Hay River (Sep 29/03) - What we have here is a failure to communicate.

On Sept. 22, the South Slave school board announced -- in error -- that it had a new Hay River representative.

"I would chalk it up to miscommunication," says Curtis Brown, the superintendent of the South Slave Divisional Education Council (SSDEC).

The SSDEC had announced that Kandis Jameson was the new rep from the Hay River District Education Authority.

However, Andrew Butler is still Hay River's delegate, despite having been kicked off the SSDEC earlier this year for alleged violations of its code of conduct.

The DEA issued a news release correcting the mistake.

"We didn't want the minister to get the misunderstanding that things were going fine and dandy down here," says Butler.

"Until the Hay River DEA receives a legal opinion from the minister of education on my removal from the SSDEC, I remain as Hay River's representative on the South Slave DEC," he explains.

Jameson was to attend an SSDEC meeting in Lutsel K'e in an acting capacity, leading to the board's confusion.

However, neither she nor Butler could make the meeting.

The next meeting of the SSDEC will take place Nov. 29 in Hay River.

Brown hopes the misunderstanding does not overshadow the accomplishments at the Lutsel K'e meeting. Among them, the SSDEC re-allocated funds for a speech language pathologist for all South Slave schools.

Brown says the board has advertised the position for two years, but had not received an application until recently. It set aside about $100,000 in the hope the applicant might be hired.

The SSDEC also reiterated the need for appropriate government agencies to assist teachers with a critical staff housing shortage in smaller communities.