Director of Instruction
Surrey School District #36

Canada: British Columbia Hub | NORTH AMERICA

Selma Hageleit-Smith (she/her/ella) brings over 25 years of experience leading and learning alongside learners in K-12 and beyond in the metro Vancouver region which is located in southwestern Canada on the shared unceded traditional territories of the Katzie, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo Coast Salish First Peoples. Currently, she is the Director of Instruction of Continuous Learning and Safe Schools with the Surrey School District. 

Since the beginning of her career as an educator, in all of her roles she has been passionately supporting student and educator well-being whether as a school counsellor, school administrator and district leader. She is passionate about cultivating spaces of belonging and connection where each person’s story can be seen, heard, and valued. She sees herself as a life long learner and is grateful to continue deepening her community of practice with compassionate systems awareness as it has intersected with all areas of her identity. She is committed  to creating and sustaining safer spaces for authentic selves to be present in. Uplifting others and nurturing their spirits is woven in all of her work.  

For Selma, the use of the Compassionate Systems tools have produced improvements in navigating systems change as well as establishing effective protocols to improve discussions within and across teams to deepen inquiry for enhancing student learning. For a few years, Surrey School District has been working on a Mental Health Framework that has included voices and contributions from youth, numerous departments as well as the local Health Authority. The Compassionate Systems Framework supports our district’s objective to grow this work from an individual to a system wide foundational level.

She holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, Masters in Counselling Psychology and maintains her certification as a Registered Clinical Counsellor and Approved Clinical Supervisor with the British Columbia Clinical Counsellor’s Association. She is a certified teacher with experience teaching in Mexico and Canada. 

Selma is a first generation Canadian of refugee immigrant parents who settled in Vancouver, BC. Her ancestry is of Mexican-Mestiza/ German. She is trilingual in Spanish, German and English. Her life gifts she most proud of are being a daughter, sister, wife, Tia, Madrina and dog mummy.