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A clean sweep

Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, June 11, 2008

RANKIN INLET - It's been an eventful first year as principal of Leo Ussak elementary school in Rankin Inlet for Tyrone Power.

The head administrator has worked hard to involve the community in his school and his students in the community - and he's already looking ahead to the next school year.

NNSL Photo/Graphic

Students are pumped to bag as much garbage as possible around Leo Ussak elementary school in Rankin Inlet during a community cleanup challenge this past month. - photo courtesy of Tyrone Power

"We've got a full Grade 3 Inuktitut stream coming on for next year," said Power.

"We've also increased our kindergarten Inuktitut enrolment to 25 students from 12.

"A lot more people than just myself deserve credit for that, of course, and we're all pretty excited about the jump in numbers.

"The school has been promoting Inuktitut for years and Eva Angoo will be taking over the Grade 3 Inuktitut stream for 2008-09."

Leo Ussak finished the school year with a number of activities, including a spring clean-up challenge issued to the community by about 200 elementary kids.

Power said the idea came up through conversations among school staff members.

"We were noticing more and more garbage around the school as the snow was melting, so we challenged the other two schools to a cleanup and then decided to take a step further by challenging the whole community.

"Students and staff members collected about 70 bags of garbage in one hour.

"It was absolutely phenomenal, and nothing short of amazing, to see the amount of garbage we were able to remove from the areas around the school in just 60 minutes."

The school brought the year to a close by hosting its annual awards ceremonies with Rankin's own NHLer, Jordin Tootoo, helping out.

Power said Tootoo's involvement was a big hit with both the students and staff.

"Jordin (Tootoo) was here for all our award ceremonies, handing out certificates and getting his picture taken with the kids.

"Everybody was really appreciative of him taking the time to make the awards extra-special for the kids."