Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 12/99) - High school student records have been available from a Yellowknife office for eight years but some people still send away to Alberta to get high school transcripts, according to Pat Gitersos, data entry and student records officer at the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

Years ago all the records were available in Alberta but now the province has little to do with NWT high school records.

Alberta still sends up exams for NWT students and people in the province still do all the marking but everything else is done up North.

Gitersos keeps three kinds of records: enrolments, registrations and marks.

"The enrolments are not just for people who have graduated. It's for anybody who has done any courses in grades 10, 11, and 12. We keep the records," said Gitersos.

"Sometimes people want to prove that they have done so many years because they want to go to some sort of program where they might need Grade 9."

The next kind of records Gitersos helps keep is registrations.

This is for students registered in diploma examination courses such as English 30, Math 30 or Social Studies 30 -- courses needed for graduation.

Gitersos is in contact with all the schools across the NWT and Nunavut and finds out how many people are taking the exams.

She then tallies up all the schools' numbers and forwards the number on to Alberta so the correct number of exams can be sent up North.

"It would be very expensive for the department to create new exams," she said to answer why the exams are produced in the south.

"So I act like a liaison between Alberta the department (ECE). There are five examination sittings through the year so it's a lot of work."

The final aspect of student records that Gitersos oversees is the marks.

"At the end of each semester the schools send the marks to us and it is downloaded into our computer," she said.

"I probably would have 850 students writing exams across the North.

This number varies from year to year."

Though she is organizing for January exams now, she said things really get busy in January and February planning for June exams.

"There are always deadlines that I have to meet and it's very hectic so there're lots of extra hours that I have to work," she said.

Why does she do it?

"I guess I love the fact that I help people and I advise people on different issues.

"I like the thank yous at the end of the school year. This is very rewarding."

Outside of work, the native of Greece and 20-year Northerner spends time with her husband and two children.

"I like the outdoors, especially in the summer so I do a lot of walking, hiking and cycling."