 Good afternoon everyone I am Sandy Axman the learning services supervisor with Grand Yellowhead Public School Division and I'd like to introduce members of my team. I have Sandra Davenport here who is our half-time Cree language teacher and Renee Fair who is our Grand Cache Indigenous Relations facilitator and without these two ladies we also have one more lady who unfortunately could not be here this afternoon as her dad is very ill right now but without this team of people and without the support of system leaders like Albert Education and and those people know who they are and and without our former assistant superintendent who is in the room and our present admin team as well we cannot do the work that we do so first of all I'd like to thank everybody for that as you've heard this afternoon our presentations have been about building relationships and that to me if I had to give you one golden nugget to take out of the room it is that key piece right there it's how do you go about building relationships with people at all levels so that when you need something because we don't have all the answers but when I need something I can turn to Albert Education or I can turn to my supervisors or I can turn to my team and say we need this how do we get it and somebody will come up with a way to find it for us and we work together and we include our community and so it with all those pieces we constantly build and scaffold and interweave every part of what we do with learning services I have curriculum health and wellness indigenous relations and dual credit and all of those pieces interweave to make a stronger fabric for our students we give opportunities to our students with dual credit by partnering with Grand Prairie Regional College in order to be able to offer dual credit opportunities for Cree language for native studies so that the things that we can't provide ourselves we now have a partnership to be able to offer those things for students who who wish to to access them we give a light at the end of the tunnel so that students can see that there is a way to transition not just from K to 12 but out into the world of work into post secondary to trade or whatever their heart desires we have success for all students as our key piece all students will be successful and how do we do that one student at a time building relationships so I would like to just advance here if these are some of our main programs it's not all of our programs but I would like Sandra to talk about her Cree language and then I'd like Renee to talk about how she supports students in her area I'm Sandra Davenport I'm originally from Isle across Saskatchewan but I've been living in Edson now for the past 15 years and for all those years I've had the opportunity to teach Cree language I teach Cree language through video conference predominantly from Wildwood into Grand Cache and the majority of the students that I teach Cree to are in Grand Cache so Renee is also my my partner in crime I wouldn't be able to do the jobs that I that I do without her help so thank you very much Renee I'm sure that you've heard in in the sessions that you've gone how important language language is doing other cultural components is very important as well but the language is the culture in in in my professional opinion you can't separate either one the culture is what grounds you it helps you figure out who you are where you come from and what you have to offer the students that I teach to are not just First Nations Métis or Inuit students but a lot of them are non-indigenous students and we were just actually talking about that at the table earlier Sandy asked me what what the percentage was and and I told her that the majority of the students that I teach are probably more indigent non-indigenous than they are indigenous and that they're the ones who are picking up the language a lot quicker for whatever reason that's that's that's not important what's important is that we have a variety of students who want to come and learn about each other so that we're able to to to empathize with one another and and learn from each other and walk this journey together because as we all know we're all we're all on this trek together so thank you very much my name is Renee and I live in Greencash and I've been there so long that I'm not telling you how long because I feel like I've been there forever I was on Zakiya Sandra to grow up with all of my cultural teachings I am Métis but my mom didn't have that connection so one of the things my students can bring to me is that cultural connection and that's really exciting because it gives them something to share with me and I think that's the really great start about relationship building being in a small town population 4,500 we have about 325 indigenous families people living around the area and transportation is huge huge obstacle for us because there's just there's just not a way to get places so opportunity is a big thing we need to build and if it's not there you need to make it so one of the things we do in Greencash is if we can't find it we invented I run a baseball team I've started a community race I had a high school student who in really crappy shoes could get to quick to school really quick if he missed the bus I put him in a race and boy can that boy run you know it's finding all those things that makes connections and you know his family sat and watched him run and she said I saw this at school when he was late I didn't think it would get him anywhere and that's what we need to do we need to build opportunities we need to take that time and listen and I think that's one of the hardest parts that teachers have is they don't always have the time and I'm very lucky to be our indigenous liaison so I can listen I can hear those stories and find out what those kids need because often it is those opportunities you know it is as simple as we said in the session before we talked about some of the wonderful EAs that were up north and doing health kits and picking people up and cover your ears sandy sometimes making home visits when you're not supposed to like the high school kid who skipped class and I drove out to Suza Creek and knocked on the door and said hey I missed you I thought he was gonna die but you know what he was like you missed me well we saw you we needed you you're part of our school community you matter and without you it's just not the same and those are the things we need to continue doing thank you if you take a look at some of our other connections I sit on the Edson Friendship Centerboard as a member and in return the director sits on our elder council so it's a reciprocal relationship it's not us saying we need you we need you we need you with our handout all the time but it is us helping each other in order to grow and to develop with the lady who could not be here she started a legends room in the high school in Edson and it has made such a huge difference to that school that school has suffered a lot of traumatic incidents over the last couple of years they've lost six student members and staff in different ways tragically and that whole community