Program aims to boost grad rates
Convincing parents to keep track of students' attendance key to success, says principal
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, January 28, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A program aiming to increase graduation rates among aboriginal students should be adopted by schools across the city, said Colleen MacDonald, principal of the one school that has adopted it.
Tassie Lockhart-Drygeese, Shania Desjarlais, and Helena Marlowe are students at St. Patrick High School who were among the first group guided to graduation by Aboriginal Grad coach Denise Bailey.
- photo courtesy of Denise Bailey |
The principal at St. Patrick High School said the Aboriginal Grad Coach Program - launched at the Catholic high school in September - provides an adult mentor to keep track of student progress, helps with transitioning from elementary school to high school and beyond and establishes a connection with parents to get them interested in how their children are doing at school.
MacDonald said aboriginal students make up 40 per cent of the school's population, and the residual effects of residential school are limiting their success rate. Not all aboriginal students are doing poorly, but students who don't attend class aren't making it to post-secondary school, she said, and part of the problem is their parents' attitude toward institutionalized learning.
"If their parents weren't part of the residential school system, then their grandparents were," she said, adding that aboriginal students often exhibit truancy in elementary school.
"And there's a definite correlation between attendance and higher academics."
Regardless of background, said MacDonald, parents who don't keep track of attendance, or are unable to because of their own work, are not able to provide positive reinforcements necessary to keep students going to class.
She said the new program, headed up by teacher Denise Bailey, is helping change student and parent attitude toward education. Bailey, who made a presentation to the Yellowknife Catholic Schools board about the program last week, said she has been coaching aboriginal students and helping them get the help they need. Bailey said she's made inroads with parents. In the beginning, she was calling home to ask about absentees. Now, she said, she's the one getting the calls.
"Now I have a group of parents who call me and ask 'did so-and-so go to class today?'" she said.
MacDonald said it's difficult to officially track how successful the program has been so far, since it's only been running for half a year. She said last year, of 120 students eligible to graduate at the school, only 100 did.
Bailey said she can think of at least three students on her list who probably wouldn't have graduated if it weren't for aboriginal coaching.
MacDonald has found "outside sources" to fund the program, but since donations cannot pay for the salary she's hoping the school board will decide to fund the project in the future.
"I'd like it to continue," said MacDonald.
Attendance is a key part of receiving funding, she said. If a student doesn't have a 60 per cent attendance rate by the end of September the school doesn't get funded for them, she said.
