Crescent Heights VP earns Distinguished Leadership Award
By LAUREN THOMSON on June 19, 2021.
lthomson@medicinehatnews.com Shonna Barth, Crescent Heights High School vice principal, is a recipient for the 2020-2021 Distinguished Leadership Award presented by the Council for School Leadership of the Alberta Teachers’ Association. Barth, who started at CHHS eight years ago as a counsellor, moved into her role as vice principal after three years. She said she found out she won the award earlier this week. “It was at about 10 p.m. after a particularly tiring day,” said Barth. “And so it was pretty darn nice to open that email up and read that.” An email from the ATA outlined the characteristics of winners of the award. “The CSL Distinguished Leadership Awards creates a learning community of outstanding principals and assistant principals throughout Alberta who can share professionally, interact collegially and act as mentors to new colleagues.” Barth will start the upcoming school year as principal of CHHS, the first female principal ever at the school. “I’m pretty proud of that part,” she said. “I’m moving into a really dynamic time, where we get to figure out who we are coming out of the pandemic. I think it’s a real opportunity for some positive leadership and to build some culture in the school. We have kind of become islands over the last year and a half, where we just come and do our jobs and go home, and I’m really looking forward to connecting again as a school.” Barth is excited to see how the school year will play out as the province moves into re-opening. “I think we’ve learned a lot. Not everything was bad about this,” she said. “There are some things that we needed to move on from, some more efficient ways of doing things, but I think the biggest thing is that opportunity to appreciate when we can gather and be together.” Barth says she is appreciative of the support she has received. “I’m really grateful and humbled by the amount of people who have reached out with their support and congratulations,” she said. “Everyone is busy right now, but when people take time to do things like this it really does help build community.” 13-12
