Renovations delay re-opening of Rankin Inlet school

Renovations to Rankin Inlet’s Leo Ussak elementary school will delay classes from starting there until the end of the month. In the meantime, classes have been moved temporarily to other facilities in the community. (PHOTO COURTESY OF NTIP)

Nunavut children are back to school this week in most communities across the territory’s Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions.

But one school — Leo Ussak elementary in Rankin Inlet — will have to wait a little longer to opens its doors to students while construction and renovation work to the building is completed.

While classes were scheduled to begin Aug. 14 for its roughly 300 students, who range from kindergarten to Grade 4, major work to the building will likely delay the school’s opening until the end of the month, the local district education authority announced Aug. 13.

But the DEA and the school’s principals have coordinated a last-minute back-up plan to relocate Leo Ussak’s classes to venues around the community.

An opening assembly hosted early Aug. 14 at Simon Alaittuq middle school was distributing classroom locations to students and their families.

Until the renovations at Leo Ussak are complete, the school will use space at the community’s other schools as well as its adult learning centre.

In a message posted to Facebook Aug. 13, DEA chair Donna Adams apologized to the school’s students and families for the mishap.

“It does get frustrating,” Adams told Nunatsiaq News. “[But] I must commend the school staff, principals, teachers and school support administrators for their teamwork in all this.”

Nunavut’s education minister Paul Quassa happened to be in Rankin Inlet this week, where he assured the DEA he would try to get the work fast-tracked.

“This means getting more crew members on with the contractor which everyone is working on and/or keeping an eye on,” Adams said, “and he will most definitely follow up with how things are going along.”

In that case, renovations should be done by Aug. 30, rather than the original plan to have the work done by Sept. 30.

The renovation work includes putting in new front and emergency doors in the building; new windows and doors for each classroom and a new paint job.

Although the DEA has made efforts to reach out to the community, some parents were frustrated by the last-minute changes, though, saying they’d received little communication.

“I have a daughter who is supposed to be attending her first day of kindergarten [Aug. 14], pretty important milestone,” parent Matt Stacey wrote on Rankin Inlet community Facebook page Aug. 13.

“To date, I have not received any clear, official communication from the DEA or [Leo Ussak school] to say there is even a problem with the school, let alone where the classes could be.”

Parents with questions are still able to contact the actual school, Adams said, as there is staff there, including the principal, throughout the renovations.

By next week, all students in all communities of the Kitikmeot and Kivalliq regions will be back in school, while classes in the Baffin region will gradually start beginning the week of Aug. 24.

Schools in Iqaluit re-open Aug. 31, while the latest schools to start in Nunavut are Sanikiluaq on Sept. 3 and Pangnirtung Sept. 4.