Brad Hutchinson
Abbotsford Virtual School District Principal
Abbotsford, British Columbia
Brad Hutchinson has been a pioneering educator for 34 years in the Abbotsford School District. Brad has been a District Principal for past 12 years after teaching Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics at W.J. Mouat Secondary in Abbotsford B.C. HIs role involves creating and nurturing online and blended learning projects around the district as well as shepherding the Abbotsford Virtual School, a distributed learning school at the forefront of online and blended learning in the province. Always interested in the use of technology to support learning, Brad began programming in BASIC in 1980 in an effort to create Chemistry resources while still in high school. He started creating web pages in 1993 to support his Chemistry classes and followed that up by joining the Technology Enhanced Secondary Science Instruction (TESSI) project at UBC in 1996. In this project, Brad’s role was to develop a technology-infused Chemistry classroom with web-based testing, simulations, probeware, CD-ROM technology essentially what we would now refer to as a blended learning model. In 1999, he went on to create online courses in Chemistry 11 and Science 10 and pioneered the W.J. Mouat Virtual School and took on a leadership role. Six years later, Brad helped to amalgamate the district’s home-based learning and virtual learning program in launching the Abbotsford Virtual School. Brad is active at the school district level and provincially as a leader supporting technology advancements in education. Brad embraces Senek’s servant leadership and adheres to Covey’s 7 Habits.