Snakes and leaders

Get rid of the snakes and bring back the regions’ divisional education boards — that’s the message Nanulik MLA Patterk Netser shared with his fellow MLAs in a member’s statement and a lengthy address in the legislature earlier during this session.

Netser said he doesn’t like the presence of two snakes at Coral Harbour’s school, which, he said, are pets belonging to a teacher.

“For some reason this particular teacher does not want to keep his pet snakes at home, instead the snakes are kept in the school,” Netser said. “Parents have told me that these snakes have a strong odour and attract flies.”

And he said the community doesn’t like the children being asked to catch lemmings and snow buntings to feed the snakes.

“It is not an animal that is found in our land,” he said.

Following a public meeting of Coral Harbour’s District Education Authority, where a motion was passed asking that the snakes be removed from the school, Netser sent a letter to the school.

“The next day, without informing the DEA, the principal called a staff meeting to discuss the DEA recommendations. He then said that the concern was expressed by one man; that no parents had complained and there was no health concern. The principal then informed his staff that the DEA motion would be disregarded and the snakes would remain in the school.”

Netser said: “I am not just one man; I am an elected representative of Coral Harbour, and I have a mandate to represent the views of my community.”

In his member’s statement, Netser questioned whether a school principal, who has been the education leader in Coral Harbour for less than one year, should have “the idea that his authority and opinion about even something as minor as whether a snake should be in our school,” is more important than the “respectfully expressed concerns of the elected members of the District Education Authority.”

Netser said he’s now more concerned about who is in charge of local schools than he is about snakes.

“As we develop a new Education Act for Nunavut, I will be looking for real authority to be given to the communities and regions to oversee education programs in our schools.”

In a lengthy address to the legislature on Feb. 24, Netser called for the re-instituting of the three divisional education boards in the Kitikmeot, Kivalliq and Baffin regions, which were absorbed into the GN’s education department in 1999.

“We should turn the administration of the schools back to the communities,” Netser said. “Without the backup of divisional boards, it seems like the school principals are the authorities in our communities, which is not right.”