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From student to principal

Jeanne Gagnon
Northern News Services
Published Monday, August 23, 2010

IGLULIK - About 300 students at Ataguttaaluk Elementary School in Iglulik welcomed their first homegrown principal on Aug. 16.

NNSL photo/graphic

Jeela Allurut is the first principal at Ataguttaaluk Elementary School in Iglulik to have attended the school as a child. She used to be the vice-principal at the community's high school. - photo courtesy of Jeela Allurut

Jeela Allurut, who herself attended the K-7 school as a child, was the vice-principal at the community's high school for the last three years before taking on the new post.

Allurut said she was surprised to get the job.

"We always had people from the south as a principal; we're used to that. I was assuming that there were more southern people applying. So that's why I was surprised," she said.

Allurut got her first education-related job in 1985 as a classroom assistant in Nanisivik, the now-defunct mining town near Arctic Bay.

She earned her Bachelor of Education at Nunavut Arctic College before holding various positions, from the aboriginal head start co-ordinator to student support teacher in a high school and vice-principal for three years at Ataguttaaluk High School in Iglulik.

"I wanted my community members, the parents especially who are unilingual or even bilingual, to be able to have communication with the school using their own language and to take whatever information they want using their own language and to be able to have more connection with the school," she said.

While a vice-principal at the high school, she said she had a good rapport with the principal Vince Pickett, who taught her quite a bit.

"The work seemed overloading but he made it so simple. I think it's who you are that makes your job easier so I learned a bit from him," she said.

Pickett wished her well on her new adventure.

"Even though it was sad to see her go from this school, it's great to see her take on a new challenge as principal of the elementary school and I am sure she will do really well there," he said.

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