Wanted: 11 teachers for Nunavut’s Kivalliq region

Schools in Baker Lake want to get kids “out of their seats, and get them engaged in such a way, that they want to come to school everyday because there’s something more to do than pencil and paper,” says principal Harold Brown of Jonah Amitnaaq Middle School. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Schools in Nunavut’s Kivalliq region are still looking for 11 more teachers.

That’s after students went back to school Aug. 6 at Whale Cove’s Inuglak School and Aug. 14 in two other communities, Arviat and Coral Harbour.

However, the 2013 hiring season went well overall — and much better than the previous year, said executive director Shelly Pepler, director of Kivalliq School Operations.

“We’ve been noticing a decline in people that we’ve needed to hire outside the territory,” Pepler said. “Part of that is because there’s movement within the territory so people who might be ending on a term in another region might be applying to our region.”

Pepler said she isn’t too worried about the 11 unfilled positions because there are “a lot of applicants for those positions.”

“I would expect that most, if not all of them will be filled right away,” Pepler said.

And if some of those positions aren’t filled, Pepler has a plan.

“What we’ll do is put the casual teachers into those positions — people from the community,” Pepler said.

“We have conversations with our schools with what they want to do if they can’t fill a position and a month has gone by or something like that,” she said.

The Kivalliq region has hired 219 teachers so far for the region’s total school population of about 3,200 students.

As for Pepler’s other concerns— top on the list is improving school attendance.

“Low attendance rates — it has a detrimental affect on student outcomes and their learning. So that would be the one that would be for sure high priority for myself,” Pepler said.

“Schools are working with their DEA’s [department of education authority] to try and understand not only what policies that we put in place to support [attendance] but what are the everyday practices that have to be put in place to encourage us to come to school on a regular basis.”

The attendance rate in Kivalliq region schools stands at 73.5 per cent according to the latest 2011 numbers from the Nunavut Bureau of Statistics.

To improve those numbers, Baker Lake’s Jonah Amitnaaq Middle School is trying something new this year.

“What we’ve done is [create] a comprehensive industrial arts or shops program beginning at Grade 7 instead of at the high school,” principal Harold Brown said. “We’re backing that with a comprehensive foods program.”

“The intent is simple. We want them out of their seats, and get them engaged in such a way that they want to come to school every day because there’s something more to do than pencil and paper.”

Brown said he hopes kids will learn practical skills associated with shop and foods so the high school can strengthen their program.

The goal: for those practical skills to help students after high school.

Principal Doreen Hannak and vice-principal Tony Phinney at Arviat’s John Arnalujuak High School have the same idea to keep kids in school.

“We try to make sure there’s lots of hands on activities for them, we look to find the draw into school,” Phinney said. “Once we’re here we focus on their studies, but we need to focus on having fun too.”

Phinney said councillors also do monthly home visits to students with low attendance.

Meanwhile, Nunavut is also installing a new online tracking system to see how well these strategies work.

Officials at the Qikiqtani School Operations are still hiring teachers to work in Baffin region classrooms this school year, while earlier this month their counterparts at the Kitikmeot School Operations had only one position left to fill.

School start-up for the Kivalliq region is scheduled for:

• Arviat on Aug. 14 (Aug. 27 for John Arnalujuk High School);

• Baker Lake on Aug. 16;

• Chesterfield Inlet on Aug. 15;

• Coral Harbour on Aug. 14;

• Rankin Inlet on Aug. 16;

• Repulse Bay on Aug. 15; and,

• Whale Cove: Aug. 6