Kevin Kaardal spent his working life in public education some 40 years ago.
He began as a P.E. teacher in Alberta just thinking how terrific it was to be paid for something he loved to do, teaching kids and coaching sports teams.
His career advanced into the education administration world, having spent the last decade as the superintendent/CEO of Central Okanagan Public Schools.
But that commitment to public education in his working life is coming to an end with his previously announced retirement, set to take effect on June 30.
Jon Rever, current assistant superintendent, has been appointed to replace him by the Central Okanagan Board of Education, a terrific choice Kaardal believes because Rever is a long-time local school district administrative staff member, knows the school district inner workings and is committed to advancing the learning potential for all students.
Kaardal initially arrived in Central Okanagan as an outsider, as the school board at the time opted to go outside the more recent norm of that time to hire superintendents from within.
He says he has been blessed with a dedicated and caring administrative staff, teachers and students who are a constant source of inspiration through their achievements.
Those achievements, he stresses, have been a collective effort that extends to support staff, education stakeholders, the dual credit and advancement placement support efforts of Okanagan College and UBC Okanagan, Interior Health, the Foundry, and the Feeding Futures program assisted by the food bank, Food For Thought and President's Choice organizations.
He cited one recent example of that support where a company loaned the use of a $3 million piece of heavy equipment for students to learn within the heavy duty equipment operator program.
"That is just remarkable," he said of providing such a high-end piece of heavy equipment for students to learn on.
"It is in the interest of the industry to support us as they need the trained labour but for some of those kids who were wondering why they were in school. After taking that program, many of them found a purpose for why they were in school."
Kaardal says he has learned a lot more about the role of the school district in emergency responses, creating a response initiative to deal with families post-event, in particular for those who have lost their homes in wildfires and have kids in public schools.
That process has been sharpened by dealing in the past decade with seven wildfires, a pandemic and several floods.
He feels the school district's finest hours may have been its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I think it was one of our shining moments in how we reacted, how we were learning as we figured it out and were able to resume classes after 2 1/2 months of schools being closed (prior to summer) and then reopen again in September," he recalled.
"We had one of the highest attendance of all the school districts in B.C. during the pandemic (96 per cent of in-person learning in year one and 98 per cent in year 2), and we worked with Interior Health on how to create protocols to keep kids in school and safe, and I literally think that saved lives. We lost three young people during those 2 1/2 months schools were closed and I did not want to see that continue to happen."
While it was not originally planned, Kaardal said the district encouraged IH to use local schools as a vaccine clinic location, improving vaccination access for staff and families.
"That was not in the original plan but we did the work to make that happen."
He called the school board at the time courageous for taking on that responsibility, which was politically polarizing at the time, and for school district staff, from the bus riders to teachers, to embrace amidst some uncertainty about COVID.
"I call our staff heroes and I mean it for what they did during that time. It was a frightening time and not being sure who was affected, to not know the extent of the pandemic at that point and continuing to learn as we went.
"They were heroes and deserve a lot more credit I think than what they got. We honoured our health workers, as we should have, but our teachers, support staff, our bus drivers...everyone worked to get our schools to be safe, caring environments, and the restrictions on movement and all that stuff made learning far more complicated, so it was not easy."
Looking forward, Kaardal sees student agency and technology advancement of AI as impacting public education in the short term.
Student agency is already being experimented with at the ground level, in local classrooms supported by teachers, where students are given input on how they want to learn the given curriculum for their classes.
"It will help students to find their own pathways and passions that will help them to graduate and transition into the post-school world," he said.
AI is also being slowly absorbed into the Central Okanagan Public Schools world, as teachers and students begin to apply critical thinking principles to seek out how this new technology can enhance learning.
"We are beginning that journey and we have teams working on it. The board has already adopted a strategy for how to incorporate AI in the classroom. We are working on it from the ground up as teachers and students are trying things out to see what works and what does not.
"We have to learn how to use this new learning tool efficiently, what it can be useful for and to make sure it gets the credit when used."
He notes that critical thinking, a constant theme emphasized by Kaardal over his tenure as superintendent, involves a learning process, not just random guessing to solve a problem but being reflective in following a process and working through adversity, something AI can assist with but should not replace.
"You should see mistakes, the willingness to make mistakes and learn from them in working to a solution. That is all a part of learning."
Facing retirement, Kaardal says he and his wife plan to continue living in Kelowna, spend more time with his family and find new purposes to pursue in his life, freed up from the 60 to 70 hours a week overseeing a $380 million budget, 4,500 employees, 50-plus school sites and the largest school bus fleet in B.C. school districts.
That could entail writing a book about his experiences as a school superintendent, doing some education consulting work or returning to his teaching roots in coaching a school sports team.
"But I will miss the people," he acknowledged.
