The Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority office in Prince Albert. (Submitted photo)

By Paid Partnership

Education Authority

Athabasca Denesuline Education Authority: Putting students first

Oct 17, 2022 | 3:07 PM

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.

“The authority would be responsible of programming for students, for facilities, for transporting students, and, within the agreements, be responsible for the management of the schools, teachers, and other buildings under the umbrella of the authority,” said Guillet.

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A Board of Directors was put in place after the agreement was made official, with two community members from each community with voting privileges. Each community appointed their Education Portfolio Counselor as well as an elder to the Board of Directors. Soon after, they renovated a building to house their Education Centre in Prince Albert.

“Given that our communities are in isolated parts in the extreme north of Saskatchewan, all traffic really comes into Prince Albert,” said Guillet. “So, it made sense for the Education Centre to be in Prince Albert… Having started with nothing, not even a box of paper clips, and after three years and a pandemic, we have 25 employees at the Education Centre serving the schools and communities.”

The ADEA operates much the same way a school division does and requires a lot of the same resources. They focus on priorities from their strategic plan including language and culture, literacy, numeracy, attendance, student retention, and teacher recruitment and retention.

“Since our inception and despite school closures, having to do online learning, we’ve made some leaps and bounds improving first of all the safety and conditions of our school,” said Guillet. “We’ve also made major improvements in our teacher housing in each community to house non-local teachers.”

Everything the ADEA does is to place the students first, and to improve their educational opportunities. One way they need to continue to improve those opportunities is bringing in qualified teachers from across the province and the country.

“We need to get the word out on who we are, what we do, where we are in terms of our schools, and what opportunities are available in terms of classroom teachers and special needs areas,” Guillet said. “We are advertising internationally and nationally.”

In order to attract and retain specialists, especially those in math and sciences at the senior level, they’re willing to do whatever they can do, including offering incentives like furnished housing for teachers at reasonable rent. They also have a contract with a charter airline to bring Education Centre and contract workers to the school on a weekly basis.

Guillet had a message for those who might be considering coming up north to teach.

“To anyone who’s looking for a teaching position: it’s a great place to be in the far north,” he said. “It’s beautiful, and the people are so friendly, very welcoming, and it’s a great place to be.”

Guillet added the Authority has initiated several new initiatives in literacy, numeracy, and student well-being with professional development opportunities for in-school administrators, teachers, and support staff. All this in the name of “what’s best for our children”!

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