There is no reason why one choice school should be treated differently than another.

If transportation is provided for one it should be provided to all, if they wish, however transportation costs would have to be borne by the school that would have to eliminate other programs to cover the cost. Hence I feel few schools would want that, however some may.

The budget (per student) for the school should be based on the current Montessori, French immersion & traditional schools.

I believe many of their hiring proposals are in violation of the charter of right, in particularly the sections on discrimination based on race.

Without sounding like a racist, which I am far from, I wonder how much hollering and comotion woudlbe created should someone want to start a Caucasian Choice School....sets get real and deal with schools and kids and stop this race stuff...

Do it right the first time, your only going to get one kick at the cat.

I do believe that this school is open to everyone. and the hiring policy seems to appear acceptable, but it probably should have not been publicized.

So I wounder if the meal programs is going to be traditional foods also.

BCRacer---You are not a racist, you are a realist. To bad we couldn't say that about our bureaucrates. We already have a school system, Make it work. This is a lot like the law. If people are breaking it,just make a new law instead of enforcing the perfectly good one that is in place. Our school system needs to be fixed, not replaced. This plan can be called nothing short of racial segregation. It WILL come back and bite us in the ass.

I would like to know what kinds of job skills will be taught in these schools. If the only thing being taught is aboriginal culture and things like that what kinds of careers can these students expect? Everyone can't work for the government.

Get it done now, or we will loose a lot of knowledge and language. Sure it is important for the be immersed in the whitemans culture, but it is important to know where your history lies.

If we want to deal with land title issues, than we need to have the native population in general to be able to have sufficient knowledge to understand that their ignorance is led to a state of paranoia. Thus, labelling everything that the whiteman does is not good.

If we are to settle the land title issues, than we need to deal with confident, sophisticated and educated population. not one or two individuals. We need to set it up so that the entire native nation can decide what is best for their future, instead of the handful that get selected through a popularity contest. It is no different in the white society, where 6o years ago, bosses got away with anything by lying to the uneducated masses. Give the general native population a better education, and let them become confident, sophisticated and educated, and let them flourish, and then we will see changes. Not all of them will be in the white mans favour, but at least we get to live in a united province, instead of two groups trying to find a way to co-exist.

The plan does not call for teaching only aboriginal culture, no more than the French school teaches only French culture. The Choice school will still teach reading and writing, math, etc.

As for racial discrimination, it has been stated over and over again that the school will be open to non-native students. It is not to be an "aboriginal only" school. The recommendation is that the staff be 50% aboriginal, not entirely aboriginal.

He spoke thinks, "it probably should have not been publicized"

Why is that? We don't live in a communist country and anything related to where our taxpayer dollars are spent is the peoples right to know! Are you a Gordon Campbell supporter?

If you think this province will ever be, "a united province, instead of two groups trying to find a way to co-exist"
you better think again.

All anyone will ever see is the taxpayers in this country handing out their hard earned dollars to people that are greedy and lazy.

Our gov't likes it that way.

BCRacer@

The existing schools ARE "Caucasian Choice Schools". They function in a non-aboriginal way and take a non-aboriginal perspective. The proposal is not for racial segregation but for a school that will function in a more aboriginal-oriented way and place greater emphasis on aboriginal culture, history, and language.

Read the report.
Recommendation #16
Staffing issues - SD#57 is making application to the BC Human Rights Tribunal for the approval of a Special Program , enabling us to consider Aboriginal ancestry as a qualification for all positions in the Aboriginal Choice School.

Rationale for #17.
Opening doors for Aboriginal employees. Though we may claim these doors have always been open, the perception by many Aboriginal people is that the system is closed.

Trustees will be facing a greater challenge on January 19 with the upcoming report on the financial challenges for the district.

Segregation is segregation until you come up with one of them thesauruses. What's in a word? Interpretation, folks. Interpretation.

"Transportation promises?" Hmmm? Taxis come to mind. Again, interpretation. Should be interesting. "Develop an elder in residence program immediately". Arrrghh! I don't know how you interpret this, but to me those words don't sound quite right. Looking back a lot of years anyway.

Dragonmaster, thus I am assuming you are one of those Carole James supporter. She seems to have disappeared off the map, hmm, she is the best thing that has happened to Gordo.

So you label an entire race, by calling them greedy and lazy. I do believe your ignorance entitles you to be a racist.

Greedy and lazy? Wow! And here I thought the majority of people are like that. No matter who ya are. Let us make a list. Start at the top with the bankers in New York, New York. (The city so great they named it twice), who caused our meltdown and side effects. And the two broads and their helper trying to (allegedly) fob of phony US $100 dollar bills around town here. Fill in what I missed in this list. On the overall scheme of things, FN don't even enter into it.

Billposer said:

"The existing schools ARE "Caucasian Choice Schools". They function in a non-aboriginal way and take a non-aboriginal perspective. The proposal is not for racial segregation but for a school that will function in a more aboriginal-oriented way and place greater emphasis on aboriginal culture, history, and language."

Just thought that it was worth repeating.

i agree that the education system needs to try everything possible to try and improve the graduation rates of first nations kids in our schools, as well as becoming more inclusive of other non-western views of how to educate kids. so, i support the idea behind this school. however, as a teacher, i was disappointed (not to mention shocked) by rumours that the district was attempting to hire aboriginal educators at the expense of teachers (possibly non-aboriginal) already working at the school. i have heard (and i can't guarantee the truth of this statement) that there are fewer than 200 registered teachers in this province who happen to be aboriginal. i would like to know what steps the district is willing to take when they can't fill the positions with first nations teachers. will they start hiring unqualified, unregistered parents and grandparents with life experience? the possibility of legal action by displaced 'white' teachers is very real.

for the ignorant who believe that anyone can teach, even at carney hill, you have no idea what teachers deal with everyday, and the training that is required. what if you operated a planer or were a machinist and were told your services were no longer required because someone completely unqualified was hired because of the colour of their skin, etc...

this will get messy.

i agree that the education system needs to try everything possible to try and improve the graduation rates of first nations kids in our schools, as well as becoming more inclusive of other non-western views of how to educate kids. so, i support the idea behind this school. however, as a teacher, i was disappointed (not to mention shocked) by rumours that the district was attempting to hire aboriginal educators at the expense of teachers (possibly non-aboriginal) already working at the school. i have heard (and i can't guarantee the truth of this statement) that there are fewer than 200 registered teachers in this province who happen to be aboriginal. i would like to know what steps the district is willing to take when they can't fill the positions with first nations teachers. will they start hiring unqualified, unregistered parents and grandparents with life experience? the possibility of legal action by displaced 'white' teachers is very real.

for the ignorant who believe that anyone can teach, even at carney hill, you have no idea what teachers deal with everyday, and the training that is required. what if you operated a planer or were a machinist and were told your services were no longer required because someone completely unqualified was hired because of the colour of their skin, etc...

this will get messy.