 My name is Jeremy Odette. I'm the principal of the high school here in Sandy Lake. It's called Thomas Fiddler Memorial High School. We have about 150 students that attend here and the age ranges from 12 to 18 on average. We do get some older students that want to continue to get their education and we do accept them all the way up to 21. But after that they do move to the learning center to finish their studies and receive their diplomas. The aim of the high school of course is to deliver course content and achieve the Ontario curriculum. So our courses are quite rigorous and we do focus heavily on ensuring that we are meeting the requirements. We're ministry inspected so we have someone from the ministry come and ensure that we are doing that. We've been doing quite well and improving to be improved to stay current with Ontario education. That being said we do strive to develop relevant courses for the students and we do that by finding their interests and incorporating those into the teachings. A lot of their interests are their culture and they want to know more, they want to do more and we do have a culture program here that helps to facilitate that. Not just in the classroom but they take them out on the land. There's an outdoor education program as well that we have here. It's a grade 10 course but the students have to sign up for it and we always get more than the capacity of the classroom. We know there's a desire for land based education so we do work on that. At this school we do have a native language program. The actual time that the students would spend learning native language is minimal. That being said we do understand the importance of it and we do try to ensure the students get exposure to it but with the Ontario curriculum being in English it's very difficult to have an immersion program up to grade 8 and then expect the students to be successful in English in grade 9. English is very dominant in our education system. The academic programs are quite easy to monitor through report cards and through students progressing through grade 10. Our school only goes up to grade 10 so we feel very successful when we send our students out for grade 11 and 12. We hate to get rid of them but we're happy to see them go and move on with their lives so that's the biggest measurement of academic success. I should just say that with education in general the students are going to learn more when they're focused. They're going to be focused when their mind is on what they're trying to learn. They're distracted with things that are happening in their homes. They're distracted with things that are said online and a lot of our bullying issues stem from the internet and what is being said. So to get them out, to get them on the land, leave the computers behind, leave the phones behind to see them learn hands on and try new things that they didn't know about. We were out on a camping trip last spring and I asked who wanted to come and strip some logs and I had three students that came and stripped logs with me. We had over 30 kids camping so I said, alright guys, five bucks a log, who wants to come and strip logs? I had over 15 students come and the 18 of us stripped a whole bunch of logs and students were saying it was fun, I really like this. The next day who wants to go and strip logs? No money. I had 12 of those 15 students came for no money just to come and strip logs because they didn't know before that they even would enjoy it. So when they discover they like things then they're going to be more willing to do them and to try new things. To try that next thing, it opens up their mind to learning. There's local resource people as much as possible so we very rarely would bring someone in to do the cultural teaching. I mean it only makes sense. The cultures in the north they're as similar as they are. They are different from community to community, even the dialects and the language. So it's much better to have local people doing the teaching and also so the students can relate to them and see local heroes who are successful. That's a good question. We make it sound like it's this abstract idea but really it's just respecting and understanding culture while teaching kids. That's really all it means to me. We do try to incorporate relevance as anyone would. Because we're on a reserve and relevance to them is the bush in many senses. That is Indigenous education. It's just learning with what's relevant to that area. Indigenous in remote areas, here it's learning bush skills, bushcraft. As well as learning the academic side of life really. As the elders pass on, if that knowledge isn't carried forward it gets lost. And a lot of history is being lost currently as the elders are passing on. A lot of it has to do with the language because the students don't understand the local language. A lot of the elders only speak the local language or speak a little bit of English. I guess the end goal would be for students to be happy to come to school, understand the relevance of school as a lot of them don't. They have a sense of pride in what they're doing here because they know it's important not just for learning to make them smarter but to actually build their self-esteem as to who they are. That's the bridge that really needs to happen. We hammer out the courses, like I said, ministry-inspected. They're the same courses that you would take out of town and they are challenging. When programed delivery is as intense as it is it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for self-identity and for self-esteem building and that sort of thing. That's where I would like to see it where kids know why they're coming to school and are happy to come and are proud to come and are adding positively to their culture.