The Mikisew Cree First Nation is planning to create a Band Operated School, breaking with the Northland School District in an effort to provide a better education to children of the band. The independent school will be located on the Mikisew Cree First Nation reserve near Fort Chipewyan, and it will be owned and operated by the band. Right now children from the group go to the Athabasca Delta Community School, a school that covers from Kindergarten all the way through grade 12. According to Chief Steve Courtoreille the band decided on the independent school out of concern for the quality of the current education system and alleged inaction by the school district to make necessary improvements and changes. According to Courtoreille “We’ve been studied to death. Northland is still failing us today. We have an eight-year-old boy that’s in Grade 3 — He’s probably in class today — who does not know to read or write. Already that child is going to fail.”

The new Mikisew Cree First Nation school is expected to be up and running by September of 2018. Until the school is open and operating the band may have no choice but to continue to send students to the Northland School District. According to an Auditor General report released in March “The (Northland) division’s chronic problems include high teacher and staff absences and turnover; deteriorating infrastructure; poor facilities…And intergenerational effects of residential schools including poverty, addictions, mental health and family trauma. These challenges are complicated by the division’s vast size and remoteness.” Do you think the band is making the right move for their children’s future?