YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife Catholic Schools parents and teachers left a clear message at a public information session on Monday at St. Joseph school.

Shannon Gullberg tells a crowd of Yellowknife Catholic Schools parents and staff gathered in St. Joseph school gymnasium April 30 that the school board has been seeking a school for at least three years, as evident in a report issued by the GNWT in 2005. "We have written a script for the last three and a half years," Gullberg told the crowd, "We told you what would happen." - Christine Grimard/NNSL photo

"I have to say that shared space does not work," said Dan Stockton, who has one of his children taking classes at N.J. Macpherson while the other is at St. Joseph school. "The kids are losing out."

After an arson at the school last year, between 100 and 125 students were displaced to N.J. Macpherson.

Yellowknife Catholic Schools Superintendent Kern Von Hagen announced at the meeting that the same number of students would be displaced next year for the retrofit. Although Von Hagen couldn't commit to exactly what the arrangements would be, he hinted it would likely be similar.

"We have to try and suck it up again and do it in another context," said Von Hagen. "We will come up with something that's good."

Parents, many emotional at the announcement, made it clear they were not happy with this arrangement.

"Am I really hearing you say our kids are going to be at N.J. next year?" asked Linda Wood.

"It's taking a toll on our kids, I've got one who's crying herself to sleep at night," said Blair Chapman. "If next year's solution is this year's, I'd say there's a fat chance kids are coming back.

Von Hagen and Gullberg sympathized with parents.

Gullberg said her own child was displaced to N.J. Macpherson. Nevertheless, they had little explanation to offer parents, other than that the situation was out of their hands.

"I feel like I'm at an impasse. I feel like I don't have the capacity to make it happen," said Von Hagen.

Von Hagen expanded on the administrative nightmare managing two spaces has been. While he said staff did their best, sharing space has ultimately taken resources and time out of the classroom with staff travelling between two schools.

"If it was just dollars I'd be happy with that. The cost is to our kids in getting a stressed performance," said Von Hagen. "I cannot ask our staff to do this again."

Von Hagen and Gullberg asked parents to come to an information session held by the minister of Education, Culture and Employment on Thursday to express their sentiments to Yk1 parents.

Von Hagen also put further pressure on Yk 1. "They would rather see half empty schools and not see that money put into programming," Von Hagen told the approximately 150 parents who came.

Shannon Gullberg put the focus on Dent who was in attendance. "It's our belief that he can and should go further to pressure the board," said Gullberg. "It is still up to the minister to come up with a solution."

Gullberg mentioned two levers Dent could pull to encourage Yk 1 to hand over a school: give YCS Sir John Franklin, the only school still owned by ECE and not Yk 1, or not follow through with J.H. Sissons' planned retrofit.

Gullberg responded to allegations from Yk 1 that the board was not willing to communicate on arrangements for next year. Both Gullberg and Von Hagen commented that they were not interested in negotiating if the terms were to be the same.

Gullberg also reacted to Yk 1's political agenda of looking to amalgamate the two school boards; a recommendation that can be found on the Yk 1 Web Site.

"How do you negotiate with someone who has as their goal your ultimate destruction?" said Gullberg. "We will not negotiate in a way that will result in the same way as last year."

"We can't win and that's the truth of the matter because we don't have the cards," said an exasperated Von Hagen.