Education minister apologizes to family of 5-year-old hurt at Iqaluit school
‘I should have been informed right away,’ says mother of child whose eye was injured
The mother of a kindergarten student at Nakasuk School in Iqaluit says her son is owed a “sincere personal apology” after being injured during recess. (File photo)
Nunavut’s education minister has apologized to the family of a five-year-old kindergarten student injured at Nakasuk School in Iqaluit, promising to address the “lapse in communication.”
“While privacy guidelines prevent us from sharing specific details, we want to assure you that the matter has been handled in accordance with our Human Resources protocols,” Pamela Gross wrote in an email to the boy’s mother, who shared it with Nunatsiaq News.
Nunatsiaq News is not identifying the boy because his family is concerned he might be vilified or bullied.
The boy’s mother said that on March 26, she went to the school to pick him up just before 4 p.m.
She was standing at the stairs at the front of the school as the children were leaving, and noticed her son was late. After everyone left, she saw him walking out with his substitute teacher.
He was upset and had blood over his right eye, the mother said.
It “felt heavy” and the dried blood hurt when he blinked, he told her as she wiped blood from his cheeks and injured eyelid using paper towels in the school washroom.
Now, more than a month later, his mother is still unsure of what happened that day.
“These guys [school staffers] can’t tell me 100 per cent what happened, which is even more concerning,” she said.
Her son told her that during recess he was playing and climbing on a rope ladder, and the rope hit him.
“I said, ‘OK, how did it hit you? Did you fall? How is it possible that your eye got hit? Did you get pushed?”
Her son kept saying that “these things happen” — not the type of language her “little guy” usually uses, she said.
“I don’t even care that much how he got hurt, they’re kids, accidents are gonna happen,” she said. “It’s how you follow through with them afterward.”
The boy told his substitute teacher about the incident, but his parents were not notified and he was not seen by a doctor or nurse.
His mother estimates the boy had been injured for an hour or two before she saw him.
“I should have been informed right away, and his eyes should have been checked. What if his eye was punctured, you know?” she said, adding she checked with public health afterward and there was no long-term damage apart from a scar on his eyelid.
After the incident, the mother tried to talk to the school management. She wasn’t satisfied with the response, so she emailed the education minister on March 28.
Gross apologized in an email April 2, acknowledging the situation was not handled properly.
“We are very sorry that you were not immediately informed of your son’s injury; you should have been,” Gross said.
“We have since identified and addressed the lapse in communication with the individuals responsible to ensure such delays do not happen again.”
But the mother believes her son deserves a “sincere personal apology.”
“It would affirm that his experience mattered, that his feelings were valid, and that he is worthy of care and respect regardless of his age,” she responded in an email to Gross on April 8.
The mother said that before her son was born, she heard stories from other parents in Iqaluit about children being neglected in school, but didn’t take them seriously.
“Your child must be acting out or whatever,” she thought.
Now, she says she has learned, parents are often not informed about their children’s whereabouts during field trips and are not supervised, with staff often “disengaged.”
But she doesn’t blame the teachers.
“These teachers work really, really hard,” she said, adding it’s a matter of school protocols and regulations not being followed.
She hopes the situation will change so her relatives’ and friends’ kids will have a safer school.
John Manzo, the education department’s communications manager, told Nunatsiaq News they’re aware of the situation.
“Qikiqtani School Operations undertook a thorough internal review in collaboration with the school’s leadership, and a formal apology was extended to the family involved,” he said, declining to discuss specifics.
The mother said her family will soon be moving south and the five-year-old will attend a southern school she hopes will be better regulated.
The incident isn’t the reason for the move, but it was a factor they considered.
“If he was really well-grounded in the school and the school was safe, I would want to keep him in there,” the mother said.
“But for me, it’s a no-brainer. We’ll leave. He’ll do better in any other school.”
While I understand the mother’s concern about her son being hurt, I would hope that people don’t read this article and made broad assumptions about Nakasuk or Iqaluit schools in general. My children went to Nakasuk from K-5 (with many of the current teachers and administration) and they had very positive experiences. They have been successful upon leaving the school and felt supported by both their teachers and administration. As a parent, their safety was never a concern. Whether or not students in Nunavut get an equivalent education to those in the south is often questioned, and I know teachers and all school staff work very hard in Iqaluit (and Nunavut) to counter any doubts and make the schools are a safe and successful place for them. This mother has a right to take her concerns to whichever level she feels appropriate, but to label an entire school system as neglectful is hurtful and demoralizing for those who work in the schools, and as a newspaper representing all Nunavummiut, I would hope you would be more mindful of the quotes you publish.
Wait until the parent finds out that southern schools, while usually a little less chaotic and better equipped, are far from perfect either.
My kids spent a lot of years in Iqaluit schools, it is what you make of it. If you’re fresh from down south and you expect the school to run the way the school in your community was run, you’ll never be satisfied.
Saying ”he’ll do better in any other school” is setting yourself up for more disappointment unless they’re able to find the one school where mishaps never happen and all situations are black and white.
So as a newspaper that represents all Nunavummiut you think that NN should censor a person residing in Nunavut from speaking about an injury to her child while in the school she trusts to keep her child safe. A situation that, after not receiving adequate response from the school, required a written apology from the Minister of Education. This government receives too much shelter already from their shortcomings. Remember the 2 residents of the care home in Chesterfield Inlet who died? How about the children sent out of the territory to unlicensed group homes? Your impassioned plea for silence leads me to believe your connection to the school may be a little closer than just a parent of students who previously attended.
