Kivalliq region deals with new teachers, old buildings

MIRIAM HILL

IQALUIT — Classes are in session at all 11 schools in the Kivalliq region this week.

Chris Purse, executive director of school services for the Department of Education in the Kivalliq, said the last school to open, the Qitiqliq School in Arviat, welcomed students back on Wednesday.

All the region’s teaching positions, which number about 150, are filled, Purse said.

“It didn’t seem to be quite as challenging to find staff this year as last year,” he said, though teacher turnover was about the same — around 25 per cent.

Chesterfield Inlet faced the most drastic turnover. Four of the eight staff members at Victor Sammutok School are new to the community. The school also has a new principal.

“One comment this year was that it didn’t seem to be quite as challenging to find staff this year than last year.”

– Chris Purse, executive director of school services for the Department of Education, Kivalliq region.

Purse said new teachers always need time to adjust to the community. Since the principal is new, that catch-up time may continue a bit longer.

No school in the Kivalliq region kept all its teachers, but the one with the lowest turnover was Tusarvik School in Repulse Bay, where only one teacher left.

A local graduate of Arctic College’s teacher education program filled that job.

Enrolment numbers for schools in the region won’t be known until the end of the month, since some older students won’t enroll until they finish their summer jobs, Purse said.

But he said it appears as if enrollment numbers are up slightly.

Last year 2,450 students were enrolled in the Kivalliq’s schools, a jump of about 150 from 1999. Purse said that’s not a big increase and he expects to see a similar jump when final enrollment numbers are evaluated at month’s end.

Because the number of students in schools is rising, new teaching jobs are being created each year. This year, five new positions were added in the region.

“Not only are we replacing teachers, we’re hiring new ones as well,” Purse said. The schools decide how they will allocate their funding, so some may make cuts in other areas to pay for more teachers.

Purse said conditions at some of the region’s schools aren’t good.

Two-thirds of the Jonah Amitna’aq High School in Baker Lake was torn down this summer.

“They’re working with a lot less space,” Purse said.

Nearly half the classrooms in the Grade 7-12 school are gone, so general-purpose rooms have been converted into full-time classrooms.

About 200 students have been in the building since classes resumed Aug. 14, Purse said, “but there are going to be problems along the way, I would suspect.”

This cramped situation will last until a new school is built, in about two years.