They say they want to make it clear that this is not an "aboriginal only school".
Well,I sure wouldn't want to be the minority white kid at that school,because it WILL be a "native" school in every sense of the word.
What are we...stupid?
Do they really think native people don't see what they are doing?
And if they really wanted to do something for these kids,other than dominate and treat them as inferior,they should stop refering to them as "aboriginal"or "Native"or "First" Nations.
Why are these high priced do-gooders always refering to them as being different than the rest of us?
How about these people who think they have all the answers just start refering to them as "people or "children" instead of always treating them like they are different?
Obviously, there was nothing learned from the residential school fiasco.
But then,if these people dreaming up all these programs didn't have a cause,they wouldn't have a job now would they?

"The graduation rate province wide for Aboriginal children is 48% and just 15% for those aboriginal children in care."

That is a huge difference! IMO a school is not going to change that. That should be MCFD. Where are they?

Is this additional expense covered by additional provincial or federal funding or is it coming out of the general school district funding at the expense of other students?

If there is going to be one central school how are these kids going to get there. For most kids struggling at school, attendance is the biggest problem. If their caregiver can't get them to the most convenient school how will they get them to a school in a different part of town.
IMO the money would be better spent providing out-of-school support so that they actually get to school and then the support to do homework etc. If they are not getting the out-of-school support they will not be successful regardless of where they attend school. MCFD or a similar body should have support staff in schools because counsellors and teachers are not social workers and do not have the time or training to deal with non-academic issues.

"how are these kids going to get there"?
Good question gitterdun....maybe they will just go and get them and drag them there,like they did for the resdential schools??
Slow learners our government!

I would have to agree with Andyfreeze on this issue. Sometimes the best help is no help. At some point the Aboriginal community is going to have to take responsibility for where they are now in the present. It is time to let go of the past indiscretions. It is time that the professionals step aside and let the Aboriginal communities find their inner strength to succeed in the "New World."

Maybe, it is time we tried tough love. It is true that Aboriginal students face racism but what minority doesn't? Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, Aboriginals need to take this racism, exclusion and hardship as a source of motivation to succeed and shut up the critics.

I agree, they know what they are doing and it is their way of milking us some more.

How will they get to school you asked? A taxi how else.Well after all why break tradition.
Setting up schools that cater to one culture, just creates more bitter tax payers in our Society.
Its time they either go back in the bush and want nothing from us, or join the rest of us Immigrants and be as one.

Other people in other parts of the world through the ages have overcome all kinds of adversities by their own initiative and desire to better themselves. There have been conquests, wars, ethnic and racial discrimination and genocide on every continent - often on a scale of magnitude far greater than what happened in Canada. In fact, political, religious, ethnic and racial conflicts are raging in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe - in other words, everywhere.

Wallowing in self pity and resentment about things that happened many, many generations ago is a form of self-destruction, a millstone placed around one's own neck.

Canada is one of the best places in the world for new generations to start out fresh in life - without burdening themselves down by burning resentment about the things that happened long ago in history and can never be changed.

Successive Canadian governments have put in place human rights' laws and abundant funding for Native people to enable those who are willing to make bright futures for themselves.

Attendance at the segregated school will be (hopefully) voluntary. Let there be no repeat of any of the methods of the residential school system.

After a few years we will know whether or not a racially segregated school will have made a significant positive impact or not.

We all have the same brain to learn, are you willing to work at school or not, that's the difference and you never can go back to the old ways, like it or not.

A selection of FN schools on the web

Old Crow – Yukon
http://www.oldcrow.ca/edu.htm

Alberta First Nations school
http://www.sunchildschool.com

Saskatchewan FN school
http://www.insidetoronto.com/News/Beach/article/42509

Ontario First Nations School
http://www.nnec.on.ca/pffnhs

New Brunswick FN community school
http://eelgroundschool.ca

Nova Scotia FN schools
http://www.firstnationhelp.com/pictou
http://wfnss.ca

FN school association web site
http://www.fnsa.ca

FN School of Toronto (click on current school profile)
http://www.tdsb.on.ca/scripts/schoolasp.asp?schno=5360

Community support of FN School of Toronto
http://www.insidetoronto.com/News/Beach/article/42509

Toronto School Board main site – stay on the main page and watch the banner at the top for a minute …..
http://www.tdsb.on.ca

FN University of Canada
http://www.firstnationsuniversity.ca

That is the fact of Canada …. A multicultural society ….. and the First Nations need to protect their culture. At the moment, in many schools across Canada, they get less respect for their culture than those who come here form other cultures. They want that to change, and we must help them change that. If supporting their efforts to do that through schools controlled by them is what is seen as one of the options, then I am all for supporting them to do that. This is certainly one of the communities that such an effort should take place.

