April brings our focus to our District’s value of innovation. Innovation is a new idea, a way of doing something, or a new tool to help us do our work. Innovation often feels scary at the beginning, especially when our innovation feels foreign or daring. The thought of things being so different can be overwhelming. We take time, we grow our innovation up, and eventually we look around to see the world is different because of our curiosity and our bravery to innovate!
Reflecting back on our nearly 4 years as a Board, I can think of many ways we have innovated during our time. One of the ways that comes to mind is the way we have leveraged our values to start creating policies that do not speak to a specific outcome or action, and rather to a lens that requires reflection. We are required to slow things down and observe the impact and potential outcomes of our decisions through the experiences of various stakeholders. Since September, when we added Truth and Reconciliation as a standing item to our Education Committee agenda, we have been exploring learning with an Indigenous perspective around the Board table.
We have been reviewing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action and we have been exploring how we can approach our role as a governance board differently. We are also considering how we can reconcile our roles and responsibilities as a board and create meaningful opportunity for Indigenous learners, their families, and their communities, to exercise autonomy and self-actualization in their education experience. Other questions on our minds include: how do we become leaders in addressing historical inequities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners within our scope of authority? And, how can we push our leadership in this area and encourage others to follow?
The Province has just released an action plan based on the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It is a clear call to action for all British Columbians to do their part to make this plan a reality and a success. In order to achieve this our Board will need to stretch ourselves to experiment and innovate. Let’s be brave and be the early adopters of action. Let’s innovate as we implement the calls to action with our local culture to create meaningful, tangible, and heartfelt action that make UNDRIP a reality for the Sunshine Coast School District. Let’s all look forward to the day we look up and realize we have made the world around us different with our innovation.