Aboriginal focus in northwestern schools improving results

Aboriginal student voice forums and other Aboriginal focused initiatives are paying off for students in the Keewatin-Patricia District School Board.
Clinton Bruetsch, principal of Beaver Brae Secondary School in Fort Frances, said the school’s focus on alternative education programs that provide flexibility for students is resulting in higher attendance rates, decreased suspension rates and higher numbers of graduates.
“What we’ve seen in the school and what we’re heard from some of the students as well as the community is that the school seems to be presenting more of a welcoming environment,” said Bruetsch. “Some evidence of that I believe is our attendance rates and our numbers of tardiness in class; those things are all improving pretty significantly.”
Bruetsch said more First Nation students have been graduating from Beaver Brae and across the board over the past few years as well.
“We have started some activities in the school that students seem to be eager to participate in,” Bruetsch said, listing sports activities such as floor hockey, boormball and a wrestling program. “We have spent a lot of work over the last few years trying to design alternative education programs that are a little bit more flexible in terms of how students can work at credits, where they can work, how much they have to attend and those have also allowed students to be more successful in achieving credits.”
The Aboriginal student voice forums were held over 2009-2010 with about 156 Aboriginal secondary school students from four schools involved in four one-day sessions. Aboriginal students accounted for 41.5 per cent of the Keewatin-Patricia District School Board’s total student population in 2008-2009 and numbers have been increasing since then.
“Students came up with five recommendations that would help in their learning environment,” said Eleanor Skead, Aboriginal advisor with the school board. “These forums have been an incredible experience for everyone involved. We are empowering our Aboriginal students to plan their futures, take responsibility for problems and take leadership roles in finding the solutions.”
The recommendations were: native fundraising to provide opportunities for Aboriginal students to experience life outside of a reserve; Anishinaabe sports development to promote leadership, organizing skills and confidence in the sports environment; leadership project to allow Aboriginal students to become more outspoken, young leaders and role models for younger students; teacher program to expose new teachers to the native culture; and Elder’s sharing Aboriginal culture within the school for a cultural drug awareness program to help native students deal with common problems they face today.
“We’re really focused on trying to build relationships with the teachers so that they will invite either discussions with the Elders or have conversations with Elders, advisors or even some of our other First Nations role models in the school,” Bruetsch said. “So that becomes more of an approach in how courses are delivered.”
The Keewatin-Patricia District School Board has also developed a voluntary and confidential self-identification policy for parents to be used for developing programs to meet the needs of First Nation, Metis and Inuit students.
Skead has seen some big improvements since the Aboriginal focused initiatives were implemented, including working with teachers one-on-one, giving insight into learning styles for Aboriginal students, looking at teaching strategies and including Aboriginal perspectives in the curriculum.
“The non-aboriginal students really are interested in learning about Aboriginal people and their history,” Skead said. “I have a lot of one-on-one conversations with teachers.”
Bruetsch emphasized the importance of modelling special interactions between staff.
“That discussion and openness seems to be percolating and spreading throughout our school,” Bruetsch said.