Faculty & staff

After a brief experience as an Educational Assistant, I knew right away that I wanted to devote my career to working with students, so in 1990, I enrolled at UBC to become a teacher. My teaching career began in 1992 when I moved to Chilliwack to teach elementary school full-time.  For fourteen years, I taught students in grades five to seven before joining the district’s curriculum department as a helping teacher in literacy.  This role provided insight into working with adults in a leadership capacity, and I decided to enrol in a master’s degree in educational leadership at SDSU in 2000.  With my more profound appreciation of learning and the impact leadership has on student achievement, I took on the role of vice-principal, followed by principal, at three different schools in Chilliwack.  My last school, Strathcona Elementary, hosted visitors from various parts of British Columbia, Quebec and Illinois to share our work with Response to Intervention and a district-wide numeracy assessment called S.N.A.P. (Student Numeracy Assessment & Practice).  I was privileged to co-lead the development of two district assessments, one for numeracy S.N.A.P. and one for literacy, the A.C.T. (Assessing Comprehension & Thinking).  I am also a Co-Author of the book The Snap Solution: An Innovative Math Assessment Tool for Grades K-8.

The central theme of ‘transformational learning’ resonates throughout my experiences in the education system, and my passion is to make a difference in the lives of all students. I am guided by the ideals of: competence, character, compassion and continuous improvement.  As a servant leader, I aspire to use my gifts to serve others and foster community. I am honoured to work at UFV in the School of Education in an environment of inquiry, equity and collaboration where future educators begin their journeys toward becoming transformational leaders and purveyors of joy. 

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.  Antoine de Saint-Exupery