Slow to enrol
The executive director of the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society believes enrolment has been sluggish for the Vancouver school boards aboriginal school slated to open in September because the concept of a school with an aboriginal focus is new.
I broke the news July 18 that only six students had registered in the school.
For our community, this time of the year, July and August, are times where theyre out doing their food gathering, their food fishing, heading home possibly to their home communities, Susan Tatoosh, a member of the aboriginal school steering committee, told me July 20. Its usually a mad rush closer to the beginning of the school year.
She believes concerns she heard at a public information session about the school can be addressed. The school will run kindergarten to Grade 3 classes alongside regular classes at Macdonald elementary on East Hastings at Victoria Drive.
A number of non-aboriginal parents were concerned that their children wouldnt be included, Tatoosh said. Then there was concern from the aboriginal parents that they didnt want to have their children ghettoized.
Another view
Scott Clark, the executive director of Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement Society (ALIVE), sees the aboriginal school as a segregated model even though enrolment is open to all students.
Seven out of 10 aboriginal kids dont graduate. That should have been, in our mind, the number one issue, is how can we all collectively, all aboriginal service providers, non-aboriginal service providers, the school board, the parks board, work together to address that crisis thats going on right now, he said. If this was happening to the mainstream community, where 70 per cent of the kids were being pushed out of the system, there would be an uproar, but it seems to have been normalized.
Clark says the school board has provided no evidence that an aboriginal school will improve graduation rates for aboriginal students.
One of the key things that is a big issue throughout society and impacts our society is racism, so creating a school of segregation where theyre going to teach A, B, C, to enhance ones identity, thats fine, thats a good thing, said Clark, whos of Coast Salish ancestry. But they should actually be doing that in every school, at every level because its not enough to say that the aboriginal people are dysfunctional, were going to put them in one location and fix them. What about the other side, the other 92 per cent of the student population? When do we start educating them, the ones who are holding up a lot of the racism and the stereotypes.
School board chair Patti Bacchus says the aboriginal school steering committee discussed starting with a middle school model.
Theres always concern that we start losing kids between that transition between elementary and secondary. Its a very tough transition for a lot students where they start to slip, Bacchus said.
She said the committee considered research and talked to educators and decided to focus on creating a positive experience for aboriginal students from the start, as opposed to going in later and trying to remediate.
Bacchus noted the board continues to implement actions identified in the Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement.
Clark believes gentrification could partly explain slow enrolment in the aboriginal mini school.
A lot of our young families are headed up by single households, primarily women, he said. A lot of them have been forced out to other communities, particularly Surrey, which has the second largest urban aboriginal population in B.C.
Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi
