A recent agreement has brought nine First Nation bands together in the delivery of second-level services for First Nations education.
Treaty 6 Education Council will be responsible for services for those nine bands beginning April 1.
Pat Bugler, director of education for Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs, will be the new director of education for Treaty 6 Education Council as of April 1. He said the bands recognized the advantages and cost-savings of streamlining the second-level services.
Prior to now, second-level services were split up among the bands, with BATC responsible for some and Battlefords Tribal Council responsible for others.
"Currently we operate under two tribal councils or two educational organizations," said Bugler. "We're just trying to bring it back together, just to help us find efficiencies to be reinvested back into services and supports and programs for the schools and students."
Member bands forming the new council are Red Pheasant, Saulteaux, Sweetgrass, Moosomin and Ahtahkakoop from BATC and Beardy's-Okemasis, Mosquito, Little Pine and Poundmaker from BTC.
The arrangement is being touted as a positive, bringing together bands from both BATC and BTC. Glenn Wouters, trustee with Living Sky School Division, told reporters recently that all nine chiefs and councils had to vote to go this route.
Bugler said this new arrangement has been in the works for some time, with discussions going back to January 2012. There were some dollars provided from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada to get the education council off the ground, he said.
The second-level services covered by the new education council include supports to students and schools through curriculum development and curriculum support. It includes providing professional development to teachers and staff, looking at the supervision and evaluation of teachers, special education services, speech services, educational psychologist assessments and training for special education teachers and education assistants working with high needs students.
It also covers treaty-language and culture co-ordination and development of the curriculum as well as providing guidance in implementing services in schools; director of education services to provide supports to communities, chiefs and councils and school advisory boards. They also do a number of supports and services for literacy and early learning services through that office as well.
The bands operate their schools "according to their needs," said Bugler. "What we do is provide advice on what those programs will look like."
He said the major focus has been on "bringing culture back as the focus or centre of what we do, and having the provincial curriculum support that."
