TRACY HUGHES
Black Press
The North Okanagan-Shuswap School District continues to make progress on a request from First Nations to adopt the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and to enhance aboriginal education.
The board has passed a motion to accept the recommendations of the national commission and also endorse a school district action plan.
The plan focuses on four areas: curriculum, resources, teacher capacity and student capacity. Among other ideas, the plan calls for a greater inclusion of aboriginal topics for both teachers and students, encouraging the use of aboriginal educational resources, initiating a Truth and Reconciliation teacher representative at each school and having the Sewepemetsin language an option at Grade 5 by 2017-2018.
The document is in the early, stages, however, and Irene Laboucane, district aboriginal education principal, told the board work will now begin on a detailed five-year plan.
The action was widely praised by Splatsin Chief Wayne Christian, who spoke to the board about the long-term implications of the residential school experience that has travelled through generations of local First Nations people.
“Our family units were shredded…, these children were taken away from their families in cattle trucks to residential school and parents were not allowed to voice their concerns. If they did, they were sent to jail,” he said.
“It is hard for some people to believe these things could happen in Canada, but they did.”
Christian went on to praise the school board for taking quick action.
“We were here in November asking for some of these things and to see, three months later them actually happen, I applaud the board and Irene Laboucane for their work.”
School superintendent Glenn Borthistle noted the implementation plan and the creation of Truth and Reconciliation teacher reps would take place within the school district’s existing budget and the teacher reps would be for those who volunteered to take on the role.