. That's when you know you're doing the right thing.

  • For one of our projects, we took a Dungeons & Dragons theme and applied it to social studies and learning about a journey along the Silk Road.

  • We get so many kids that come in having just absolutely hated school in their public schools. And they come in and they see right away that we're not set up like a school. They don't feel like they're in school when they're here.

  • We spend so much time focused on just having fun and letting them be kids. And then they start to learn. Then they start to love coming here.