Presentation from Mr. Barry Litund

We had the pleasure of having Mr. Barry Litun present to our class today. Hi made the priority to be here, when he could have been packing for a trip he was going to take off for later today. Barry has a very interesting background and a real passion for leadership that was clearly shown to all that were present. He is very humble about some of the work that he has done, but here is a little taste of some of the initiatives that he has tackled as superintendent of Lethbridge Public school district # 51.

He has worked together to create a great sense of collaboration between all people involved. He worked with all 19 sets of administration to help implement change in the district that would be accepted from the schools instead of implementing top-down projects. He also involves all conceivable stakeholders in his town hall meetings. This allows him to have a more holistic view of the school district.

He also has a passion for equity for students. This would be a great challenge in any large school district, but he, with the rest of the people he works with, has went through great lengths to ensure that this happens to a more than reasonable degree.

Barry also has adopted, with the rest of the district, a vision for 21st century learning. This is not something that is tacked on to other plans, or is added later, but a concern in the forefront of decisions that are made.

Barry has a combination of foresight and flexibility that help him and the district to look to the future to make sure they are prepared for the unknown that is to come.

LSD 51 has also implemented a loosly coined term "forklift evergreening". This process would see the complete replacement of computers on a very large scale (all middle/high school stations) at once to help keep costs down. This is a great opportunity to keep costs down, and ensure equity of technology at the different schools. This would be a great opportunity, if they were willing (and no, I did not even talk to them about this) to allow smaller schools and or districts to make purchases with them to allow this large scale purchase and consistency of hardware to be passed on to other school districts that do not have the same opportunity for various reasons.

These were the key points that Barry summarized at the end of his presentation
Technology has to be dependable
Technology has to have a central vision
Technology has to be safe and secure
Technology has to have a back up plan
Parents and students have to access information
Technology has to allow for individual technologies (allow for people to bring in their own technology components that they are familiar with)

Overall Barry seems to have a great deal of vision for the district and does a great job of seeing that the vision is shared and accomplished. He has also found many great people and organizations to help him and the district in such pursuits.