A troubled Nunavik school pulls back from the brink

Tommy Kudluk, the centre director at Kangirsuk’s Sautjuit school, says the school is doing well thanks to its committed teachers and new resources. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE

Walk into this classroom of Sautjuit school in Kangirsuk and you’ll find happy kids learning — in a second language. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Maggie Annahatak and Julie Kudluk both graduated in the French sector of Kangirsuk’s Sautjuit School. “Only 2 graduates, but we are very proud of them for
succeeding in high school,” says local education committee president Zebedee Annahatak. (PHOTO COURTESY OF Z.ANNAHATAK)

KANGIRSUK — When Nathalie Ross, principal of Sautjuit School in Kangirsuk, wants to say something to the parents of her school’s 144 students, she simply picks up the phone and calls them.

“I call them a lot,” Ross says. “People said the parents didn’t like to hear from us. But it’s not like that. They say, ‘Thank you for calling.’”

Better communication one of the many winning conditions that Sautjuit School has established over the past two years.

The school’s new mood marks the end of a period of distress in the school — where student violence, among themselves and against teachers, was common— and in the community, racked by murder, assaults and gun-fueled violence that occasionally forced the school, its staff and students into frightening lock-downs.

Since no-nonsense Ross arrived in Kangirsuk two years ago from Salluit, where she was a teacher at the Sapummivik youth rehabilitation centre , she’s established rules such as no shoes in the school, no violence and no MP3 players.

Students need a routine and a set of expectations, Ross says.

And she won’t hesitate to call in the police if the school’s zero-tolerance rule against any kind of violence is abused.

“Now, we have support all the time,” she says.

That includes the presence of school monitor Joe Nungak, who’s ready to intervene when needed.

Ross has also set up committees to deal with issues like special education and motivation.

Today, the school is a safe place to be and to learn in, she says.

Last year’s uproar in Puvirnituq, where teachers said they were tired of being punched, hit, and threatened and treated with a lack of respect, could never happen here in Kangirsuk.

Quiet reigns at Sautjuit school. A sneak peek into several classrooms finds kids on their chairs and at their desks.

There’s no noise, just classwork going on, as curious students stop to ask questions in near-perfect French, English and Inuttitut.

Among the decorations on the school corridors is a display of student work on the theme “Love.”

That love shines out during a gathering held last month at the school gym to honour the best and brightest in Kangirsuk, including many students at the school.

One is Alexander Nassak, who was nominated for a Governor General’s award for grabbing a friend out of icy water and saving his life.

Or new 2011 grad Maggie Annahatak, who travelled to Antartica earlier this year with Students on Ice.

And the Grade 10 students, who saw their poems and stories published this spring in a book, “Quebec Roots: The Place where I live.”

Every year, 10 schools around Quebec participate in this project, sponsored by the Blue Metropolis Foundation to show off Quebec’s diversity.

This year, students in Velta Douglas’s class took photos and wrote about the theme “on the land, from the land”

“We want to graduate from high school.
We want to go to college to learn about art and history.
We want to get a good job with a high salary.
We want to work in health care, have a business,
be a childcare worker.

We need to stay in the North.
Our people need us,
But we also dream about coming back and helping.
We dream about being good leaders to take action.”

One photo published in the book shows a microwave package of spaghetti next to a caribou head.

“It’s been a beautiful experience” to work with the students on the project, Douglas says.

For Tommy Kudluk the centre director, who’s been at Kangirsuk’s school for 19 years through good times and bad, things are looking up.

“I feel good at the school,” says Kudluk who points to the additional resources like money for a new breakfast program, renovations and a six-classroom addition, which make the school more attractive for students and staff.

Of the schools 19 teachers, 10 are Inuit. Among the non-Inuit teachers, only three are leaving this year, compared to the start of 2009 when nearly every teacher from the South and the principal were new.

Now, there’s time to get to know people, for the entire staff to go snowmobiling together or, along with the students, plan for an end-of-year picnic on June 20.

The teachers go beyond what’s asked. To encourage attendance, one teacher has a boy over to supper — with his father’s permission and support— every day that he goes to school.

Another invites her entire class over for a sleepover before the end of school.

The end of the school year still brings out some tension in the school, between teachers and the principal, but a teacher says it’s all to make the school better.

“We’re a strong team and we see all the potential in the village and the children,” a teacher says. “We’re talking about issues, and that’s normal in every work place.”

Kangirsuk’s mayor, Peter Airo, a culture teacher at the school until earlier this year, says Saujuit is “A-1.”

Airo, a former student at the Churchill Vocational school, learned a trade and English at residential school.

But the flip side of residential school was that many in the community didn’t pass on their culture to their own families or the idea that school is important, he says.

Now, love of learning and social conditions are slowly improving in Kangirsuk, Airo says, although he, like education committee president Zebedee Annahatak, wants to see more grads — up from this year when there are only two, Maggie Annahatak and Julie Kudluk.

On June 21, teachers head back to the school to tidy up. When they return in August, their school will be larger, and they hope to continue moving ahead.

“It is good,” says principal Ross. “We can feel it. I say it’s because I have a good team.”

With a growing school population of 144 students from Kindergarten to Sec. Five (Grade 11 in Nunavut), Kangirsuk’s Sautjuit school needed more space — and soon it will have when an addition with six new classrooms is completed. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)