The Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division (GSACRD) picked up the 2010 Premier’s Award for School Boards Innovation and Excellence at last month’s Alberta School Board Association’s (ASBA) annual meeting for an initiative aimed at increasing the engagement of students, staff and parents.
The division asked staff a series of questions including what they receive from work, what they give at work and whether they are pleased with their own growth and learning.
Staff then worked together to interpret the data and develop action plans.
“We ensure that we’re responsive to what those needs are,” superintendent David Keohane, said last week.
“We’ve invested a lot of resource time and emphasis in working with our staff on this idea of employee engagement,” Keohane said.
According to him, the division defines engagement as “a psychological and emotional attachment that employees have from their work.”
When employees are highly engaged, the end result of their efforts improves, he said.
The division believes it is the first in Canada to link the measurement of employee engagement levels with the quality of student learning. Improvements in the Accountability Pillar results and the provincial achievement tests were both noted last year.
“Last year when student achievement was as high as it’s been in the last five to six years, that correlated with the highest level of employee engagement that we’ve seen in the last two to three years,” Keohane said.
According to the ASBA, the division received the award because the project was both innovative and impressive.
“We often hear that some teachers are disengaged from their work and their profession. This is a creative way to tackle that issue, thereby improving the quality of students’ environments,” said one judge.
Keohane said the award came with $3,000 and a crystal plaque.
