Nunavut’s francophone parents submit petition to GN

Nunavut’s association of francophone parents submitted this petition to the department of education Feb. 3 asking for the resignation of the territory’s French school board director and elected commissioners.

Nunavut’s association of francophone parents submitted a petition to the territorial Department of Education Feb. 3 asking for the resignation of its French-sector school board director and elected commissioners.

The petition, distributed last week and signed by more than 100 parents, calls for the resignation of the director general and five-member council of the territory’s only French-language school board, la Commission scolaire francophone du Nunavut.

The Association des parents francophones du Nunavut (APFN) alleges that the school board has shown a complete lack of transparency in dealing with staffing changes at its only school, École des Trois-Soleils in Iqaluit.

The petition, which was circulated online starting last week, collected 114 signatures — most of them from Iqaluit, but some from around the country.

Karen Kabloona in Iqaluit wrote that, despite research showing the benefits of a strong parent-school connection, “time and again, the administration have told me to sit down and if I don’t like their decisions, I can move my child to another school.”

Another parent, Janine-Annette Littmann signed the petition from Winnipeg, where she says her family recently relocated from Iqaluit due to concerns about the community’s only French-language school.

“Over the years we were…. baffled by the choices of the CSFN, which seemed to only benefit certain employees instead of the students, families and community,” wrote Littmann, who left Nunavut before her son could be enrolled at Trois-Soleils.

“These problems have been going on for years, and simply need to stop.”

And former Trois-Soleils teacher, Céline Couture, now living in southern Quebec, signed the petition in support of her former colleagues, “in hopes of the rebirth of the dynamic and bright francophone school that I knew.”

In addition to the 114 signatories, the APFN said that it encountered a number of parents and French-language rights holders in Nunavut who did not feel they could openly sign the petition, for professional and political reasons.

The petition has now been sent to Nunavut’s education minister Paul Quassa, his deputy and assistant deputy ministers Kathy Okpik and John MacDonald, as well as Iqaluit-Tasiluk MLA George Hickes.

It’s not clear at this point if or how the department will respond.

For its part, the school board said it’s working to address the concerns, which it believes are not expressed by a majority of Trois-Soleils parents.