Kindergarten learning materials in Cree. (submitted photo/Victor Thunderchild)

By Alison Sandstrom

Cree education

School division launches Cree language program

May 6, 2020 | 5:40 PM

A Cree kindergarten program, the first of its kind in Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division, is scheduled to begin in September at John Diefenbaker Public School.

The first class will comprise of 20 students, but coordinators have plans to expand the program to further grades in the coming years.

“I’m very very happy it’s coming through,” Victor Thunderchild, the Cree teacher who wrote the program’s proposal, told paNOW. “Simply because it’s something that’s needed and it’s time.”

Thunderchild and the school division spent over a year gathering information, engaging with the community and carefully planning to bring the program to fruition.

They settled on John Diefenbaker because of its central location and the fact it provided the program room to grow, Thunderchild said.

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He explained they hope to expand the program by one grade each year, so students, beginning with the inaugural Kindergarten class this fall, will potentially have the opportunity to complete their entire elementary school education in a combined Cree-English classroom.

“It’s going to be 50 per cent English, 50 per cent Cree,” Thunderchild said. “We want to make it so that in the event students transfer to an English-speaking [class] they can easily transition.”

Eventually, Thunderchild said, the division may even be able to start Cree programs at other schools, but in the meantime, they are exploring how students from outside the John Diefenbaker area could be bused in.

“The fact that they’ll be able to be fluent or semi-fluent to speak to others, especially Elders, in their language is very important,” Thunderchild said. “There are a lot of people who are losing the language and we want that language to not be lost, to reclaim something that at one point in time was attempted to be taken from us.”

If parents have questions about the program, Thunderchild said they can reach out to the school division or John Diefenbaker Public School and ask to be put in touch with himself, Principal Roy Feschuk or teacher Orlanda Chaboyer.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom