Quebec's only off-reserve Indigenous school set to close after only 1 year

Five months after the groundbreaking Tshiueten project began, the only off-reserve school in Quebec focusing on the educational needs of Indigenous students just starting out in school will close.

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The Saguenay area school board voted unanimously last Tuesday to stop the project at the end of this school year,because the province hasn't renewed a $205,000 grant it gave the board to launch the school,and on its own, the board can't afford to meetthe students' special needs.

"I didn't make this decision with joy in my heart," said Rives-du-Saguenay school board chairman Antonin Simard.

"It tears me apart."

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The Tshiueten project began just last September,with the aim ofimproving the success rate for First Nations children.

Twenty InnuandAtikamekwchildrenfromkindergarten to grade two have been learning their Indigenous languageand culture as part of their regular classroom education.

However, the school board's director general,Chantale Cyr, saidcosts have risen far beyond what the board had expected, to six times the cost of educating a child in a regular classroom.

"It's adding the speech therapists, the social workers, the support for children with disabilities," she said.

Funding not renewed

So far, the Tshiueten project, which derives its name from the word for "north" in the Innu language, has cost $335,000.

The province had provided a $205,000 start-up grant, but that subsidy wasn'trenewed for the 2017-2018 school year.

Cyr says the school board can't afford to make up the difference.

"One hundred and fifty thousand dollarsfor that project is one thing, but to know it will cost $450,000 next year, it's another," she said.

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Cyr said the boardwould continuethe program if it could get the extra funding at least long enough toevaluate how effective it is.

"The parents are enthusiastic," she said, "the children are blossoming, and it's bringing in these young people and their families."

She said a handful of new families had already expressed an interest in enrollingtheir children intheTshiuetenproject next year.