Heritage Heights School Principal Joanne Higgins and Vice Principal Lauren Frandle provided Foothills School Division Trustees with an overview of the school’s Education Plan. As relatively new administrators to the school and with the addition of seventeen new staff over the past two years, Joanne and Lauren’s work has included a focus on solidifying Heritage Heights’ identity and what “Husky Pride” stands for. They are using their Vision (Excellence, Integrity, Leadership) and Mission (Celebrating Our Leaders) to drive their school goals forward:
1. Design for Understanding: Teachers work in teams to design learning that focuses on what really matters and how to assess that. This is also a focus for Joanne and Lauren in their work with other school administrators in Foothills.
2. Character: Heritage Heights is working towards becoming a Leader in Me School, a program based on the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. They started with staff training to develop a common focus and language, and are now expanding their efforts to guide students in the development of these attributes.
3. Engaging Stakeholders: Building on clear feedback from parents on the types of communication they value most, classroom teachers send monthly emails regarding student learning while communications from administration focus on the “big picture”.
Concerned about the relatively small number of parents who completed the provincial school satisfaction survey, Heritage Heights is developing its own survey in an effort to gather more comprehensive data on parent satisfaction levels. Student survey data (provincial Tell Them From Me) indicates they feel they have teachers who care about them and are engaged in their learning.