The New Westminster school district will start the new school year with a new chief.
The school board has appointed current Victoria deputy-superintendent Patrick Duncan as the district’s new superintendent of schools effective Aug. 15.
“The Board of Education is delighted that we were able to attract somebody with the qualifications, experience, and leadership qualities of Mr. Duncan to our school district,” school board chair Jonina Campbell stated in a press release Friday. “Mr. Duncan is known throughout the province as an innovator in education."
John Gaiptman, the current superintendent, will be leaving the district in September.
“We are very fortunate that John is able to stay in New Westminster to carry forward this transition,” Campbell said. “The progress that John was able to affect in the New Westminster School District has been significant.”
Duncan, who comes to New West from the same school district Gaiptman retired from in February 2014, is an acknowledged provincial leader in brain-based learning, according to Friday’s press release, and led the move to bring educational technology into Greater Victoria classrooms.
He is currently the chair of the professional development committee for the British Columbia School
Superintendents’ Association.
Prior to his term with Greater Victoria, he had been seconded to the Ministry of Education and was the director of education in the Cowichan Valley.
