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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - "Our Students, Our North, Our Success." This is the slogan for this week's territorial teachers conference, where 800 educators have gathered in Yellowknife.

The NWT Teacher's Association says the goal of the conference is to meet the professional development needs of educators in the territory.

National Defence programmer analyst Rafael Sandoval manned the Canadian Military History Gateway booth Monday afternoon at the NWT Teacher's Association conference at Sir John Franklin high school. Sandoval was promoting the history gateway, a free online tool that allows students and teachers to search the Canadian military archives, the CBC, the National Film Board and other Canadian archives from one website. - Anne Jones/NNSL photo

Five hundred and twenty five of the teachers attending the conference are from outside Yellowknife.

The association is calling the conference the "first ever," even though many old-time NWT educators have been grumbling, remembering similar conferences many years ago. But David Reid, NWT Teachers' Association president, says the conference is the first meeting of all the educators in the territory "in modern times."

"Effective teaching demands ongoing professional development," Reid said. "It is the only opportunity for classroom teachers to meet and confer with colleagues across the North. These three days are an excellent opportunity to build connections between educators working towards the success of our students in NWT classrooms."

The conference will not cover the issue of school board mergers with other public service boards.

"Our focus is on professional development," said Reid. "We're meeting to discuss practices and teaching practices."

Even though the board mergers are not up for discussion at the conference, Reid said the association is marching on the legislative assembly today, where it will be joined by anti-merger demonstrators.

Reid said the association's march is "in response to things that are happening in Yellowknife (with the merger plan), but our focus is mainly on the lack of consultation."

He said the protest will not interfere with the conference since it will be held once the conference is over.

"GNWT teachers are public servants and as such we are bound by a code of ethics," Reid said. "We wouldn't cut short a day to participate in a rally. The focus has been and always will be on the conference."

The Yellowknife Catholic school board is also organizing a march on the legislative assembly on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. The Catholic board has given permission to its teachers to leave the association conference to protest if they wish."

"That's certainly up to the teachers if they wish to do that," said Reid.

"But we're celebrating professional development. We will discuss board reform and we'll take that on as another cause."

Reid said the association and the Catholic board are having separate protests because the Catholic board "wanted parents and students to be involved and their issues are more around Catholic education.

"Personally, I support the right for a Catholic school board to exist," he said. The association's issues are mostly about the "lack of consultation and what this could mean for education across the territories."

The conference's opening keynote speaker was David Bouchard, a Metis author who recently won a gold medal from the Moonbeam Children's Book Award for his book, I am Raven.

"He was extremely inspirational in his opening address," said Reid. "It just set the tone for the conference."

There will be an education panel this afternoon, which will be moderated by Rita Mueller, director of early childhood and school services with Education, Culture and Employment.

Panelists will be Angela James, principal of K'alemi Dene school, Dan Daniels, GNWT deputy minister of education, David Reid, John Staple, deputy secretary general of the Canadian Teachers' Federation, and Velma Illasiak, principal of Moose Kerr school in Aklavik.

"The dialogue is going to be on what we are doing well and where do we go from here?" said Reid.

"Probably they're only going to have a chance to (answer) two questions and we'll go into our keynote address."

Reid noted the conference has an excellent turnout with 800 out of 820 association members attending.

Sixty-four vendors from across Canada set up in Sir John Franklin's gymnasium to display educational books, research tools, and other resources for parents and teachers.

GNWT delegates and Yellowknife delegates from both school boards had to pay a $75 registration fee to go towards the costs of the program, nutrition breaks, water stations and presenter thank you gifts. Assistant superintendents and superintendents covered the cost from their own budgets.

For GNWT educators from outside Yellowknife, accommodations were covered by the territorial government at a cost of around $800,000.