July 21 2022—Ha-Shilth-Sa—Page 15
Bamfield brings high school grades to community In the next school year Bamfield and Anacla students can pursue secondary studies at the village’s local facility By Eric Plummer Ha-Shilth-Sa Editor Bamfield, BC - As a sign of Bamfield and Anacla’s continued growth, the area’s community school is preparing to take in high school grades in the fall, offering local teenagers the opportunity to pursue their secondary education at home. After sitting at under 100 residents for years, the Huu-ay-aht village of Anacla has grown to over 150 residents since 2020, with more homes being built as the First Nation encourages its members to return to their ancestral territory. With a population of approximately 200, Bamfield is also preparing for growth, the anticipated outcome of extensive improvements to the rugged 80-kilometre road from Port Alberni. Work on Bamfield Main is underway, with a surface chip-sealing and partial paving of the route expected to be complete by the fall of 2023. Huu-ay-aht Councillor Edward Johnson said the First Nation approached School District 70 over the last year with the needs of a growing village. “We have some parents in community and their children want to move back home,” he said. Previously high-school-age students from Anacla and Bamfield had to leave the remote communities to attend classes in Port Alberni or elsewhere, boarding with another family for the school year. Johnson did this as a teenager after his parents moved back to Anacla, making the tough decision to attend high school
Photo by Eric Plummer
Teenagers in Bamfield and the nearby Huu-ay-aht village of Anacla will soon have the option of staying home for high school, with the expected expansion of the remote community’s school. in Nanaimo. family still and have their education.” “There was a part of me that wanted to But during the COVID-19 pandemic stay in community, but then the organized many students came back to Anacla to sports is what I wanted to participate in,” pursue online learning, said Dave Maher, he said. “If you’re able to board out in principal of the Bamfield Community a good house with good teachings, then School. The small school also saw its you’re set. But it you’re not, I think that’s numbers grow over the last year to 29. where families end up picking up and “The student enrolment of the school moving right out of community so that was steadily increasing all year long, and they can have their children connected to there was a number of secondary-aged
students, due to COVID and other family reasons, [who] were returning to Anacla,” he said. “That ultimately made a very strong case to be able to fund a secondary teacher at Bamfield Community School.” Now the school is expecting around 45 students in September, an enrollment that will enable a third teacher to be hired. “We have an incredible secondary teacher coming to us, a Bamfield local,” added Maher. “We’ve very excited to have her back in the building to compliment a very experienced head teacher, who has 20 years of teaching experience and who will spend the rest of her teaching career leading Bamfield Community School, as well as a very passionate and capable primary teacher.” Some classes, such as Grade 11 chemistry, physics, pre-calculus math and Grade 12 anatomy-physiology, will be offered online through the Eight Avenue Learning Centre in Port Alberni, where Maher is also the principal. Other opportunities are expected through a partnership with the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre. Despite the significant growth in enrolment, space is not a concern at the community school, which has room for three classrooms, a computer lab, an art room and gymnasium. “There’s some great space,” said Maher, noting that the community school went up to Grade 10 in the past. “In it’s heyday, when economic times were very different, there was up to 85, 90 students in the school at most.”
Indigenous grad requirements get positive feedback By James Paracy Ha-Shilth-Sa Contributor The results for a survey done by R.A. Malatest & Associates in collaboration with the First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) on Indigenous-focused graduation requirements have been released to the public. A total of 5,657 people throughout B.C. completed the survey, with 58 per cent being parents or caregivers of students and 25 per cent being teachers. Input on the survey was collected from March 7 to April 22. It received generally positive feedback based on a few key areas: implementation timeline, teacher qualifications and training, funding and resources, as well as broadening the considerations for eligible course offerings. In terms of negative feedback, respondents were asked to identify one or more classes they didn’t feel should be eligible for credit towards post-secondary graduation. According to the survey, ‘English First Peoples – Spoken Language 10’ received the most negative feedback, with the most common concern being that the class might not be practical or useful in comparison to other available courses. The implementation plan for Indigenous-focused grad requirements is expected to be announced later this summer. According to B.C. Teacher’s Federation’s Suzanne Hall, these requirements will be implemented gradually, and some of the pieces are already in place. “This year is sort of a feedback and planning year,” Hall said. There’s going to be consultation and planning that happens and the requirements is starting the year after that. There currently are a few courses that are widely taught in the
system already that we know would meet the criteria, like First Peoples 11 and First Peoples 12, as well as First Nations Studies.” As Hall outlines, the upcoming school year will present districts across the province with an opportunity to run Indigenous-focused courses on a trial basis before they become mandatory in the 2023-24 school year. Hall adds that, in addition to courses available across the province, classes with local cultural ties will come into play eventually while things develop. “Over the course of this next year, the idea will be to see what other courses can be developed and put into place,” explained Hall. “So, some of it will be local as well, some places across the province there would be the ability to put together a local course. There’s a halfway step there for locally developed courses where the school boards can approve a course and it has to meet certain criteria so that it then counts for the kids for credit. So, some of these new courses could be done through the board approval process. The Ministry of Education could work with BC teachers and create new courses as well.” Other than the courses already in place in B.C. schools, English First Peoples courses in writing, spoken language, new media, literacy studies and more will be among courses meeting the new graduation requirement. From the student perspective, the process to register for Indigenous-focused courses will be a familiar one. As they register for courses to earn enough credits towards graduation, an Indigenous-focused course will be a necessary requirement similar to how all students must complete a form of
Photo by Deborah Potter
First Nations students are welcomed to the Alberni District Secondary School in 2019. With one third of the school district identifying as Aboriginal, SD70 has worked to incorporate a curriculum that reflects its student population. sion of embedding Indigenous cultural English 12. On the teachers’ side of things, impleaspects and understanding history into menting Indigenous-focused courses is our coursework.” something they’ve wanted for a long B.C. teachers played a major part in the time. Hall says the B.C. Teacher’s survey’s feedback, with approximately 1,414 teachers providing their input. Federation is strongly in support of this kind of expansion in B.C. schools and In addition to Indigenous-focused courses being available and required in has lobbied alongside the First Nations Education Steering Committee for the post-secondary schools, the Ministry inclusion of Indigenous-focused courses of Education and Childcare is offering at all levels. another option. Students will be able to “Social justice is a long-embedded vein earn external credits through courses such in the work of the BCTF,” she said. “So, as First Nations language proficiency, the BCTF as an organization has long First Nations drumming and/or dancing supported trying to educate our members and First Nations carving and traditional and the public about Indigenous issues, art. Although this external credit option working really hard to try to meet the for cultural learning is coming into place required calls to action from the Truth alongside B.C.’s Indigenous-focused and Reconciliation Commission. We have graduation requirements, it does operate long been advocating for the inclusion separately from the provincial graduation of, in all our coursework and in all the requirement. curriculum that we work on, the inclu-
