Needs of Native students a priority with school division

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With the need to improve provision of education to Aboriginal students being acknowledged by educators across the country, many jurisdictions are now taking long, hard looks at what needs to be done. In some jurisdictions, however, the need was recognized many years ago, and initiatives aimed at Native students are already entrenched and ongoing.

One of those jurisdictions is the Prince Albert Roman Catholic Separate School Division, which offers a number of programs designed to meet the needs of its Aboriginal students, including an on-staff Elder, the melding of Native spirituality with the Catholic faith, hiring of Aboriginal outreach workers and development of a social justice initiative.

The division operates seven schools within its jurisdiction, all located within the boundaries of the city of Prince Albert. The schools include one high school, with Grades 9 to 12, four schools offering Kindergarten to Grade 9, and two offering Kindergarten to Grade 6. About 35 per cent of the students within the division are Aboriginal students.

Gerry Guillet has been assistant director of education, instructional services, with the school division for more than 13 years.

"When I came on board, this would have been in 1988, we started discussing the issues that face our community and our school system with the Aboriginal population and, realizing the trend - that there would be a significant growth in this area - we knew we had to be a little more diverse in our program offerings and in our perspective of Aboriginal cultures," he said.

In response, the division brought in a mandatory annual in-service day dealing with Aboriginal issues for all staff, and developed its Indian/Metis Education Program. The division also established a committee, tasked with organizing the annual in-service day, as well as holding monthly meetings to discuss issues and look at what was going on in the schools to meet the needs of Aboriginal students.

Because of its high Aboriginal student population, the school division is also required to submit an annual education equity report to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, highlighting not only activities within system schools, but also looking at such things as self-declaration, and initiatives aimed at increasing the numbers of Aboriginal staff, both professional and non-professional, employed within the division.

"So those initiatives have been on-going annually," Guillet said. "To meet specific needs within the schools, we have established some specific programs at the high school level. Mainly our Native Studies program, which all students can register into, not just our Aboriginal students. But we certainly see a number of our Caucasian students and other students enrolling in that course as well.

"We implemented a Cree program at the elementary and high school level to meet that population base. We've also, in the last few years, brought in an outreach worker at the high school level that was of Aboriginal descent to meet the needs of our students. And most recently, in the last two years, we have employed an Elder for the system, who is housed largely at the high school, but deals with all our students, and does cultural activities and cultural awareness."

And, despite the fact the program operates within a Catholic school board, the Elder is able to introduce traditional spiritual teachings to the students.

"Our Elder has allowed us to incorporate the Native spirituality with our Catholic dimension within our school system. We are a Catholic school system, but we are recognizing as well the spiritual dimension of the Aboriginal peoples, and our Elder has assisted us in a very significant way in melding the two together. And so our religious celebrations have been given a lot more meaning for our Aboriginal students, when we include the spiritual dimension," Guillet said.

Guillet said the positive impact of these programs can be seen within the schools, not only for students, but forparents and school staff as well.

"We're seeing a greater retention of our students in the schools. We have seen an increased participatory level of the Aboriginal parents, and more acceptance into the school. I think, we certainly feel they're very welcome, and they feel more welcome. So those are the two areas that I see that we've been able to get a handle on to see a difference. We certainly see a difference in our professional and non-professional staff, on understanding the Aboriginal cultures - a far greater understanding than was originally there. And so, there's a greater acceptance level."

Plans are underway to add to the division's existing programs, and to adjust those that have existed for a while, Guillet said.

"We are currently developing a Native Studies curriculum for the elementary levels from Grade 4 to 9. We are the only one's in the province that are writing that right now, and so we're doing that initiative, and it will tailor into the high school Native Studies program from the department."

"We've moved away from our Indian/Metis Education Program, and we now call it social justice, so that committee is still ongoing, although it's got a different umbrella. We include all of social justice in that. And so those initiatives continue to happen. We continue to provide our annual education equity report. We will continue with our Aboriginal cultural advisor. Rather than calling it an Elder program, we need to broaden it a little more and call it a cultural advisor," Guillet said.

Other services will be offered as the need arises, if funding can be secured from the provincial government.

"We anticipate in the future, pending the economics of education funding, to be able to look at an Aboriginal cultural coordinator at the central office level, but . . . provincial education budgets have not been generous, so we're caught the same as 80 per cent of the school boards across the province right now in underfunding. So if we ever realize some decent fnding from the government, we anticipate moving in that direction as well. It's one of our goals," Guillet said.

"I'm very proud of the initiatives that our school system has taken. We continue to strive to eliminate racism and prejudice, and I think we're making some good moves in that area. We know we want to continue meeting the needs of this population base, and it is definitely a reality in Prince Albert, and they have a lot to offer and we need to recognize that. And be more accepting and understanding. And I guess the understanding is the key word here. We need to understand the Aboriginal culture, and once we understand their culture, then we can accept them."