Arviat education authority opposes planned teacher cuts
Position losses are part of territory-wide reshuffling of teaching jobs for 2015-16 school year
Five communities across Nunavut will lose more than 20 combined teaching positions at the start of the 2015-16 school year, says the territorial government.
It's part of a territory-wide shuffling of resources that will see an extra 10 and a half teaching positions overall, but it's not good news for the five communities that will lose teaching staff.
Baker Lake and Cambridge Bay will lose five and four and a half positions, respectively, while Clyde River and Cape Dorset will each lose between one and two positions.
But with 12 and a half positions set for the chopping block next school year, Arviat stands to lose the most jobs, something that's not sitting well with the Arviat District Education Authority.
"It's quite a big shock for us," says Norma Jean Kablutsiak, a member of the authority.
The Arviat DEA says the cuts to its community are based on a faulty calculation method that ignores the realities of life in the territory.
Only first month of school year counted for attendance
The territorial government says the localized cuts are needed because enrolment and attendance are down.
Bradley Archambault, the acting assistant deputy minister of education, says the number of teachers needed is determined using a funding formula plus enrolment figures.
"Where a student is deemed a non-attender — meaning a chronic issue of non-attendance — they do not get counted as a full time equivalent," says Archambault, adding that students who do not attend class 40 per cent of the time or more are classified as non-attenders.
Attendance is only measured during the first month of school, says Archambault — and that's the problem, according to Kablutsiak.
She says that's not an accurate representation of the student population because many students are out caribou hunting with their families in September.
Archambault says it's possible students who don't meet the attendance threshold during the first month of school can then go on to attend school more than 40 per cent of the time. But he adds, "historically what we have seen is that typically attendance and enrolment tend to be highest at the beginning of the year and it seems to trickle off."
Arviat's population rising
Nunavut schools have been using new software, called Maplewood, for the past two years to track student attendance and enrolment.
Kablutsiak says the high school enters data differently than the elementary and middle schools, and that could be one of the reasons her numbers don't match the government's count.
Kablutsiak also disputes the territorial government's estimate of students in Arviat's three schools, saying the number is actually much higher.
"I just hope this discrepancy will be dealt with soon," she says.
The authority is planning a community meeting to discuss the cuts, she adds.
According to estimates from the Nunavut Bureau of Statistics, the population of Arviat increased from 2,314 to 2,611 people between July 2010 to July 2014.