When Edgehill Elementary School students begin a new year on September 4, they will meet a new principal, Ian Landy.
Landy, his wife Lori, and two of the couple’s three children recently moved to Powell River from the Salmon Arm area where he was principal of Sorrento Elementary School. There were a number of factors that attracted his family to the upper Sunshine Coast, he said, chief among these being meeting so many enthusiastic Powell Riverites.
“Ever since my first year at university I’ve encountered people from Powell River and it always surprised me how happy they were to be from the community and how they were looking forward to going back,” he said.
Originally from Lillooet, Landy said this was a different concept for him. “Most of my colleagues were looking at getting away from their hometowns and going somewhere else,” he said.
Landy’s interests as a school administrator include technology and mental health and his hope is to build on the already inclusive mindset he’s encountered at Edgehill.
“A lot of my focus has been on mental wellness in the schools. I have a son with anxiety that fits under the autism spectrum and this experience has helped me make some transformational changes within classrooms and schools,” he added.
One change will be what Landy describes as the e-portfolio movement which increases the amount of communication between parents, students and educators.
“Instead of a report card that reports on achievements three to five times a year, an e-portfolio allows parents, students and teachers to be in a descriptive feedback loop so that at all times there are three sets of eyes looking at what’s going on,” he said.
The e-portfolio concept also allows students to reach educational milestones at their own pace, he added. “They don’t have to be doing the same thing at the same time as everybody else to still be moving forward.”
For now, Landy and his family are looking forward to the start of the school year, adjusting to their new home and making friends.
“What an amazing sense of community we’ve found already in the first month here,” he said. “People have been welcoming. We can’t wait to make more connections in the next weeks, months and years."
