5630 Guest Leader – Mr. John Percevault

Mr. John Percevault
District IT Leader
Lethbridge School District #51


John spoke to us today, and gave an overview of the work he's done within the Lethbridge School District over the past two years. Since starting with the district in 2007, there have been many significant changes. I would argue that the change has been revolutionary. He posed a question to us as he started to tell the story of "51".

Identify seven main events or key decisions that happened in District #51 from June 2007 to date. What were the decisions made to move the district forward?

He preceded to explain how he was interviewed and hired for this postion, and continued the narrative over the next two years. Because he works so closely with Barry Litun, it's not surprising to hear some similar things, but from a slightly more practical IT side.

1. First, there is a clear Vision from the Superintendent. Without this, nothing can follow. This was hilighted by John a number of times, and seems to be a central focus. There needed to be a unified vision throughout the school system. This allowed significant buy-in from the teachers as well. There are regular scheduled meetings to refresh the vision: the department keeps revisiting it. More than just the Superintendent's vision, this is a collaborative vision that came out of research into what the stakeholders were looking at - (teachers, admin, community). This lead to the white paper that John presented to us today. There was a dedicated committment to wanting external voices and a unique committee.
2. There was a physical centralization of technology and support.
3. There will now be equitable access to technology. It was important to recognize disparity and make all schools as equitable as possible.
4. There was a move towards building a shared funding framework.
5. A new trend was research into the "actual" inventory within the school board. There was a specific strategy and evergreening process for implementation.
6. There was a move to an AISI project with job-embedded time (ten half days per year). This meant there was systemic planning in place.
7. Aligning the technology infrastructure. (A concept John mentioned, but he did not include any detail.)

I think it was important to hear about this school board's story from another perspective. Although Barry and John work closely together, they have different roles and different responsibilites and each could offer his specific opinion.