School board to enhance Aboriginal learning

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The Vancouver School Board is celebrating the beginning of a process to reach an Aboriginal Enhancement Agreement designed to increase the success of Aboriginal students.

An enhancement agreement is a commitment between a school district, the local Aboriginal communities and B.C.'s Ministry of Education that highlights the importance of academic performance and the necessity to include Aboriginal culture and languages in educational programs.

The Vancouver Aboriginal Council is also involved in developing the agreement.

Representatives of the Vancouver School Board, the Ministry of Education and the Urban Native Youth Association spoke at a ceremony on Jan. 13.

"We acknowledge that our education system is still far from perfect in providing a respectful and caring and challenging learning environment for all of our students," said Adrienne Montani, chairperson of the school board. "We know that we have a lot of work to do to make our schools places where the histories of local First Nations and Aboriginal people are fully and thoroughly reflected in what we teach, where Aboriginal parents, family members feel warmly welcomed and fully respected and where every student feels safe, included and stimulated."

The ceremony took place at the Chief Dan George Centre for Advanced Education in downtown Vancouver.

"We're standing in a room and a place that's named after the late Chief Dan George. And in 1967 when he gave his soliloquy to Canada in celebration of its birthday, some of the words that he had [said] were, 'my people are going to rise out of the sea like the thunderbird and grasp the instruments of the white men's success and move forward.' That's what we are doing and we need your help and we're happy that you are opening your hearts and your minds to the needs of First Nations children," said Shane Pointe, the master of ceremonies from the Musqueam Nation.

Jeff Smith, the school board's administrator of Aboriginal education told Raven's Eye that Vancouver began the agreement process last year with two community forums and the district plans on having five more this year.

"We've got specific improvements that we want to see every year, like three and four per cent improvement every year 'till we reach parity and equality within the district. So that not only are we graduating Aboriginal learners ... but that they are also participating in all programs equally across the district."

He said that upwards of two-thirds of the bands across Canada are represented in Vancouver's downtown East Side.

"So who do you have the agreement with, right? And then a lot of them are represented by community organizations, so what we've agreed to is that we're just going to have an agreement with whoever wants to come to the table to contribute positively to the education of Aboriginal students," said Smith.

"I think [an enhancement agreement] formally commits the district to change, to positive change. It requires, compels, it creates a partnership in which you can't just say you're going to do it; you actually have to do it."

The Kamloops school district was the first to sign an Aboriginal Enhancement Agreement in 1999. Ross Spina, director of secondary education for the district said success has been demonstrated with the maintainance of a 90 per cent attendance rate and lowering the amount from 10.8 per cent to 5.6 per cent of Aboriginal secondary students in modified programs for struggling students. He added that it took the right philosophy to get it started.

"I think the first thing is kind of starting from a position of wanting to work together and making a difference. And that's sort of a philosophic position that I credit the First Nations communities and the district in wanting to work together to make a difference that's based really on a foundation of mutual respect, consensus building and maintaining a focus on our goal areas," said Spina.

Spina also credits the teachers, parnts, First Nation support workers and the First Nations Education Council for the district's success. The district provides Secwepemc language instruction, 33 First Nation support workers and a separate First Nations graduation ceremony. Now finishing up the five-year agreement, the district is currently looking at renewal.

To date, there are 14 signed agreements in place, seven or eight nearly complete in the draft stage and various other districts in the planning stage, said a B.C. government official.