I have been reflecting on the women who have held leadership positions around me while I have grown up and entered into a leadership position myself.  These women have had a meaningful professional voice and one that I have valued for its shared wisdom, professionalism and authority.    As a backdrop, Kim Campbell was Prime Minister of Canada as I was entering my final year of high school and while I have no idea what the political issues were, I recall that there was a sense that having a female Prime Minister was exciting and positive for Canada.  The education faculty at University had strong female professors who were inspiring.  One of my practicum principals was female as was the principal where I was first hired. Both of these women were no nonsense, straightforward people both of whom I learned significant lessons from.  As I continued into education I encountered female school leaders in many schools around me and I was encouraged, challenged and motivated by their voices as I developed professionally in education.

In my workplace we have approximately 25 staff, 5 men and 20 women.  Three of the men are teachers, one is a custodian and I am the fifth.  The 20 female staff are lead teachers, administrative assistants, financial managers, learning support teachers, custodians and a librarian.  Our School Board consists of 10 people, 4 women and 6 men.  As I consider our school as a place where women belong and are given recognition, I feel that our culture is inclusive.  I interviewed two of our female staff members, a teacher and an educational assistant this week.  They feel that as women their voices are valued and respected and that there is opportunity to take leadership roles or pursue any opportunity within the school.  To broaden our conversation around inclusivity, we discussed the culture of our employees.  I was curious to know if they felt a divide between teaching staff and support staff.  They both agreed that their voices are seen as those of a team and valued equally.  This was good for me to hear as I specifically refer to all of our employees as staff and do not like to distinguish a hierarchy based on position.

If inclusion (Nugent, Pollack and Travis, 2016) is an area where I should specifically be paying attention to anywhere, it is perhaps around age.  Much of my staff is 40+ and there are occasionally light hearted comments made about the patterns of behaviour of younger staff members.  While there is nothing of concern in this observation, it is good to be aware of from a perspective of inclusion.

 

Nugent, J. S., Pollack, A., & Travis, D. J. (2016). The day-to-day experiences of workplace inclusion and exclusion. Retrieved November 2018, from https://www.catalyst.org/system/files/the_day_to_day_experiences_of_workplace_inclusion_and_exclusion.pdf