Pangnirtung residents sign petition to keep high school principal

PATRICIA D’SOUZA

About 150 Pangnirtung residents signed a petition in support of the principal of Atagooyuk School, after the district education authority refused to renew his contract.

Members of the community have rallied around Calvin Kippenhuck, the principal of the community’s high school for the past four years.

“I believe the principal is a very good principal and we’ve had no difficulties and we want to keep him on,” said a staff member at the school who asked not to be identified.

“He’s easy to get along with and he works well with the staff members and also the students here at Atagooyuk School,” she said.

Kippenhuck said the DEA gave him no reason for what is effectively a dismissal. He was officially notified of the decision on May 5.

“As of this date, nobody has talked to me about anything. I’ve never had a meeting with them, they’ve never come to me to express any concern of any kind with anything that’s been going on in the school,” he said.

“And as well, when I discussed it with the director of QSO [Qikiqtani School Operations], he informed me that in the four years that I’ve been here they’ve never had a complaint from this community with respect to anything in the school.”

Kippenhuck is not fighting the decision, and has actually secured a position as principal of another school in the Baffin region.

However, he said no organization should be able to dismiss an employee without cause – especially the DEA, which is not the organization that hired him.

“The thing that concerns me is that the DEA is not the hiring body. It is QSO who actually hires teachers and principals,” he said.

“They should not have the authority to get rid of somebody either, but that seems to be the way things are going right now, so we can probably expect to see more in the future.”

Charles Banfield, the executive director of QSO, said his role as employer is simply to accept the recommendations of DEAs.

“The DEA is the duly elected representative of the community and we are obliged to respect their recommendations,” he said.

He said the DEA did not provide a reason for its decision and QSO does not require they provide one.

The Education Act gives DEAs in all communities this power over principals and teachers, and does not anticipate that they will provide a reason, said Lou Bugell, president of the Nunavut Federation of Teachers.

“The principals are quite aware when they’re hired that at the end of their term the possibility always exists that [their contract] will not be renewed,” Bugell said.

“Of course, these things can always be reconsidered, but whether it would be would be in [the DEA’s] hands.”

If Kippenhuck had been a teacher in Pangnirtung before becoming principal, he would have been guaranteed a teaching job in the community, Bugell added.

But Kippenhuck had been principal of a school in Deer Lake, Newfoundland, for 20 years before he and his wife moved to Pangnirtung.

He added that he doesn’t believe the fact that he is from Newfoundland has anything to do with the DEA’s decision.

Solomon Nakoolak, chair of the Pangnirtung DEA, was not available for comment.

A recent directive to all education staff in Nunavut from the office of Manitok Thompson, the minister of education, has also made many Nunavummiut hesitant to speak their mind.

“The minister would want to be consulted first about any interview that might be addressed to Education HQ or about a controversial topic,” the message says.

The directive has made an emotional topic even more controversial in the community, as the rumour mill grows in the absence of real information.

But Kippenhuck said he plans to put the situation behind him in June and move on.

“There’s plenty I could say but I don’t think I want to make it public right now. I have a lot of support in this community, there’s no doubt about that. I’m not going to be going out of here feeling negative or bitter about the community,” he said.

“I know that I have the total support of my staff, so I’ll go out of here with no hard feelings against anybody.”