Each September, hundreds of educators across Ontario take on the role of SHSM Lead — coordinating certifications, planning Reach-Ahead experiences, and ensuring their students complete all components of the Specialist High Skills Major.
But there’s a quiet truth behind the program’s success:
Most SHSM Leads are learning how to run it while they’re already running it.
A Patchwork of Guidance
Across the province, SHSM training looks different in every board.
Some teachers inherit binders and folders from their predecessors. Others attend a brief PD session in the fall, led by a board coordinator who’s balancing dozens of programs. A few lucky ones connect with a mentor who’s been through it before.
There is no standardized onboarding — no single, shared understanding of what a “compliant” SHSM looks like.
Each school builds its own rhythm, its own documentation system, its own interpretation of Ministry expectations.
The Cost of Inconsistency
That variability shows up everywhere:
- Data that looks different from school to school.
- Certifications recorded one way in one place, and another elsewhere.
- Evidence that’s difficult to verify during audits.
- Staff turnover that resets a program’s momentum each time someone new steps in.
Despite these challenges, teachers make it work — often through collaboration, creativity, and long hours spent navigating systems meant to simplify, but not to teach.
How Do We Know?
We’ve seen it firsthand.
Our work with school boards across Ontario has shown us just how dedicated — and often overwhelmed — SHSM Leads can be.
We’ve stood beside teachers as they launched their first SHSM programs, helping them navigate requirements, build partnerships, and understand the mountain of compliance details that come with the role.
We’ve listened to the same story again and again:
“I love the program — I just wish someone had shown me how to do it right from the start.”
What is standard in one place, is not the standard in another.
The truth is, Ontario’s SHSM success depends not just on great students, but on confident, well-supported teachers.
And right now, many of them are figuring it out on their own.
The Question Worth Asking
Ontario’s SHSM programs are designed to connect education and industry, to make learning hands-on and future-focused.
Yet the educators who deliver those programs often have to teach themselves how to stay compliant, how to track effectively, and how to prepare for audits that can impact funding and credibility.
If SHSM is meant to model innovation, shouldn’t the way we train and support its teachers reflect that too?
By Carmen Reis, CPA, MA
____________________________________________
Carmen is the new Executive Director at Flashpoint Training and has spent a decade designing, evaluating and working with Experiential learning programs, building partnerships and growing training capacity across Ontario.
We welcome your questions, comments and inquiries.
If you would like to reach Carmen or any member of our team, email contactus@flashpointtraining.com