Jeff Chalmers, who has been with Rocky View Schools (RVS) since 1997, will move to Springbank Community High School in August to take over as principal from Pam Davidson, who was recently appointing RVS Acting Director of 21st Century Learning.
Chalmers is currently principal at Muriel Clayton Middle School in Airdrie. He’s been at that school since 2013.
Chalmers said he’s looking forward to making the move.
“I think it’s a great school. I’ve worked in the school division for a long time and I like the fact that it’s a rural school,” he said. “I know its got a diverse population out there – ranching families and some estate homes and things like that – so I just like the small community.”
Chalmers has a master of education in educational leadership from the University of Calgary and bachelor of education and science degrees from the University of Lethbridge. He has served as a Divisional Curriculum Facilitator with the RVS Learning department.
Stepping into the footprints left by Davidson isn’t something Chalmers said he’s worried about.
“I know Pam well and I’m confident things are running very smoothly,” he said. “They’ve got a great administration team with Greg Rankin and Mike Frederick. I’ve worked with Greg before and I’m looking forward to working with him and getting to know Mike better.”
Also in August, Ryan Reed will move to Crossfield’s W.G. Murdoch School to assume the acting principal role from W.H. Croxford High School in Airdrie, where he is currently the assistant principal.
“It’s very exciting. It will be really enjoyable to see some of the ideas that you have and the thoughts that you have about education being put into practice as the principal,” he said. “It’s also daunting. It’s a little bit more responsibility but I think the great part is that Garry (Bell) has left structure at Murdoch and there’s a wonderful staff and assistant principal.”
Reed started with RVS in 2004, beginning as a teacher at Airdrie’s Bert Church High School before leaving in 2007 to go to Elk Island Public Schools in Sherwood Park. He rejoined RVS in 2015, becoming assistant principal at Croxford.
He has a masters of education in school leadership and improvement from the University of Alberta and a bachelor of education and management from the University of Lethbridge.
He has completed RVS’ Administrative Leadership Program, which helps to develop up and coming administrators for positions within the division.
“You got a lot of instruction in instructional leadership from the division, operational leadership, I got to go to a coaching conference – probably 10 different times throughout the year. We met as a group and got to learn more about leadership,” he said. “I think RVS is growing so fast that they need to make sure new administrators to the division and to positions are well trained in all different aspects of leadership.
“I think being in administration is a very difficult path. You have so many different things coming your way every day and making sure there’s some consistency in how you deal with it.”
