At a meeting of the Living Sky School Division board and central office with MLAs Larry Doke, Herb Cox and, by phone, Scott Moe, land-based learning was on the agenda.
The importance of finding funding for what the division sees as a priceless experience for children was made known to the MLAs.
Board chair Ken Arsenault said, "It's not always a dollars and cents thing when it comes to the success of students who appear to be more vulnerable in our system, and that's what we wanted to showcase to you."
The division's first land-based learning camp has students, teachers, administrators and elders excited.
Grade 9 classes at Cando Community School and Leoville Central School participated in a four-day bicultural camp from May 26 to 29. The camp, held near Chitek Lake followed a co-teaching model using culture, traditions, language and land-based resources aimed at meeting Grade 9 curriculum outcomes in First Nation and Métis culture, local traditional language, academics, traditional values, community engagement, environmental awareness and healthy body, mind and spirit.
Randy Fox, director of education, said, "These are expensive things to do."
The cost was about $25,000, and there was an additional $10,000 worth of in-kind support from the division invested as well.
However, said Fox, there is a payoff. It brings a relevance to students' education that can set them on a path through high school that can result in graduation in three years, rather than four or five. He used Cando School as an example. It was a Cando School project in 2012 that took Grade 9 students to a similar camp at Old Crow in the Yukon. It turned out to be a life-changing experience for many of the students, and there were more three-year graduates at Cando than ever before, said Fox.
It ties into the recently adopted education sector plan calling for increased graduation rates, he said.
"This really does it."
He also said, "It's an economic payoff for us that shows itself relatively soon."
Students graduating on time are out in the workforce or in post-secondary education, not back in school taking the same classes again and again.
"There's a cost to that," he said.
Fox said the division wanted to highlight the land-based learning camp to the MLAs as one way the board is trying to do its part in fulfilling the dreams and goals of the sector plan.
"This is one way," he said. "Any support you can drum up for us anywhere is certainly needed and appreciated."
Living Sky's superintendent of school operations, curriculum and instruction, Brian Quinn, said the original Old Crow camp and this year's Living Sky camp had a transformative effect on the kids who attended. Some students have some pretty dark pictures about themselves and their future, he said, and they came back from those camps with their pride and dignity confirmed.
He said the elders involved with this year's camp worked with all the kids, giving each the same time, care and attention and developing relationships with them all.
"If you want to talk about changing attitudes in terms of developing the concept of a shared future, any of those kids who were non-First Nations kids left there with a strong connection that wouldn't have been there for them without this experience."
Attending the meeting with the MLAs was Cando School principal Tammy Riel, who spearheaded the project.
Quinn thanked Riel for her leadership, saying she was "relentless" in making the camp happen. He also said the director of education, Fox, had the "nerves of a riverboat gambler," in moving ahead with the project with no money in the budget.
The $25,000 needed ended up coming from multiple sources, the major one being a $10,000 donation from BATC CDC. Local SaskTel employees raised $2,500. Corporate donations and other community sources will be sought for next year, using the results of this year's camp as an example of the benefit to the community.
They plan to show corporate citizens the value of mentoring and encouraging potential employees.
Riel said this year's budget included major capital expenditures that won't have to be made again. They bought high quality gear and will be storing it for future use.
Vice-chair Ronna Pethick turned to Riel, who sat next to Pethick at the board table, to say "Tammy, I remember when you took your students up to Old Crow and for those students their experience was life-changing. I'm assuming this was a similar experience. For those students who attended it was life-changing, and for that, we have to thank you."
Pethick said, "Anytime you can have success with a student that will change their life from that day forward is a positive step, and I thank you for that."
Arsenault also thanked Riel.
"Tammy came back with the success from Old Crow that she's been able to transplant into Living Sky," he said.
The meeting with the MLAs has become an annual event at which the board and administrators can voice their concerns to their local representatives. Cox and Doke commented little, but took copious notes.
In addition to the land-based learning program, the board also addressed several other issues, among them the downward trend in budgeting, inadequate funding for facilities and for students with special needs.
