 My name is Jane Atkins and I work as a 0.1 FNMI coordinator for our division and I brought people with me, but first I would like to acknowledge that we are on Treaty 7 territory, the traditional meeting grounds, gathering face and traveling route of the past First Nations Métis and Inuit peoples. We'd also like to acknowledge our elders and resource people that we have with us today. We have Louis Soop, we have Pauline Bagan, and we have a media advisor, Pam Lashman. We're centrally located in Alberta. We have 42 schools with approximately 11,000 students and our self-identified FNMI student population is increasing. It's almost increased by a hundred over the last year. So I think we're making progress because students want to be a part of what we're doing within our division. And this is only our second year in the program. So everyone involved in our division is a learner of some sort. So the learner-centered activities is prevalent throughout our division. We have the opportunity to work with Salange in having staff at a cold-deer meadow meet one-on-one to discuss where they were at with their FNMI understanding and to ask questions of her for determining where they needed the most help in moving forward. Comments from the teachers were positive, especially in the aspects of being able to be guided through and make sense of online resources. We've also been successful in establishing an excellent working relationship with several elders who have been very helpful in answering questions and guiding us as needed. Several teachers were able to find learning events to attend that have helped them move forward and to help others within on their staffs move forward by attending Inspire Conference, the CAS, the ATA Specialist Council and regional consortia sessions. Many questions have been asked and steps are being taken to move forward in their classrooms and inspiring others to do the same. We are also involved in the CARC FNMI advisory committee, which has been a great opportunity to share knowledge and ask questions. Salange continued the activity with our teachers at a cold-deer meadow in walking through the resources and their use across the curriculum to meet teacher-specified outcomes. Teachers appreciated the time to collaborate and discuss how the lessons would look in the classrooms. It also gave time to reflect on the value of their work with all students on the FNMI perspectives and content. They also appreciated learning through the discussions about the residential schools. A lot really felt they didn't know enough. Our division is constantly working to improve literacy through our learning commons. We are looking at enriching our libraries and classrooms with quality literature. Many of our resources are from online, which need to be evaluated for validity and content. And our thanks to the other districts who have generously shared their work that they've done in this regard as well. Our Career High School took on a challenge of developing a Moodle course through Aboriginal Studies 10 that suits the needs of the students that attend the career highs. As often as possible, we've invited presenters into our schools to share with us their knowledge of culture and residential schools. One activity that has been presented several times is the blanket exercise, giving participants the understanding of how life changed for our Indigenous people when the Europeans arrived. Our division believes strongly in instructional leadership, and to this end, they visit each school to see the leadership in action. Our school leaders are encouraged to have discussions about the Indigenous students within the curriculum, with their staff, and to guide the implementation across the curriculum. They encourage those working with our students to attend opportunities such as the park sessions, as well as viewing promising practices seen throughout our division. The lessons prepared through the team planning session with Salange created excellent lessons with engaged learners in every class. Through work in the mentorship program with our first three years of teachers in our division, and the presentations at our professional learning communities, more teachers are effectively taking much needed learning with and about our FNMI population. Teachers are appreciative of the thought process involved in gaining the understanding and use the valuable resources to implement their learning throughout their lessons. In an attempt to move forward in including our students in valuable cultural learning, and to be proud of who they are, our steering committee has taken on the task of planning a division-wide gathering in OLS, which will be entitled Proud to Be Me in CESD. It will be in October of 2016. This event will give students from grade 5 to 12 an opportunity to meet successful Indigenous people and to participate in cultural activities. We have been working on educational kits for the seven grandfather teachings, as this is a universal set of concepts which teachers feel more comfortable about implementing. Each kid has suggested activities and background materials for teachers to infuse within their everyday lessons to build an understanding of the great importance of these teachings. We all have a place in each child's realm of learning. We are working on improved tracking methods and interventions. Through the IL visits and our learning support team, our steering committee is a cross-representation of administration, teachers, school wellness workers, educational assistants, as well as myself the coordinator. And we also are able to have knowledge from our elders and our resource people as we feel it's needed. We're seeing more parent involvement as we see our students