Superintendent of Schools
School District #60 – Peace River North
Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada
Phone: 250-262-6017 (work), 250-262-7147 (cell)
E-mail: lespe@prn.bc.ca
Blog: www.leadership.prn.bc.ca

Larry Espe is school superintendent of a district located in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. He has been a teacher, principal and district administrator for almost thirty years.

His recent focus has been on the development of an appreciative leadership philosophy in the district that will support change in a pro-active and asset based way. He has developed a keen appreciation for the power of semantics and the constructionist view that “words create worlds.” He believes that public education will require three critical elements if it hopes to keep up with the needs of society in the 21st Century: 1) Relationships of warmth and connection, 2) high quality interactive and engaging pedagogy, and 3) a dramatic shift in business as usual.

He and colleague Lesley Lahaye wrote (co-created) their dissertation: Co-creating Schools of the Future: Approaching Change in a Canadian Public School System Through Appreciative Inquiry.

The dissertation questions whether the traditional practices in public education are continuing to serve us well. It explores how asset based conversations made possible through a process of Appreciative Inquiry might help a community to examine its schools, determine what is of greatest value to continue doing, and generate possibilities for action and innovation in order to better prepare students for a future world.