has come together to grieve and to support each other and the legends room is getting students back in the door students that we didn't see for quite some time in Parkland school and so we are able to now have them come back in but they reached out in unique ways some of them made homemade jam and gave to the bus driver to give to the family to say we miss you will you come back to school and the support that that room and that person has given the students that are in there they're attending more regularly they're passing their courses which is huge and they want to be there now and that will take time and it will grow and develop as we try things and and not everything we do works out well but along the way we grow and learn together and again about building the relationships we have an elder program and we're we're constantly looking to connect with different elders in the community because the one thing about an elder program is that not everybody feels well on the day you need them and we have to respect that but we are building the connections so that we can have our elders in our schools for our graduation ceremonies for our Eagle Feather ceremony for the things that we deem important and the kids deem important we collect student voice through health and wellness initiatives and through partnering and that way we can find out what is it that the students need next so they guide where we go we have we're fortunate enough to have the Palisades program where students can go out to Jasper Palisades and experience land-based education and that's important we have to make it more engaging for our students we partner with ERLC and thank you so much for that because you help us host 50 teachers every year to come out to the Palisades and the picture at the bottom of the slide there shows our group photo from our last teacher camp and we're able to learn from each other and make connections so that we have a resource group that we can ask for help when we need it we our latest our latest partnership is with Mother Earth Charter School our Wildwood School has partnered with their grade grade 3-4 class in order to have students make connections in other areas so although we we don't have any on reserve sites within our jurisdiction we have neighboring partners who are more than willing to reach out and connect with us so I think on the final note the the best like I said advice that I can give you is to reach out and form those partnerships they don't happen overnight I've been in the position for five years now and it has taken that long just to get what I think is a foot in the door so that I can have a list of contact people I've reached out to Edmonton Public and and I've reached out to all sorts of different jurisdictions in order to help us grow and develop and everything that the schools who presented this afternoon I've taken nuggets back and the next thing I want to know is how do we get a smudge so everybody helps move each other along and I think if we make those connections and reach out to each other and share what we're doing I think we will all be supported so thank you well I think you're getting a sampling of why these three programs were chosen by Albert education to be honored and we've seen examples for the younger students high school and a whole division wide approach one of the other schools recognized was from Grand Prairie and it was an elementary school and so I want to show you where you can find some of these resources and tools that you can use to discuss back with your own staffs and schools hopefully you're well aware of the empowering the spirit website that we have at ELC it's designed to house materials that are carefully aligned to support Alberta schools and support Alberta education priorities we have things from how to host a family night to information on the literacy seed kit to some newer things on the grandfather teachings every time I turn around something new is being added to the site so I hope you're well familiar with the site if you go its address is simply empowering the spirit.ca and along the tabs there you will find a professional learning resources tab and from there you can scroll down and find eliminating the achievement gap and what you'll find when you get to that page is double sided learning guides as we call them describing these exact context that you've just heard from today and so you'll find the learning guides that have a highlight of what those people have been up to to make a difference for those learners and there's some discussion questions on the back and we think those are particularly powerful to go back and sit with staff and and share back at learning days and and staff meetings and district meetings so we're hoping those learning guides are a useful tool for you to take those lessons back and say okay what can we learn from Grand Yellowhead what can we learn from East Glen what can we learn from Lake Del so we hope those are helpful to you and of course their PDFs you can download them the other piece I want to share with you is a Google Slides presentation that we created it can take as little as long as you want about an hour or you can fill a half day with long discussions but there's an actual full set of slides with background context data stats what percentage of our learners are First Nations Mets Union and Alberta what is the actual achievement gap we went and found the accountability pillar results so you could truly see the data and what the gap is so there's I can't remember how many slides like 50 slides it's quite an extensive presentation and so I invite you to find that presentation on our Empowering the Spirit page and if you carefully open it you will find all the presenter notes in the below the screen part right so you will have access to our thinking and why we put that presentation together you can make a copy and edit it and use it any way you wish so it's just a tool for your toolbox so we hope it's helpful is there anything else I'm missing I think that's the gist and I've linked directly to that page another tool that we've been working with and some of you may have seen our padlets we're using these more as sort of on the fly as we find resources websites materials how to host a blanket exercise all sorts of things we're finding out in the big broad world as everyone's on this journey together we've been posting on our padlet those are more informal resources not ones that we've crafted professionally but there's so many valuable resources so I've left that link there for you and it's constantly in evolution from foundational knowledge to Metis to the new one they're working on is some reconciliation pieces residential schools there I think you're you're probably discovering there's a wealth of resources to the point now where it's hard to know where to go and what to sift through so I want to close and just thank everyone for putting the time in and staying with us this afternoon and I think that the message has been loud and clear from all three of our our groups otherwise I thank you for your time and I wish everyone a safe trip or journey or whatever you're up to