Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority: Putting students first
Coordinating education in the far north of Saskatchewan is no easy task, but despite a pandemic and being a relatively new organization, the Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority (ADEA) has been making steady progress on that front. Their biggest goal at the moment: improving the educational opportunities for the children of the Athabasca communities, attracting, and retaining teachers and making the Dene language and culture their major focus.
The initiative for the ADEA was sparked by the federal government as they initiated the ‘Education Transformation of First Nations’ schools across Canada. One of the options First Nations were offered was to amalgamate into an education authority.
“The question for community members and parents was, do you want to join a provincial school system?” said Gerry Guillet, Director of Education and CEO with ADEA. “That was not an option for our bands and those communities. Did you want to remain by yourself and continue as you are? They said no, we want to pursue an amalgamation.”
Guillet, with 50 years of educational experience, was brought in as a consultant in 2017 to see if Fond-du-Lac, Black Lake, and Hatchet Lake would be interested in forming an education authority. Through those meetings, Guillet outlined the process of joining together, and after two-and-a-half years of meetings and consultations, they had an agreement ready to go, under which the authority would assume full responsibility for education in those three communities.