In an era of learning truth and working towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, education institutions across Canada are in the midst of decolonizing their education spaces. Fundamental to this process are the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action to educate settler teacher candidates to develop culturally appropriate…

This paper is concerned with long term strategic planning in higher education and focuses on Ontario's strategic mandate agreement (SMA) sector planning framework. In 2012, the province initiated its new SMA planning process by requiring all higher education institutions to propose their own strategies for their academic visions, missions, and…

School board trustees play an important role in the education of children throughout Ontario. Using an online survey of Ontario residents, expectations of school board trustees are explored in detail. The survey included an open-ended question that asked respondents what role they see being performed by trustees, as well as a question that asked…

Ontario school districts are struggling to respond to racism in schooling and society. How has the literature on school district reform in Ontario addressed these ongoing and growing concerns? Through a narrative synthesis and a systematic literature review, we map and characterize the existing literature on school district reform in Ontario in…

International education has become a policy sector of increasing importance to the Canadian province of Manitoba. Provincial governments with opposing political ideologies can impact international education policy differently. Using narratives as an analytical framework, we identify themes by examining the approaches taken to the international…

In late 2020 the Government of Alberta's Ministry of Advanced Education sent a guidance document to Alberta post-secondary institutions to lay out how work-integrated learning was to be conducted. This document also informed the institutions that work-integrated learning should be included in all future program proposals. The guidelines were sent…

This case explores experiences of practicing care-centered leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case narrative is the author's anonymized account of responding with care ethics to specific challenges encountered during the pandemic and the complexities of transitioning into a new leadership role in 2020. The teaching notes and activities…

Decolonization and Indigenization of k-12 schooling is pressing and important and must move forward within the significant challenges and unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper I share what I learned in partnership with school leaders about leading Indigenization in a global pandemic. Through findings from a design-based…

The myriad of social, financial, material health, and educational inequities that continue to plague Indigenous communities was exacerbated by COVID-19. In order to place on spotlight on them, this case follows Star, an Indigenous Student Success Coordinator, as she navigated the policies and practices couched in the rhetoric of supporting the…

This mixed methods research design focuses on post-secondary institutions in Saskatchewan, Canada, its employees' experiences of working remotely, and the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on school leadership. Presented are the perceived challenges as well as the benefits of the "new" workplace since the COVID-19 crisis.…

In this article, we combine theories of teacher leadership, policy leadership, street-level leadership, and policy enactment to inform our novel conceptualization of teachers' policy leadership. We draw on data collected through a series of 3 focus group interviews with 31 secondary school teachers in Ontario between July 2020 and February 2021 to…

This study involved interviewing Canadian principals (N = 37) to determine how they responded to students with special education needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yamamoto et al.'s (2014) concept of critical incidents and Heine et al.'s (2006) meaning maintenance model were used to evaluate the transformational power of principals' pandemic…

This article is a case study describing the University College of the North's (UCN) response to the COVID-19 pandemic, outlining pandemic planning and management processes at UCN from March 11, 2020, to September 30, 2021. UCN's planning processes evolved from a top-down approach led by administration to an approach that saw greater shared…

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed the practice of school leadership, requiring greater flexibility, creativity, and innovation. Guided by institutional theory, this paper suggests that leadership adaptations are influenced by environmental pressures such as coercive (e.g., from governmental or regulatory agencies), mimetic (e.g.,…

COVID-19 has led many to question how education and schooling are supposed to continue in a world of uncertainty. This case follows the journey of Mariam, an Ontario elementary school principal, as she pivoted her leadership while transitioning between in-person and virtual schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case narrative describes the…