So, for those who wish to continue to support cultural genocide of the FN in this multicultural country, you can certainly continue to hide your thinking behind the notion that to provide separate FN schools AS AN OPTION, as opposed to AS A REQUIREMENT, is to practice racism. Meanwhile, the movement to support the culture of the indigenous peoples of this continent is a duty we have to the FN as a nation. We must do so to the best of our ability. I support that to happen in as many forms as is reasonable to support the local circumstances. Self governed schools is only one of the several approaches and I am happy to see that the local school board is joining others in Canada to move that way.

As far as teh rest of the world goes .... Jugoslavia, Belgium, Spain, Hawaii, Japan, Brazil, China, Russia, Israel, Switzerland ... name me a country and many of us who know anything about the continuing struggle of people to get back to their ancestral roots, their language, their culture, can start talking about what they are doing in those countries to settle differences on the one hand and to encourage differences on the other hand.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing that is unique in Canada about that. It is a human condition to want to belong to something more than artificial boundaries drawn on the map by various conqueerors and governments. Time we grew to understand that fact of life.

Oh .... and if you are concerned about separate schools for cultural groups in Canada, you might start to get concerned about school boards and schools separated by religious groups ....

http://www.tcdsb.org

Sometimes adults can learn from kids. I wonder what the children think? When I was a kid we didn't think anything of colour or race. The adults taught us that. One of my best friends who i've known now for oh god....29 years..... is native.
Would be neat to hear what grade one students think about their classmates.

:)

I don't think schools that are religion based or language based can be catagorized in the same way as "aboriginal" based schools.
Kids who attend these schools come from the mainstream of society where most of us live.
It seems native people want all the benefits the rest of us have, but not the responsibilty?
How will this kind of education based on their culture and language help them to go out and get a job that will actually do something for them?
The kids from private schools live in the real world and are not trying to hold on to the past and culture, to the point where they do not function in everyday life, away from their families or home reservation.
And they are not treated as "different" or considered unable to learn at the same rate as others.
That in itself is a fatal mistake.
How would an aboriginal based education help native kids to move off the reservation and out into the world where the jobs and opportunities are?
There is a big problem with natives actually leaving the reservation for any length of time.
Very few ever do.
So many of them live and die right where they were born without ever giving the real world a shot,regardless of their education.
I have seen far too many native kids graduate from high school and that's where it stops.
Go home,get married,and start having kids.
In case we forget,there are no jobs on reservations to speak of.
There is only poverty and the endless cycle of welfare,drug and alcohol abuse, and waiting for the next handout.
End of story.
The ONLY way native people will ever progress is by having exactly the same education standards as the rest of us.
I have seen first hand how native schools are run.
They are about culture and tradition first, and reading,writing and mathe matics are secondary.
Our society will not make exceptions for anything less, and nothing in the lives of native people will ever change!
No matter how it is justified,nobody gets through this life without education and jobs and those that try are doomed to spend their lives in limbo.
We are not helping these people,we are handicapping and stereo typing them!

"We are not helping these people,we are handicapping and stereo typing them"

Spoken as a true controller and imperialist ....

;-)

I would like to believe that qwasxter, but I don't.
Schools make exceptions for native kids now unfortuntely, and I have no reason to believe that this won't be the case with these aboriginal based schools.
Otherwise,what would be the point to them?
If the educational standards were the same as conventional schools,they may as well just go to the same schools as the rest of the kids and save us all a bunch of time and money!

...never miss a cheap shot eh owl!
:-)

qwaszxter, I stand by my statement. It applies to every group of people everywhere.

If people insist on living in the past that is a choice they make. I could tell you about some of my own experiences in respect to discrimination and how I dealt with it.

The past is the past. Nothing that was done by others in the past can be changed unless you invent a way to travel back in time.

Like I said, let's give that segregated school a try. If it accomplishes positive results - fine.

Owl, people who consider schools such as this one an OPTION rather than a REQUIREMENT do not deserve to be given the label *racist* - that is in my opinion an offensive over-simplification of a very complex issue.

