KAMSACK — Included in the list of six women who were hired to teach at the Victoria School this term is one Kamsack resident, one who has taught at Keeseekoose for 20 years and one who is an intern who will be working only until December.
Hired to join the Victoria School staff this year are: Cindy Baker, Katie Spruyt, Jaylin Bergen, Cassidy Aker, Chandra Logan and Jaida Smith.
Cassidy Aker
Cassidy Aker of Kamsack, who is a 2016 graduate of the Kamsack Comprehensive Institute, has been hired to teach Grade 3 students. She expects to graduate with a Bachelor's in Indigenous Education from the First Nations University and the University of Regina this autumn.
Aker, who has spent five years as a member of the Kamsack air cadet squadron, enjoys curling and golf and says that she is “super excited to be here for the long term.”
Cindy Baker
Cindy Baker, who has lived in Kamsack for the past 20 years while she taught grades 3 and 4 students at Keeseekoose Chiefs Education Centre, has been hired to teach the Victoria School pre-Kindergarten class.
Baker received her Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon in 2004, and said she enjoys kayaking, hiking and being with her pet dog Mocha.
Jaida Smith
An intern in her fourth year at the University of Regina, Jaida Smith of Ebenezer expects to graduate with a Bachelor of Elementary Education degree in December. A graduate of the Yorkton Regional High School in 2022, Smith worked for two months at the Wascana Plains Elementary School in Regina last year and has been an educational assistant at Columbia Elementary School in Yorkton for three years.
Smith is a volleyball coach and says she enjoys hiking and watching hockey.
Katie Spruyt
Katie Spruyt of Yorkton has been hired as the school’s student services teacher, a position which had previously been known as a resource teacher.
Born and raised in Snow Lake, Man., Spruyt obtained her Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon in 2021 and spent four years teaching grades 3 and 4 students in Meadow Lake. She enjoys baking and tending to her new puppy.
Jaylin Bergen
Jaylin Bergen of Bredenbury has been hired to teach grades 3 and 4 students at Victoria School. Born and raised in Yorkton, she received her Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Regina in 2024 and taught Kindergarten briefly at Yorkdale Elementary School in Yorkton and Grade 4 at M.C. Knoll School in Yorkton.
Bergen says she enjoys walking and camping as well as painting and drawing. When she was a Grade 12 student, her school’s cheerleading team, of which she was a member, was the first high school team from Saskatchewan to enter the world cheerleading competition, which was held in Florida.
Chandra Logan
Chandra Logan, who said she spent most of her life in Regina, moved to Kamsack with a seven-year-old child and will be working as a Grade 1 teacher.
Logan, who received her Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Regina in 2001, taught grades 4 to 6 students at the Kitchener Community School in Regina and then taught at Carrot River for more than five years and briefly at Nipawin.
A flute and saxophone player, Logan says that her two dogs keep her busy, but she enjoys road trips, spending time at Madge Lake and visiting her 21-year-old son in Carrot River.
