Nunavut’s French school board offers olive branch at public meeting

Michel Potvin is the new president of the CSFN’s council of commissioners. (FILE PHOTO)

Parents of some of the 90 children enrolled in Iqaluit’s École des Trois-Soleils, and elected members of Nunavut’s French-language school board say they’ve taken a positive first step towards repairing their troubled relationship.

That’s after the two groups met publicly April 15 for the first time in six months, to hash out issues at the centre of an ongoing conflict within the local francophone school community in Iqaluit.

By the end of the meeting, held at Trois-Soleils, the Commission scolaire francophone du Nunavut’s elected council of commissioners had voted to oust its president, Jacques Fortier, and then appoint commissioner Michel Potvin to lead the five-member council.

Parents had asked for Fortier’s resignation given that he no longer resides in Nunavut, a requirement for the school board president.

“We knew that parents were preoccupied by this,” said Potvin, who has served as a CSFN commissioner since 2013. “Everyone recognized that Jacques has made a significant contribution to the school community.

“We’re really disappointed in the way this happened, but we understand the desire to have a president who is here, in the community.”

Fortier’s removal as president was one of the many requests made by parent group the Association des parents francophones du Nunavut, who asked the board to hold the special meeting to respond to ongoing concerns.

The parents’ group first requested the resignation of the entire council of commissioners this past February, alleging the school board has shown a lack of transparency in dealing with staffing changes and budgetary issues at the territory’s only French school.

In March, Seth Reinhart resigned as commissioner, while the school board announced the resignation of commissioner Louis Arki April 14. The board said both resignations were for personal reasons.

Fortier remains on the council as a commissioner, while the board announced two newly-appointed commissioners this week: Janet Rowsell and Daniel Hillman.

That change alone signalled a change in tone between the board and parent group, which have been at odds for several months.

“I think people are cautiously optimistic,” said APFN president Tim Brown. “To [the school board’s] credit, they could really understand where the crowd was coming from. Because of their actions of last night, they’ve come a long way in regaining our trust.”

Over the past several months, administrators at Trois-Soleils have had to contend with a number of teacher absences and personnel shortages that have forced many staff reassignments, including within its full-day kindergarten program.

But parents have complained that they’re not getting enough information those changes.

Then, shortly after the conflict erupted, the CSFN announced it was launching a lawsuit against the Government of Nunavut, evoking section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and demanding that it offer French-language education and school facilities on par with Iqaluit’s other schools.

The legal challenge was another issue of contention for parents at the April 15 meeting, who said they never gave the school board the mandate to move forward with it.

“We don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Brown said. “Of course, we want everything the lawsuit is asking, we just want to have a say in it.”

In response, the school board has agreed to host second meeting to address that issue.

“All the parents want the same thing — everyone agrees with that,” Potvin said. “It’s the way we went about it that upset people. Obviously we need a strong mandate to go ahead with this.”

“We realize that we still have trust to earn and a relationship to build,” Potvin added.

A final motion put forward by the APFN April 15 asked the board to conduct a full performance review of the school board’s director general, Réjane Vaillancourt. The motion passed, although it’s not clear how or when that will happen.

“What’s next for us is dealing with the atmosphere at the school,” Brown said, “And the more pressing issue is: who’s going to be teaching our kids next year?”