My guess is Lois Boone has done herself proud as an ex-NDPer. A true socialist to the core, she has the distinction of being a great social engineer leading the battle to starting up a segregated school. It should be interesting if it works, but I have my doubts. Equal but different? Aren't we all? Theoretically. Kinda like the schools of yore fer them folk, but avoiding the word "residential". Might work without the word "residential "attached. We will see.

Andyfreeze-

So called cheap shots are only able to be taken when the opportunity is presented. Sometimes they are the quickest way to drive a point home. Yes, they are nasty, and in a face to face situation one can be much more diplomatic about sending the message as one watches body language and adjusts to that. The point which needs to be made will, however, stay the same.
Your words allow for a whole bunch of interesting pushbacks. That was only one of many.

Let me take these words: "I have seen first hand how native schools are run. They are about culture and tradition first, and reading, writing and mathematics are secondary."

Our entire school system is set in our culture. It is integrated in every single topic taught, whether mathematics, reading, writing, geography, history, biology, art, environmental studies, shops, cooking, etc., etc. Some are more universal, others are more specific to the local community and ethnic group.

While the overall topics are quite similar the world over, the context within which the content is taught is considerably different. Greeks, Japanese, Kenyans, Guatemalans, Welsh …. No matter what country or ethnic group have their own context and content will be adjusted to that.

Jack and Jill is not exactly a universal story. Nor is the Merchant of Venice.

In designing safety courses for adults, for instance, there are generic topics such as hazard assessment. At the higher levels of management training that can be taught quite generically because those individuals can typically relate the generic information to their day to day operations.

However, when one gets down to the worker level, they have much interested in telling them what to do on THEIR jobs. They are not interested in trying to apply a construction example of the safe use of a piece of equipment to their example of using a similar piece of equipment to their ranching or logging worksite.

The education system is used to accommodating many different groups to make both teaching and learning easier. The public typically is unaware of that until they find themselves sitting in the wrong class.

So, Andyfreeze …. No cheap shot this time …. Reaction on your part any different? Are you starting to understand the other point of view? You do not need to embrace it, but it would be nice if you can understand it.

:-)

“Theoretically. Kinda like the schools of yore fer them folk, but avoiding the word "residential". Might work without the word "residential "attached.”

I think you cannot be farther from the truth. The purpose of residential schools was to take a group of people from what was considered to be a primitive, uncivilized society, take them at an early age to remove them from their homes, where we typically learn about our culture from our parents, and put them into a white, religious environment where they were taught to become “white”.

The end result? Generally they were neither.

This approach is the antithesis of that typical empirical process of centuries past. Even the Scots are still having a serious go at removing themselves from the UK. It is ubiquitous.

What a bunch of crap. Why do indians think we owe them anything? "The i want everything for nothing idea must stop..who controls the schools now? Gangs in PG are made up mostly by their group.So to say that they need their own school is BS..what percentage of them work out of the population?

If they dont like the way the planet turns, park your pickups,jetboats,cells,houses,government cheqs,atv,s and every other Non-Traditional made things and return to their ways in the bush! Maybe most of us would respect them more than we do now.

Come on you can't have it all....FN biggest scam out there....I think it's time to do some research on what they do with our money and how they function....And no i am not a racists,like most of the citizens,we are just pissed off because of the freeloading off our backs!
My folks, like so many other newcomers that came to Canada had it harder than them today! However, Immigrants had pride and went to school and learned trades and skills.
They worked and built a future with NO freebees.They were proud to earn their way .....So, how many more generations of this are they going to soak the system for?

As long as the school district standards are not lowered just so they can get more graduates then I don't have a problem with it....
But if it is just so they can get the numbers up...then I have an issue with it...not that, that is going to stop it happening...

The world changes faster than ever these days. A great advantage is had by keeping up with the change. I don't think that burying your head in old ways or trying to bring back 1862 is going to give anybody a competitive advantage.

Some of the posters on this site are a great example of functional illiteracy at work .....

;-)

"I don't think that burying your head in old ways or trying to bring back 1862 is going to give anybody a competitive advantage."

Some of us have been trying to tell the forest industry that for a long time...

;-)

There is a bit of truth in just about every post on here and I can certianly understand the frustrations felt by all!
"thereasonableman" comes as close as anything when he say's:
"burying your head in old ways or trying to bring back 1862 isn't going to give anyone a competitive edge"...
Exactly!
Time to let it go!

Our world (and lives) will change more this year than your great grandfather's life did in his entire lifetime.

...ain't that the truth!