Chief and Council not happy with Kamloops elementary school closures
Chief and Council not happy with Kamloops elementary school closures
Chief and Council of the Tk’emlups Indian Band are extremely disappointed with the Kamloops School District’s decision to close Ralph Bell and John Todd elementary schools.
Ralph Bell and John Todd are two of only three elementary schools in the district that offer Secwepemc cultural education and their closures will come as a big hit to the First Nations community.
“We are extremely frustrated with the closure of these two schools,” said Chief Shane Gottfriedson. “We thought with the dialogue and meetings we had with school trustees and senior staff expressing our concerns over our language and culture, that they would have considered enough to keep especially Ralph Bell School open. The success and proven track record Ralph Bell has established in education with many students in its long history makes this a real tragedy.”
These two schools have worked hard to build a strong sense of community and a shared system of values and beliefs within a diverse ethnic population while helping to promote an atmosphere of tolerance.
At Ralph Bell school 49 per cent of the student population is First Nations. The First Nations component of the curriculum, such as the Shuswap language program and the S.O.L.V.E.D. (early oral language) program, has been emphasized and helped contribute to the success of the students.
The success rates from Ralph Bell are reason enough to keep its doors open. Numbers speak louder than words with 81 per cent of First Nations students meeting or exceeding expectations in reading comprehension and 90 per cent of First Nations students meeting or exceeding reading literature results, according to statistics from Ralph Bell elementary.
“It’s disheartening for us to learn about the closure of Ralph Bell and John Todd,” said TIB Councillor and education portfolio holder Dolan Paul. “This is a huge step back for us in regards to language and culture which we are already having trouble retaining.”
The success of Ralph Bell is well above the provincial average, and taking this away is devastating to the students, teachers and parents who have worked so hard at achieving this.
“The closure of these two schools is very unfortunate for the students and parents of both schools, especially for the parents of the Kamloops Indian Band because Ralph Bell has been a very special school for the community over the past many years. We will now work with parents and students to make as positive a transition as possible,” said Dr. Renee Spence, administrator, First Nations Education Council.
“We now start to understand the realities and impacts of our Olympics toward not just First Nations people but our community education system,” said Chief Gottfriedson. “Our school board has done an exceptional job in managing budgets and without other provincial and federal financial support for our education system the realities are job loss and school closures.”
A community meeting will be held on March 3, 2010 at the Chief Louis Centre on the Tk’emlups Indian Band Reserve at 4:30 p.m. to discuss what can be done on this issue. There will be guest speaker’s discussing the matter and there are still spots available for those who would like to speak out.
“We would like to reassure our community members that we are taking steps to make this transition as seamless as possible and we are working on resolving this issue to the best of our ability,” said Councillor Paul.
