INUVIK
While smaller classes in the higher grades at this time of year are nothing new, attendance has dropped to remarkable lows this spring, according to education officials.

"This time of year is not a good time for study," said Denise McDonald, superintendent of schools for the Beaufort Delta Education Council. "Sometimes people will look at attendance and see they're at 80 per cent, and think that's not bad. It is bad."

McDonald said that by Grade 10, if a student has missed 20 per cent - a seemingly innocuous number - they will have missed two whole school years. The problem, she said, starts long before high school but is most apparent in Grades 10, 11, and 12.

Last week, when McDonald did a spot-check of the schools in the region, she found only about 30 or 35 per cent of students were in classes, including at East Three Secondary School.

"Where are the children?" she asked.

McDonald said that while community and aboriginal leadership must step up and help encourage students to stay in school, the schools also have to be more responsive.

"Schools need to be more proactive in contacting families," she said, "They can't be so accepting of the way things are."

East Three principal Deborah Reid agrees with McDonald that attendance is a complex issue and not easily solved. By the school's count on one day last week, about 66 per cent of high school students were accounted for in some way, either through excused absences, in class, or modified programs.

"It's hard to determine why a child doesn't arrive at school," Reid said, adding that the student has to be supported by the institution, the family, and the community. "As far as the school goes, we work to be as warm and welcoming as we can, and to build it around the students' needs."

Especially in high school, Reid said, the system is flexible to allow students the maximum potential to complete and move on to whatever they choose.

Reid posted on social media, asking the community to help get children to school for the rest of the academic year. One of the responses was about families going out on the land for hunting at this time of year, something Reid was quick to encourage.

"I'm not concerned with the students that are on the land camping," she said. "That's an educational experience. But most of the ones who aren't coming to class aren't out on the land."

For those, Reid said the school and community have to find a way to reach out to them and bring them back into the fold.

"We can't do it alone," she said. "It's a home and community push that needs to happen now."

Darcie Setzer, a Grade 12 student, said her own streamed classes aren't suffering too much from a lack of students, but that she knows the graduation class was made up of only a dozen people this year.

"Education is an important part of your life moving forward," she told the Drum. "It helps in the long run, you need it to find a job. My parents taught me it was important, but I want to have a good future ahead of me."

Angela Voudrach, also in Grade 12, said she likes going to school much better than staying home all day. Although she said she has noticed fewer students in the halls, it doesn't change much in her academic life.

"You can't just not go to school and expect something good to happen to you," Voudrach said.

Moving forward, McDonald wants to see more accountability in the system. She said there are data programs in place that can track students throughout the day, class by class.

Beyond working closer with the health and social services system, McDonald said there should be a regional and territorial strategy in place to tackle the attendance issue. She said there are many factors, both contemporary and historical, that affect children getting to school.

"We also need to be offering mandatory life skills and parenting classes," McDonald said, explaining that children need to have their development guided and enhanced right from the beginning to have a better chance at completing school. "We have to start it with our young people."

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again; ultimately, it's going to be the families in the communities that will make the difference."

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