High staff turnover, high rates of fetal alcohol syndrome, poor student performance on standardized tests, literacy and numeracy rates below national averages -- the negative reports seem to pile up yearly.

And that can be scary for parents with children in the system.

Joanne Burtt, a nurse, has spent over a decade working in the North and she continues to work on three-month rotations in Tuktoyaktuk. Her daughter, Allison Greenlaw, goes to school in New Brunswick.

Allison spent her early childhood in Rankin Inlet and Inuvik and thrived socially, Burtt says. But when her daughter reached school age, Burtt was worried. Friends had warned her about rowdy classrooms and poor standards.

"Everybody said she was doing all right but every year, I could see she was a little further behind than where I thought she should be," Burtt says. By the time Allison was in Grade 3, Burtt had seen enough. She decided Allison would have to move get a better education. That was 1997, and Burtt spent the year planning. Meanwhile Allison continued to flounder at school.

"She was in Grade 4 and she couldn't spell anything," Burtt recalls. "She had problems with reading, spelling, math. They had great teachers, but there was so much disruption that the teachers were spending most of their time with the disruptive kids and the average kids were losing."

Although Burtt was happy at her job with the Inuvik Regional Hospital, she picked up and moved to New Brunswick in 1998, where Allison spent a miserable two years in Grade 5 and 6. It turned out Allison was so far behind her peers in New Brunswick, it would take two years to catch up.

"The first year was just horrible," Burtt says. "She cried every day and said she was stupid."

Now in Grade 9, Allison is a happy straight A student. Burtt says the move worked for her and her daughter.

"It is a system-wide problem," she says. "I know there are a lot of people, including the teachers, that send their kids to boarding school. So what does that tell you?"

Kids get wrong message

Caroline Anawak has put her children in the Northern education system for the last 28 years. She's raised 17 children -- some her own and some are adopted while others are foster children.

"Often I've had as many as nine kids in the schools at once," said Anawak, a resident of Iqaluit since 1999.

Anawak believes there are problems with the education system. She said she'll keep fighting to make it better.

"I have no problem with their individual teachers and the individual schools," said Anawak.

It's the message children receive at the age of four or five when they first start going to school that bothers her.

"We take kids and say, 'Forget the strengths you walked in with.' We put them in an entirely different system. The children are being asked to start a different life," she explained.

Anawak said children who have been raised in Inuit families, who speak Inuktitut and who have learned traditional skills, are suddenly thrown into a world where English is the predominant language and Qallunaat are the predominant leaders.

"It must be confusing for a small child in some schools. In many situations, they see their own people as janitors, receptionists and classroom assistants. Those who have a real impact or authority aren't anybody like them," she said.

Anawak thinks this authority needs to go to Inuit, but she also wants more parents to become involved in the schools. She said if parents aren't aware of what the schools are struggling with -- like homework not being done and students coming in late -- nothing will change. Every day after school when her grandchild in kindergarten comes home, the family reads a book. Anawak said the teacher sends home a form which a parent must sign to show the reading was done. She likes this, having the expectations outlined.

Anawak firmly believes in parents and teachers working together.

She said Nunavut's education system is slowly getting better. With the involvement of more parents and the inclusion of more traditional ways of Inuit life, she thinks Nunavut schools will be as good as schools anywhere else in the world. She even thinks they could be better.

Educators need thick skin

Educator Greg Storey welcomes input from parents, even if it is criticism.

The principal of Diamond Jenness secondary school in Hay River says any input from parents is a chance to establish communication.

"The worst thing is when you don't get that call," says Storey, who is in his second year at DJSS after four years as principal in Igloolik.

Some calls from parents can be difficult to deal with because many become emotional over their children, he notes. "We can understand when they come to us with strong feelings."

Storey says he is not scared of conflict. However, he stresses, he will not allow a parent to become abusive.

"We're going to be criticized. It comes with the territory. Sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's not," he adds.

While some parents -- and students -- blame teachers for their problems with the educational system, most are very supportive of educators, he notes.

Teachers and parents need to avoid giving different messages to students, he advises. "It makes it difficult to give kids clear boundaries which they need to be successful."

Jack Keefe, an English and social studies teacher at DJSS, says teaching is a job in which a person develops a thick skin.

Keefe, who is in his 11th year at DJSS, says in that time he has had only two or three experiences in which parents have been unpleasant or abusive.

Keefe says he is not bothered by individual criticism, but rather a more generalized misconception that teachers are overpaid and under worked. "That, for me, is what wears thin after a while."

The teacher says students not doing well in school often have parents that the teachers never hear from.

"There is a definite correlation between a high achiever and a parent's positive involvement with teachers in the school."