Goals of Provincial Principals' Implementation Team
To provide for all principals in Ontario:
- Support, direction and tools for implementing the policy document, Acting Today Shaping Tomorrow;
- Resources that will have a personal impact on principals in order that they can be motivated to model and lead in their school communities, the implementation of the policy document Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow;
- Awareness, at a variety of levels, of the many environmental issues that face our world through research, data, media and webcasts;
- Resources (i.e. webcasts, webconferences, websites, articles), and supplemental information that can be easily used by the principal and the Environmental Sustainability Team (EST) within the school community, to implement actions at the board and school level to preserve and protect the environment;
- Resources that support environmental education across the curriculum and build student and staff capacity to take action on environmental issues;
- Information that emphasises the necessity of a "whole school" approach in order to guarantee a “culture of sustainability”. Within this goal the recommendations are made that the “whole school” approach ensures that school initiatives are owned from the bottom up. Interested members of the student, teaching and custodial staff, and parent groups, who are prepared to move forward in its initial phase will be critical for the Environmental Sustainability Team’s (EST) mandate to be successful;
- Assessment protocols to determine where their school is, with respect to sound environmentally sustainable practices and support in developing measurable goals;
- Ideas presented in the School Environmental Framework section of this resource so that schools will be able to integrate environmentally sustainable practices into their improvement plans, and measure themselves with respect to the School Effectiveness Framework;
- Resources that will support the integration of environmental education and action into school policies, procedures, School Effectiveness Framework and school improvement plans;
- Examples of activities that have successfully improved environmentally sustainable practices in schools across the province;
- Encouragement for principals of the necessity to access their board’s environmental policies mandated by the Ministry; and
- A folder on the OPC, CPCO and ADFO websites that will have a quick connection to the above tools and resources.