SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife Education District No. 1 will seek extra money from the territorial government for providing superintendency services to schools in Ndilo and Dettah.

YK1 provides some services to K'alemi Dene School in Ndilo and Kaw Tay Whee School in Dettah, but those students are technically not included in the YK1 district's enrolment numbers.

"I've asked ECE (the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment) to look at our funding, and to count (the two schools) in our enrolment for other types of funding, so we can get extra funding by including that count in our count," said Huculak during the Dec. 8 board meeting.

"Dettah has their own (District Education Authority) and K'alemi only has an education committee. They get their own separate funding," Huculak told Yellowknifer on Wednesday.

"What we do provide is the staffing, and we provide support from our student services co-ordinator, and if they need a French co-ordinator we provide that, and we provide services with literary coaches."

Huculak said other school districts in the NWT get extra funding for looking after schools in communities.

"There are some little grants that you can sometimes get if your numbers are a certain level," said Huculak. "Every little bit helps."

Parents help Range Lake North

Trustee Mira Hall announced the Parent Advisory Committee at Range Lake North School has been working hard to help out the school.

"They're trucking away at doing a lot of (fundraising) activities over Christmas and providing additional funds to teachers ... I guess each of their classrooms got like $200 to spend on classroom materials, which I thought was really great," said Hall.

Duff Spence, the board chairperson, said the Range Lake North School PAC consistently raises a lot of money for the school.

Outreach expands

A new staff member has joined YK1's new outreach school. She will be starting on Jan. 20.

The school is for students who have trouble functioning in the regular classroom setting, and has a start-up cost of $150,000.

Superintendent Metro Huculak said the school currently has 37 students enrolled, and with the addition of a second staff member, Kirsten Prescott, it will be able to accommodate more students as the year goes on.

"There are students who have dropped out since the end of September, so one of my goals for the two staff members there is to network with those students and parents and see if we can get them involved in the outreach," said Huculak.

"There is a good possibility that we can get as many as 60 students this year. If it goes well, we're looking at continuing the program and extending the lease."