Trois-Soleils doing what it can, French school board says

Administration at École des Trois-Soleils is dealing with teacher absences and the lack of funding to maintain a full-day kindergarten program, but parents say they want more communication on those issues. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavut’s French-language school board, the Commission scolaire francophone du Nunavut, says it’s doing the best it can to communicate with Iqaluit parents about staffing changes in the territory’s only French-language school.

Parents with children enrolled at École des Trois-Soleils recently went public with complaints that the school administration and school board have left them in the dark about changes in the classroom, mostly stemming from teacher absences and the lack of funding to maintain a full-day kindergarten program.

Some parents have even began circulating a petition asking for the resignation of the school board’s director and its commissioners.

But Louis Arki, vice president of the school board’s elected council of commissioners, has found the reaction of some parents to be unfairly negative.

“Criticizing is easy, but working through these issues is much harder,” Arki said Jan. 23. “Commissioners are volunteers….and there’s been no thanks for what we’ve done. I find the reaction a bit strong.”

“I do think it’s a minority who are unhappy,” he added. “The majority of parents are happy to have their kids at Trois-Soleils.”

Arki said the school board is not responsible for the day-to-day operations at Trois-Soleils, which serves about 90 students. That’s the job of the school’s administration, which is led by a new principal who just began his posting earlier this month.

Part of the parent criticism focused on the cancellation of the last two council meetings, public meetings which usually take place once a month.

But Arki said the school board is not obligated to host those regular meetings, and that there’s no use holding a meeting simply to field criticism.

The council has, however, met on weekends over the last six months to develop a strategic plan for the school for 2014-2019, Arki said.

The council is also helping to distribute a questionnaire in the coming weeks to compile parent feedback on the continuation of Trois-Soleils’ full-day kindergarten program.

While the Government of Nunavut only funds half-day kindergarten throughout the rest of the territory, Trois-Soleils ran a three-year pilot project to offer full-time kindergarten, funded in part by the GN.

But while the school board is keen to maintain the full-time program, it said the GN’s education department recently refused a request to fund a half-time teaching position which would allow the program to continue.

“It’s a program that’s had enormous success,” Arki said. “Everyone agrees it’s a good thing, but how do we pay for it?”