Catholic school students will not be getting a half-day for the Yellowknives Dene First Nation spring carnival, the Yellowknife Catholic School Board announced last week, due to the wildfire evacuation interrupting its required instructional hours.
Yellowknife city council granted a half-day civic holiday on April 5 for the commencement of the annual festivities, which feature cultural events like a fire-feeding ceremony and a fishing derby.
According to the school board’s Facebook account, the school won’t be allowing students to leave early because of their required 945 instructional hours.
The post says the half-day absence would have resulted in the schools, “no longer complying with the legislated hours.”
“We recognize and support the importance of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation Spring Carnival,” the post reads.
“We support and encourage our students to engage with the carnival through the weekend-long event where possible with their families.”
However, other students in Yellowknife aren’t in the same position.
The Yellowknife Education District No. 1 posted on Facebook that its schools would be observing the half-day.
The post said this will include the K’àlemì Dene School in Ndilǫ and the Kaw Tay Whee School in Dettah.
CBC News reached out to the school board about the instructional hours, but didn’t hear back.
The Commission scolaire francophone, the French school board, is also observing the civic half-day.
Yvonne Careen is the superintendent of Commission scolaire francophone.
She said the board also has the instructional hour requirement, and the evacuation interrupted teaching, but there’s a way to make room for events like this.
“We do our best to preserve the hours that we can,” she said.
She said the closure is only for about two and a half hours, so she doesn’t expect it to have much of an effect on the total instructional hours. But Careen said her school board has the flexibility to make up the hours whereas others may not.
The Commission scolaire francophone is a government entity, unlike the Yellowknife Catholic Board and the Yellowknife District 1, which are independent school boards.
Careen said because the territorial government recognized the half-day, and the school board is an entity, it makes it more difficult to not recognize it.
Source link