Despite efforts students remain academically at­risk

Despite the efforts of administrators in the Delta school district to improve the success rates of Aboriginal students, 50 per cent of its students remain academically at-risk, according to a recent annual report on the learning outcomes of students.
"We have 500 Aboriginal students in our district and we're a district of about 16,000 kids. And we find that about half of those 500 kids are at-risk while the other half is doing fine," said Director of Special Programs, Kathy Guild.
The school district uses the term 'academically at-risk' to measure secondary students with a C minus or below on their report card marks, while academically at-risk primary students have marks of 'not yet meeting' or 'approaching expectations'.
The annual report indicates in the last year, the amount of academically at-risk kindergarten students went from 37 to 46 per cent, and in grade one went from 46 to 59 per cent. The district also has a system called Dogwood that measures the success rates of students who progress at a normal rate from grade eight to grade twelve.
"As a district we feel that we are making progress around our graduation rate. We've had a fairly big improvement there," Guild said. "When we track the at-risk report card marks, it's less easy to see improvement there. As a whole group, for individual students we hear reports that kids are coming to school more, getting their work done, feeling better about being in school. So it kind of depends on what you look at."
Three years ago, the school board made a commitment to increase the success rate of Aboriginal students when they signed the Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement (AEEA).
All schools in British Columbia were required to have an AEEA after provincial statistics in the 1990's showed the graduate rate of Aboriginal students was about 35 per cent. Guild said the Delta district was one of the first urban districts to develop it with their Aboriginal community.
"I think we also wanted to improve things for Aboriginal students, but the pressure certainly came from the ministry requirement to have one. We also as a district have begun to focus on our academically at-risk students. And so the Aboriginal kids have been a part of that focus," she said.
Delta administrators have looked at all the students in the district who fall into the academically at-risk category and have developed measures to help them.
"The overall goal is to have Aboriginal students succeeding, all of them in our school district," Guild stated. "We have a goal around parent satisfaction with the Aboriginal program, parent satisfaction with the schools' acceptance of Aboriginal culture, and celebration of Aboriginal culture."
Guild said the district has grant monies available to create Aboriginal student support programs, either through one-on-one support or small group intervention. "So we ask schools to identify the schools they want to assist and put together a plan as to what they're going to do," she said. "Then we will fund it."
Guild states the reasons why she believes Aboriginal students are not doing as well as non-Aboriginal students in the district, one being the discomfort likely felt by students as a minority group.
"There's not that sort of sense of comfort, cultural comfort and safety in our schools. As a group they probably have a lot of hardship from poverty and family situations as a group. Probably if you compare them to other groups they would be more challenged in those areas as a group. Those are probably the main reasons I think, cultural difference and not feeling secure and safe in our environments, challenges of low income."
Aboriginal Support Worker, Faye O'Neil, from the Ktunaxa Nation in East Kooteney, works with students from the district's six schools, many of them from the Tsawwassen First Nation. She sees firsthand a number of difficulties that Aboriginal students face.
"Transportation seems to be an issue for a majority of the families, getting them from one end of Delta to the next can be very difficult," she said, adding that another issue is the mindset of the 'millennia child' who don't participate if they don't see it as being fun. On the other hand, the Aboriginal students in high school face a lot of pressure when they are the first to graduate within their family.
"Kids not knowing how to be successful, to succeed at something is a big step for them. We talk about that a lot, we see kids dropping out in grade 11, and in grade 12. The last two months they're dropping out or they're not even going to write their final exams."
O'Neil points out these personal struggles often stem from the intergenerational affects of residential schools, issues that need to be recognized and dealt with in the current school system.
"I think we're still struggling with a lot of hurt from residential schools," she said, adding that her own mother attended residential school. "We're still seeing those generations coming around and parents not knowing how to deal with the school system, we're still seeing that struggle of not trusting (the system) through the families." 
She said she comes across school administrators and teachers who don't understand that Aboriginal people can't simply get over the issues brought about by residential schools and put it all in the past.
"'Get over it' 'Move on' 'I'm tired of this' 'I don't want to hear any more about it'," O'Neil said about the attitudes demonstrating this lack of understanding. "Those are the things we still hear in the system."
Despite this, many improvements are visible in the schools, especially with the new programs in place to help students. These include after-school homework clubs, one-to-one tutoring, cultural awareness, and Aboriginal support workers to help students.
"I've been working with them from kindergarten to grade seven, in the elementary schools," said O'Neil. "They're more comfortable being around the support workers, they can trust them, they're able to talk to them," she said, adding they can benefit from more community resources. "Sometimes it's not as easy as you think to be able to find those resources out there and to bring them to the schools in a school year. Just because, we're lacking Elders, how do we find these Elders to come into the school. How do we get these families back into the schools when there's still a lot of hardship there from residential school."
O'Neil looks at parental involvement as a critical measure to help Aboriginal students to succeed.
"I really think we're still struggling to the level where if we can't engage the parents, how do we engage the students and I think that's the direction we're going in," she said. "We may not see it in this generation but maybe the next generation. And maybe when they have their children and those children start coming to school, there will be a more sense of calmness in the family about being able to come to school, being able to come to parent-teacher interviews and gatherings at the school, so it's getting better."
The Aboriginal graduation rate has improved from 37 per cent in 2002 to 61.2 per cent in 2007. Approximately 30 per cent of those Aboriginal graduates went on to post-secondary studies, meeting the district's goal.
The Delta district is a suburban municipality in the Greater Vancouver region with three urban communities - the heritage village of Ladner, the garden community of Tsawwassen and the family place of North Delta.