Nunavut schools brace for cuts to teaching jobs

John Arnalukjuak school in Arviat faces cuts to its teaching staff in 2015-16. (FILE PHOTO)

Schools across Nunavut are bracing for the fallout from a Government of Nunavut announcement last month on cuts to teaching allocations across the territory for the 2015-16 academic year.

The cuts are triggered by low enrollment at Nunavut’s schools, but communities are concerned the loss of teaching jobs will translate into even lower attendance rates.

The District Education Authority in Arviat said it received a letter from the Department of Education in mid-March explaining that the community’s three schools would lose 12.5 teaching jobs ahead of the next academic year.

Between the Kivalliq community’s three schools — the Levi Angmak elementary, Qitiqliq middle and John Arnalukjuak high schools — the number of teaching jobs would fall from about 62 to 50 next year.

“We’re taking a huge hit here,” said May Baker, a member of Arviat’s DEA. “We have to have teaching positions for all the academics, so this means we’re looking at getting rid of all the programming posts, like music, shop and drama.

“And these are all the programs that really draw students to the school, so we’re quite concerned this will impact students’ attendance even more.”

The loss of teachers represents a cut of about $206,000 to Arviat’s local education budget, Baker said.

The formula used by the Department of Education to determine teaching allocations at the territory’s schools is based on students attending school more than 40 per cent of the time.

Students are considered non-attenders when they are absent from at least 60 per cent of instruction time in a given month.

According to the GN’s calculations, Arviat counts 683 students enrolled at its three schools which translates into 50 teaching posts.

“But when we discussed this letter with the three principals, they said there was a discrepancy in the numbers for each school,” Baker said.

According to Arviat’s school administrators, there are more than 800 students enrolled and attending the community’s schools.

The DEA has sent a letter back to the Department of Education, asking that it re-evaluate Arviat’s school attendance data.

The DEA said the GN should take into consideration that Arviat families have enrolled 71 children into kindergarten for September 2015.

In a letter addressed to education minister Paul Quassa — which formed part of the DEA’s request — the principal of John Arnalukjuak school, Judy Connor, asked the GN to consider extenuating circumstances that surround the data.

The high school is only in its second year of using the Maplewood system, which tracks student data in Nunavut’s schools, and it’s taken time to train staff to use the program and properly input student data, Connor said in the letter, provided to Nunatsiaq News by the local DEA.

Connor, along with Arviat’s DEA, asks the GN to consider taking another snapshot of school attendance in September 2015 before it moves ahead with any cuts.

“We have started a skin tanning program that allows students to set a trap-line and get out on the land and trap their fox and then learn to tan those skins in the shop program,” Connor wrote in the letter. “With the proposed cuts of 12.5 teachers in Arviat, we risk losing those extra programs that are of the highest interest to our student body.”

In the meantime, the DEA said it has the support of the hamlet to develop an action plan to try and encourage better local school attendance which Baker acknowledges is at the root of the problem.

“We’re planning a community meeting so we can tell people ‘this is what’s happening by not sending your children to school,’” Baker said.

“It’s really hard to get some parents to comply, to get them to wake up their children in the morning and get them to school.”

Another concern at the community level is the 11 local students enrolled in Nunavut Arctic College’s teacher education program, who will have fewer jobs available to them upon graduation.

The Department of Education has yet to respond to the DEA’s request.

Nunatsiaq News has requested an interview with someone at the Department of Education to explain the staffing decision and get a breakdown of changes to teacher allocations across the territory for 2015-16.

As part of the Nunavut government’s mandate, Sivumut Abluqta, the GN has committed to educational reform, from early childhood education right through to secondary, with the goal of better preparing young Nunavummiut for the work force.

In the GN’s most recent budget, the education department’s budget got a 10 per cent boost, up to $203 million, to pay for 49 new staff: six employees at the territory’s three regional school operations and 43 new “learning coaches.”