Learning Opportunities

Dr. Kathy Salmon, began Aspire Education Consulting in 2023 upon her retirement as a school principal from the Calgary Board of Education where she served for 23 years. Her roles included principal at 4 schools, assistant principal at 3 schools, System Assistant Principal Corporate Partnerships, ESL specialist, ESL Learning Leader, and teacher. She was also seconded twice to Alberta Education as an ESL Curriculum Manager where she was a co-writer of the Alberta preK - 12 EAL Proficiency Benchmarks 1.0 and 2.0 and produced many resources on the Supporting English
Language Learners Website. She has a hands-on approach to supporting school leadership in creating the human architecture and protocols to support effective learning environments for diverse learners. She supports teachers with EAL, literacy, and embedding oracy into content area learning. In her consultancy work she has supported 5 international schools holding Alberta accreditation in Cambodia, Macao, and China. Through her consultancy and the APLC, she has supported Grasslands School Division, Canadian Rockies School Division, Christ the Redeemer School Division, Northern Lights, School District, Edmonton Public School Board, and other Alberta school districts with on-site leader mentoring and teacher professional learning. Her doctoral dissertation was titled Effective Teaching Practices for English as an Additional Language Learners in Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Kathy Salmon, began Aspire Education Consulting in 2023 upon her retirement as a school principal from the Calgary Board of Education where she served for 23 years. Her roles included principal at 4 schools, assistant principal at 3 schools, System Assistant Principal Corporate Partnerships, ESL specialist, ESL Learning Leader, and teacher. She was also seconded twice to Alberta Education... Read more »

Lynn Farrugia is a newly retired educator with over 35 years of experience teaching Kindergarten to Adult Education with the majority of her years with elementary school aged students. She recently served as the Program Coordinator and as a consultant of English as an Additional Language for the Edmonton Public School Board for twelve years. Her passion for working with English as an Additional Language (EAL) Learners began with her time at an inner city school where well over 80% of her students spoke a language other than English and most of those students were newcomers to Canada.  One year she was the only person in the classroom who spoke only one language!  In fact there were nine different languages spoken in that class.  

Lynn is one of the Principal writers of: Working with Karen Immigrant Students: Teacher Resources and was a contributor to Promoting Success with Arab Immigrant Students: Teacher Resources both published by the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Canadian Multicultural Education Foundation. 

When Lynn is not advocating for the needs of EAL Learners she can be found reading or cuddling with her rescue beagle Elliott!

Other areas of experience and interest include: culturally relevant practices, early childhood education and multicultural/diverse children’s literature.

Lynn Farrugia is a newly retired educator with over 35 years of experience teaching Kindergarten to Adult Education with the majority of her years with elementary school aged students. She recently served as the Program Coordinator and as a consultant of English as an Additional Language for the Edmonton Public School Board for twelve years. Her passion for working with English as an... Read more »