Related
First published on September 20, 2010.
HOBBEMA - If Ermineskin band member Gauge Rattlesnake had grown up on almost any other reserve in Alberta, he likely would not be graduating Friday.
The lanky 19-year-old first dropped out of school in Grade 10. With problems at home, he missed one semester and would have missed another, but his homeroom teacher marched up to his mom's front door.
"He just said hello and asked how I was doing. I didn't have to explain myself or anything," says Rattlesnake.
The visit from the teacher Rattlesnake had known for years was enough to coax him back to class.
In Grade 11, he dropped out again and missed another semester. But at Ermineskin, they refuse to give up on students. School counsellors came by twice and convinced him to return.
Then in March of their Grade 12 year, Rattlesnake and his girlfriend, Jordan Eagle, had a baby son, and teachers let the young family study on their own in an alcove full of couches inside the school.
"We're going to be in the same graduation class," he says now proudly, taking a break from his janitorial job at the school. He earned enough credits for a provincial certifi cate of completion, Eagle earned her diploma, and both have an accomplishment they can build on.
Rattlesnake plans to frame his certificate for his wall. He ranks its importance "more or less right next to my son."
Hobbema was not an easy town to grow up in.
For years, graffiti covered the houses, garbage littered the townsite and gunshots rang out several times a week as 13 gangs vied for control of the drug trade in a community of 12,000.
Despite all the distractions, Ermineskin has kept a serious, steady approach to education for nearly 20 years. Those who work with First Nations schools hold it up as a model. Some staff have taught there since the beginning of band control, and they build on success, year after year, with a consistency that's almost unheard of among First Nations schools.
A lack of data from other reserve schools means it's hard to say exactly how that translates into academic success.
So instead of using standardized data, teachers point to the growing line of Grade 12 grad photos that snakes around the atrium of the junior/senior high school. Ermineskin has consistently seen half of its Grade 12 class graduate for the past three years.
The attitude of Ermineskin parents is changing, too.
Where administrators used to run radio ads and post flyers to get parents to register their kids in the fall, and many wouldn't show up until the end of September or later, the school of 900 students now has a waiting list every year before classes even start.
Staff call that progress, and the secret, they say, is consistency in the classroom, a solid administration, and a hands-off but supportive approach from the chief and council.
Ermineskin has a long history of education. It was the site of a Catholic residential school, and the federal government ran a day school out of the same building until the band took it over in 1991.
That first year was difficult. All except four teachers had left or were not welcomed back, so staff were starting with little experience. But right away, the band took steps to reorganize.
They brought in consultants from Edmonton Public to help write school policy, set up a local school board with members appointed by a committee of parents and formed a committee of teachers to give advice. They also set up an education authority, so federal funding never mixes with the larger band budget.
Then, three years after taking over the school, the band did something else rare, if not unique, among reserve schools in Alberta. While most First Nations schools offer one-year contracts, Ermineskin offered indeterminate contracts after a three-year probationary period. The band council also agreed to match what the province pays teachers in the neighbouring jurisdiction, while other reserve schools pay teachers between 20 and 40 per cent less.
"Even with the salaries going up and up in the provincial system, we've been slowly keeping pace, and that's a huge commitment from the board," says Keith MacQuarrie, principal at the junior/senior high school, which didn't lose any staff last year.
MacQuarrie came to Ermineskin eight years ago as a first-year teacher in physical education, looking to get his foot in the door. Now he easily has the experience to get a job back home in Nova Scotia, but changed his mind about leaving.
"Why would I want to leave? I love it here. The students are awesome, and things seem to be going in a really positive, a really good direction." direc-
As assistant principal Sharon Seright gives a tour of the junior/ senior high school, her tank-top shows off the tattoo "believe" at the base of her neck.
Seright shows off the woodworking shop, the new iMacs in the computer labs, clarinets and guitars in the new music room, the beauty salon, and the Cree centre full of crafts and worksheets. Co-ordinator Patricia Johnson incorporates Cree language and culture into every class.
"It works great with science and social."
The junior/senior high school was finished 10 years ago on the site of the old residential school. The primary school is tucked in behind, with an alternative high school just down the road for those most at risk of dropping out.