participating in feasts, presentations and field trips. We have Metis students learning their heritage through dance and being able to show their pride through presenting to their fellow students. Thank you to Pam for leading these students in learning the jigging and dancing. We have a students matter committee of students from throughout the division. We've presented the Indigenous perspectives and understanding and they were pleased to see that our schools will be furthering our work in this area. Schools are also becoming more familiar with the protocol and the understanding of what's smudging this as well. So one thing that we have developed for our division this year was our FNMI website. So we have curriculum connections, we have what FNMI is happening within our schools, we have scholarship opportunities and we have the seven sacred teachings because that is the first goal that we have worked with. So news resources. So it's a resource based website that is informative for our parents as well as our teachers and our students. We're in the process of knowing all our learners and meeting their needs through interventions as necessary. We're improving our data gathering and tracking to ensure students do not fall through the cracks. To aid in understanding we're able to provide demonstration lessons of cross-curricular infusion of the FNMI perspectives. This has helped educators release some of the fear of doing it wrong. Working with teams has allowed for teachers to share within their comfort zones. We had a wonderful resource in popular Ridge School this spring and that a student teacher at the school had Indigenous heritage and helped plan an experiential day to share games, stories and activities that she was familiar with. We also have worked on weeding out things from our libraries, developing further other resources that will build understanding enjoying the visits with Salange and the learning that we get from them and continuing to look for online resources. We have an instructional material center where we're able to put the resources that make it very valuable for everyone within our division. Many schools are making opportunities for learning for our FNMI students as well as about their history. And several schools have had Indigenous days where students participate in activities such as beading, weaving, banning, making, etc. Steffi Woima, one of our, their teachers is here, she's a French immersion teacher, Rebecca Began. And she had created an opportunity, she would teach the students in French about her culture. And they went to another school in Penhold and they were the teachers of those students in English. So it gave that nice transfer and if you have an opportunity it would be really, that's a power point that she put together of all the opportunities that she's been able to give students in her school in Sylvan Lake. We also have our dual credit courses, Career High, and a lot more career counseling than what we were doing before. Ecole de Hermeto School was looking for a way to create a welcoming presence in the school for their Indigenous students and parents. Tracy Lott, the school wellness worker and Janice Galant, the art teacher, talked to the students and Tracy got the students to research and prioritize the symbolism that was within their heritage and that could be used in an art piece for the school. They came up with many important aspects of their own unique identities which were incorporated into this art piece. The learning only began at this point as the entire school was invited to learn about protocol, blessing, and Louis Souk was the elder that was able to guide us in this. Smudging the respect, Louis came into the school to bless the artwork and the Mady Dancers performed under the guidance of Pam. And then those students participated in a smudging ceremony so that everybody in the school saw what it was about and they explained parts of it. After this, those students participated in storytelling because Louis is a fantastic storyteller and art with the artist with Janice Galant. So this is the artwork, it represents each of their, each has some aspects of their culture so we have an Inuit and we have the Anaksha, we have the Buffalo, the TP, the Métis flag. So it really represented all of it and I think we can each find something of our own students within it. So looking into the future, we're going to continue the IEL visits because it is a success. We are getting the administrators to discuss FNMI and look at FNMI within their schools. We're also looking because we have French immersion in our schools at developing French resources and resource references so that we have those so that we don't always have to switch to the English part of that. The data gathering and screening that we're working on with Jerry Johns and the, I want to say now, we're also looking at the French equivalence of some of that so that we can track all of our students and nobody falls through those cracks and it gives us a chance to improve. We're going to continue helping our teachers understand what it looks like as part of the curriculum and part of our school and to also establish more of a presence within our schools to be more welcoming for our Indigenous students and parents. So I just have a quote I want to, it is from Chief Seattle, said this way back in 1854, Humankind has not woven the web of life, we are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together, all things connect. And what I've found with working with this project is we all connect. Everybody that's in this room connects. People I don't know, I find the connections and it's a new thread, new part of that thread to be part of that web. And I thank you.