A day in the life of 'The Super'
Metro Huculak will serve another two years at helm of Yk1 school board
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Friday, June 12, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The man behind the curtains at Yellowknife Education District No.1 (Yk1) headquarters said keeping the city's public schools running keeps him busy.
Famous for his perogies, good humour and for a tendency to roll up his sleeves while troubleshooting for the district's eight schools, Metro Huculak - who has two years left on his contract as district superintendent - spent one morning last week visiting some of the schools in his charge.
"I can't believe there's three weeks left in the school year," he said. "This year just flew by."
Huculak said he was planning to have retired by this time, but since his wife isn't retiring for another two years, and because Yk1 parents have been asking him to stay longer, he decided to stick around.
"This is a very supportive community," he said.
Huculak is the top administrator for Yk1, but he isn't a stranger to odd-jobs.
At J.H. Sissons School, the oldest school in the district, Huculak had to tend to the matter of an aggressive turtle alleged to be bullying other turtles in the tank. Huculak tested the creature's resolve with the tip of a pen before separating him from his beleaguered tank mates.
"This turtle wasn't aggressive before," he said while joking with staff. "What did you do to that turtle?"
Huculak said J.H. Sissons School will have more students next year. A small class is leaving while a large intake of kindergartners is anticipated, he said. The school is known for the school-swap controversy that occupied the district last year.
The school was earmarked as a potential swap candidate with the French School board. The GNWT was under a court order to expand classroom space for the Commission scolaire francophone Territories du Nord-Ouest and had asked Yk1 to consider trading a school, although the French board nixed that idea. But even before the GNWT partially won an appeal that made a school swap unnecessary, parents told the Yk1 board they didn't want to lose J.H. Sissons School.
Outgoing principal Paul Bennett - who will take over as vice-principal at Sir John Franklin High School next year - said the school is popular because of what it offers in the way of French language education. Everyone on staff, from principal to secretaries and guidance counsellors, speak in French to students helping to build a foundation for the use of the language, said Bennett.
"It's fully inclusive," he said. "If (students) start to hear themselves, they begin correcting themselves."
The focus on French immersion is helping students to score higher on standardized tests than students in Alberta, said Bennett.
At Range Lake North School, Huculak met with vice-principal Darryl Mitchener who gave a rundown of some of the recent and upcoming highlights. A song-writing workshop for Grade 3 students had just wrapped up.
"We're trying to write a school song," he said.
Mitchener said a big highlight was the robotics and coding programming being included this year. Mitchener and one of his students built a Lego robot used to introduce students to the world of computer coding.
"The kids pick it up so fast," said Mitchener.
At William McDonald School, principal Rachell Simmons was speaking with participants in the Grade 8 leadership camp.
"This was the first year they went to Bliss Lake (and Camp Akaitcho) and it was very successful," she said.
Students built igloos, fished through the ice and received first-aid training, she said.
"In two weeks, we're going to Hidden Lake," she said, adding the students will get some summer safety training to add to what they know about winter survival.
On the way to N.J. MacPherson School, Huculak said Yk1's elementary school's partnership with Montessori Schools produces strong academic results.
Principal Shirley Zouboules said classes at N.J. McPherson school are mostly mixed grade and are academically focused.
Jehu Maisog, 8, of Marilyn Moran's grade one and two class, demonstrated how to use a hokki chair, a stool with a rounded bottom designed to help students who are tired of sitting in a static plastic chair all day. Zouboules said the chair rocks from side to side giving the students a core workout, which seems to prevent them from fidgeting and becoming distracted.
Huculak checked on the water coolers still in place since the city declared a boil water advisory three weeks ago. He said all of the staff and students at the schools are still sipping bottled water since it isn't worth taking a risk with the city's water supply.
