.

Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

BEHCHOKO/RAE-EDZO - It's just another afternoon at Chief Jimmy Bruneau school in Behchoko, and secretary Sasha Sage seems to be taking things in stride.

"The kids are all in the swing of the new semester, we've got a few discipline problems so I've got suspensions to fill out, there's a couple of health issues and I had to kick some of our Edzo students off the bus to Rae," and the list goes on.

Sasha Sage, second from left, sits with three of her kids at Chief Jimmy Bruneau school in Behchoko. They are, from left, John, Lindsey and Tyler. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

She balances the phone on her shoulder as she greets some students, says goodbye to others and constantly reaches for the "hold'" button to head off on one task or another.

"I sit at my desk for about five minutes a day," she says with a laugh. "It's that kind of job around here."

For almost 13 years, Sage, 36, has been watching kids come and go at the school in Edzo. In that time she's traded off to bits of finance work and a heap of other administrative tasks around the school.

"I'm just doing what I love," she says.

As she speaks, she spies teenage eyes staring daggers her way.

"They're just mad because I kicked them off the bus," she says. The teens are from Edzo, and were attempting to get on the bus to Rae.

"We can't have Edzo students going in to Rae," she says. "It's a safety issue, especially in winter."

However, she can sympathize. At one point, this was Sage's school.

"I graduated in '94. I was in the first graduating class."

Sage was born in the North, but was adopted from a North Slavey family as an infant and raised in Edmonton, then Yellowknife. After her parents split up, she says the family moved to Saskatoon, then finally back to Behchoko when she was 11.

"We visited one day and just stayed," she says. "My cousin was here, and she's my co-worker now too."

Now she's following in her mother's footsteps, raising three of her five kids on her own (one is grown, another lives with his father's family). On Thursday, all three were at the school. John, 3, was at the day care, Lindsey, 10, is in the elementary school and Tyler, 17, is in Grade 11.

Having her kids around adds to the homey vibe of the school, Sage says. But the place has always felt like family to her. For better or worse.

"We have 340 students, so there's no time to think of your needs when someone needs something more than you do, you know?"

Over the years, she says things haven't changed a great deal - but sometimes she worries about the life choices the younger teens are making. "That middle-age group, you don't know if they're going to fly way up to the sky, or if they are going to go way down," she says.

But when problems inevitably happen, she only hopes that students know there are people who worry and care about them just a few steps away.

"It's a sharing and loving environment - kids just need to ask," she says. "Never be scared to ask for help."