This isn’t about censorship. It’s about the fact that the reporter chose to take one incident and the word of one parent and label the entire school as ‘negligent’ and ‘disengaged’. A day or two before, this newspaper had an article about the musical the school puts on every year that teachers willingly give up hours upon hours of their own time to make happen because of how much it means for the students. That doesn’t sound disengaged to me. The mother has a right to feel upset her child was hurt – but it was not a well-balanced article and if this was the only article or first article someone read about Nakasuk it would give them a very one-sided, negative view of the school in general. It’s great that the mother says the teachers are hardworking, but her comments after negate that statement. If Nunatsiaq really felt like this needed to be reported, which is within their right, they could have been more balanced in how this was reported as not to drag every person working in the school under the bus and diminishing the work of all staff.
Sanikiluaq elementary school is worse than this. There is no teachers with teaching diploma.
You can just get hired without a resume.
Same in Kinngait, quite a few “teacher” have no training
Helicopter parent.
And what would your reaction be to picking up your child from school only to find them bleeding from an injury near their eye that you were mot aware of and had not been treated by a medical professional?
all schools need an update and better equality education for all student/s especially people with accessible needs to have proper things in place. Here is an opportunity to learn together and respect the locals for better education and Learn. Our son had broken finger/wrist due to cause of this not notified or given an apology. He had to go south for reconstruction of hand. Now he did not want to go school anymore as three teachers attacked him being harassed and this should stop. School is a place for education and role models it is time we listen to each other especially Parents?
I completely agree with this comment. My children have also gone through Nakasuk School, and they loved their time there. Some of their favorite teachers and school memories are from their time at Nakasuk. Not once was I concerned about their safety. Not once did I feel like there was a lack of communication.
I wonder if Nunatsiaq News reached out to fact-check before publicly slandering the entire school and staff?
This parent is well within her right to ask questions and make sure her child is in good hands; however, going to a news company to have an article written about how “any other school would be better” just seems uncalled for. Therefore, I felt the need to speak up and let others know that this is not typical of what parents should expect when they send their children to Nakasuk.
Either the child is telling the truth or he got punched by another kid. The teacher is incompetent for not seeking medical attention for the child and should be forced to undergo basic trading in common sense. It sounds like he got punched so let’s give him credit for not being a tattletale and for having character at such a young age.
If the child did get punched let’s turn our focus to the culprit who may have punched him. Look at how many women and girls we see walking through Northmart with black eyes so let’s not pretend. This is the capital of women battering. Learned behavior. Passed on down. Deny all you want. Seeing is believing.
What kind of sorry excuse for journalism is this? Now parents can air their petty grievances to the local newspaper and it gets published?
The claims made by this parent are absolutely wild. School staff are trained in first aid and have procedures in place to determine how to respond to injuries that happen at school. Expecting to be notified “right away” is absurd if the injury doesn’t warrant it. The parent was informed, just not the way felt entitled to be.
The parent not wanting their name published so their child won’t get bullied is also absurd. Bullied by who? His kindergarten classmates who read the newspaper?!
Funny that the Dept of Education can comment on this, yet never seems to have a comment when it comes to genuine issues that are affecting Iqaluit children- like a LACK OF CURRICULUM, schools in poor repair, lack of mental health and special education services, or the departments completely dismissive attitude and lack of understanding about what actually goes on in a school.
Not all school staffs are trained. Most of Nunavut teachers are substitute teachers and not all do them are trained. If I don’t get any answers I would turn to Nunatsiaq also, it seems the only way to get answers now because school leaders don’t always provide answers because they want to protect their teachers and their reputations.
My comment is referring specifically to the staff at Nakasuk School, where teachers are both trained in first aid and certified (not substitute teachers).
The parent did get an answer from the school, just clearly not the answer she wanted.
This may be the case for “most” of Nunavut, but most of the teachers in Iqaluit and Nakasuk School specifically, which is the focus of this article, are trained and qualified teachers.
Commenters keep pointing out facts about other communities/schools. While those facts may be true for other schools and communities, this article is about Iqaluit and Nakasuk School and the so called “facts” in the article are one-sided and slandering.
How are they one-sided and slandering one might ask? Well, for example, I’m very curious how a parent can say the teachers are all “disengaged.” Is this that parent’s opinion after observing all the teachers teaching in their classrooms? Or perhaps (more likely) from a couple minute observation while teachers are out on duty before school starts? Food for thought…and since we’re on the topic of food, I’ll be sure to take everything Nunatsiaq News posts with a grain of salt from now on.
As a resident of Iqaluit and a former student at Nakashuk School (K-5) I can say that it is an extremely safe environment for children. I do understand a mother’s concern for her child’s well being; however, there are claims in this article that seem to be quite inaccurate and perhaps even harmful. Claiming that parents are “often not informed about their children’s whereabouts during field trips and are not supervised” is untruthful. Permission slips are handed out well in advance, and there are always teacher/SSA chaperones watching the children. The article also claims that the child was hit with a “rope ladder”, but there are no rope ladders on the Nakashuk School playground. And honestly the comment saying the child will do better in any other seems disrespectful and unfair to the staff of Nakashuk School.
By all means take what you will from this article, but ultimately, I am confident in my claim that the school is well equipped with staff who are aware of the severity of an injury that requires getting parents involved.