Baker Lake high school will re-open to students, teachers

Jonah Amitnaaq school is set to re-open Oct. 20, almost a month after a fuel leak closed the building to students. (FILE PHOTO)

Jonah Amitnaaq high school in Baker Lake will re-open its doors to students and teachers Oct. 20, almost a month after a fuel leak closed the school.

The Government of Nunavut’s department of Community and Government Service said Oct. 17 that air quality tests conducted at the school this week confirmed the building is safe for students.

On Sept. 22, a fuel tank in the school’s mechanical room overflowed during refueling.

The fuel was contained within a berm built into the facility, said CGS, whose local maintainer cleaned up the fuel and replaced the school’s HVAC filters to help ventilate the building.

But the school’s 350 or so students, from Grade 6 through Grade 12, were sent home as a precaution. And despite attempts to return to classes, persistent odours have kept the school closed ever since.

A week about the fuel spill, school administrators moved classes into Baker Lake’s community centre, creating classroom spaces with dividers, ping-pong tables and flip charts.

Space in the hall’s canteen meant the school’s breakfast program to keep up.

To accommodate the large numbers of students, students from Grades 6 through 9 have had classes each morning, while students from Grades 10 through 12 attended classes in the afternoon.

“The school administration, from our perspective, has done an excellent job in rallying a plan B,” said Bill Cooper, executive director of the Kivalliq school operations. “I walked through there on a few occasions and you really get the sense of an open school.”

But almost three weeks working out of the community hall has had its setbacks, too.

For one, other groups have needed access to the hall for meetings, entertainment and even a wedding, which required that the temporary classrooms be taken apart.

“Attendance started out strong but it’s waning a bit, which happens in this kind of situation,” Cooper said.

“Although there’s lost time, it could have been far worse if they hadn’t come together to find solutions. They’ve made the very best out of a very difficult situation.”

Cooper couldn’t say if the irregular schedule over the last few weeks would require students and teachers to make up for lost time.