School's out at First Nation until staff gets paid
Sat Feb 2 2008
By Gabrielle Giroday
It's been two weeks since the approximately 450 students at Chemawawin Cree Nation have been inside a classroom.
After school officials' salaries went unpaid by the band for nearly six weeks, they walked off the job last week and left local residents fuming about the closure.
The Manitoba First Nation-run school, which offers classes from nursery to Grade 12, remained closed this week due to poor weather in the community about 400 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
"That's two weeks of school the kids have missed ... it's unfortunate it's the kids that have to suffer," Melissa Mink, a mother of a five-year-old girl who attends the school, said Friday.
Mink said her daughter approached her recently asking when she would be regularly attending school.
Mink had no response at the time.
"People are so upset. There's so many concerned parents," she said. "It's very, very embarrassing."
A Winnipeg-based spokesman for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) confirmed Friday teachers at the school had not received paycheques from the band since mid-December, and the school closed for five days last week after fed-up school officials refused to teach due to lagging funds.
However, he said the school was open for students now.
"We've been assured by the chief that all the money owed to teachers is going out (Friday)," he said.
The band's website said Chemawawin has an on-reserve population of about 1,200 people.
A message left at the school Friday to speak to principal Klaus Kelm was not answered, but a school administrator said staff are frustrated with the closure.
"If you talk about stuff up here, you usually end up getting fired," she said.
When asked how to reach the band chief about explaining the closure, she responded: "No one can even reach him from here."
The INAC spokesman said social assistance cheques covering residents' February expenses were to be paid out by the band Friday, as well as paycheques for band employees. He said no formal complaints had been filed with INAC about spending by the chief and band council.
Repeated calls to Chemawawin's band office to reach Chief Clarence Easter were unsuccessful Friday, and the band's administrator said she was unable to answer questions about the school closure.
Calls to Easter's two cellphones were also not answered, and voice mailboxes on the cellphones and at the band's Winnipeg office were full.
gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca