Tucker looks forward to new school, new challenges

Times Reporter   

 

When students walked into Wheatland Elementary School the first week of school there was a new face waiting to greet them. Linda Tucker has taken over the role of principal in Kevin Lanes’ departure. 

Tucker spent 12 years as the Associate Principal at Crowther Memorial Junior High, and loved it, but was looking for a change and new opportunities. 

When a position opened up at Golden Hills School Division in 2013, she took on the regional collaborative service delivery role. It was part of a cross-ministry initiative through the Alberta Government with Child and Family Services, Alberta Education and Alberta Health Services. 

There were 17 regional managers. Tucker said it was about looking creatively at ways to better serve children and families with different needs. It was a wonderful opportunity, but wasn’t quite what she was looking for.  

”It was really more of an administrative job, so there was no front line work with children or parents, or teachers or educators. I was really honoured to have the position for the year and learned a heck of a lot, but I really, really missed kids, and parents and teachers and the energy and life of a school,” said Tucker. 

She misses some of the staff at the junior high, stating that when you’re in a place for so long a sort of kinship is built with the other administrators, but the leap to teaching and working with elementary-aged children is opening up a new realm of possibilities she is excited to explore. 

“To be part of a school, K-6 has … been so much fun,” said Tucker.

“I think what I am most impressed with in this school already is the caliber of quality of the teachers and the support staff. So I’m walking into a place of excellence, it just feels so good in this building.”

Even in the first week of school it became very apparent to Tucker that leadership is prevalent through the school – Wheatland is a Leader In Me school, following Steven Covey’s 7 Habits philosophy – and is something that is being taught through every classroom, and is becoming a way of being for the students and staff. 

One of the first questions people have when a new administrator is hired is, ‘what’s going to be changed?’ 

“My job for this first year especially is to observe, and to learn and to listen and to gather the current practices and get to know them better,” said Tucker. 

After the first year she would like to work with the staff and collaboratively figure out what can be improved on, what can be recreated and redefined. 

“What’s really important is to respect the practices and the leadership that’s been before you because they are all good and they have done good things. To continually develop and continually refine is what I hope to do,” said Tucker.