Seright spent five years at the band-run school on her home reserve nearby, but quit in frustration after the band kept refusing to renew contracts for good teachers. She almost swore off teaching completely before coming here and now loves it.
"People try to push their way through here, but we have policies," she says.
The band council leaves education director Brian Wildcat in control. "He's the boss, really," Seright says. "They trust that we're doing the right thing for our kids."
Wildcat has been leading the schools since 1994, after he finished his master's in education. Twenty years ago, 10 people worked in administration for the schools. Now there are just four, which is one reason Ermineskin can afford to keep teacher salaries at the provincial pay scale. "We push the money out to the schools," he says.
Their entire operating budget comes from regular Indian Affairs funding, although the band has contributed on occasion to big-ticket items such as the junior/senior high school.
Wildcat says the schools succeed by understanding each student's needs and by focusing on planning and data collection.
The schools offer three academic streams.
Just over half of the students follow the regular Alberta curriculum, the majority of the rest follow a version modified to meet their pace, and about five per cent are in the Eagles program, which focuses on life and social skills, basic literacy and simple math.
Ten years ago, teachers started keeping profiles of each student.
At the end of every year, starting with kindergarten, they meet with each student's parents to discuss which stream best suits the child.
Response to absenteeism and discipline issues, too, are clearly laid out in policy.
If a student is not coming to class or acting violent, teachers call a student intervention hearing. Together with the student and his or her parents, they come up with a plan for the student to get back on track, a plan the whole group promises to revisit three weeks later.
For students in elementary and junior high, the schools also have the Sohki program, which takes students with severe behavioural problems out of the classroom for awhile. One full-time teacher works with eight or nine students at a time.
They stay three to four months, or as long as they need to learn the coping and anger management techniques that let most successfully reintegrate into the classroom, says Sanila Mehal, director of student services.
"We've had graduates who at one point in time were in Sohki."
In the last two years, Wildcat and his staff have revamped the alternative high school, too, changing the focus from upgrading academically to building career and life skills. There's an emphasis on counselling, and flexibility for young mothers who stay up all night with a sick child.
Teachers make sure students get a bank account and social insurance number, and have someone to drive them to write their learner's licence test, says Wildcat. "We need to prepare them to be successful adults. We want them to be working."
Students seem to be responding. Before the overhaul at the alternative high school, 50 students would start the year and often only two would finish. Last year, about 30 were still in class in June, and for the first time one will be walking the stage at this Friday's graduation ceremony to collect a certificate of completion.
But the real key to having a successful school, says Wildcat, is to gain the trust and support of the parents. He doesn't need them volunteering to sell hotdogs in the school, but simply to speak well of the school in the community and to their children.
"It's all about building a sense of trust in your parents that they believe the system is working. How you do that? I don't know. It has to do with consistency over 20 years. It's not something you can say, well, if you do these four things, you'll change your school. It took a long time."
"From the very first action plan of 1994," chimes in financial controller Peter Kerr.
"Until today," says Wildcat, "and we're still working on it."
TOO MURKY TO MEASURE
Ermineskin staff celebrated when a record 52 per cent of their Grade 9 students passed their provincial achievement tests in language arts last spring.
But without data from other reserve schools, administrator Sanila Mehal says it's hard to know how thrilled they should be.
The provincial average passing rate, not including on reserve schools, was 88 per cent, but Ermineskin teachers think it's unfair to measure against provincial averages when roughly half of the Ermineskin students have learning or behavioural disabilities.
The only data available for on-reserve schools comes from a seven-year-old provincial report, which Mehal didn't have access to before this weekend. That report shows only 27 per cent of students on reserve passed their provincial achievement tests in language arts between 1999 and 2001.
In Grade 9 math, science and social studies, Ermineskin's pass rates were zero, five and eight per cent, respectively.
- - -
Broken Pencils
Twenty years of local control hasn't fixed First Nations education and 9,000 students risk being marginalized the rest of their lives.
In a four-part series, Journal reporter Elise Stolte asks why and finds one school that bucks the trend.
Friday: A bleak report card
Saturday: The madness of teacher turnover
Sunday: Enoch school's fragile recovery
Today: Ermineskin school an oasis amid turmoil
