Report calls for separate schools
By Mary Agnes Welch, Winnipeg Free Press
December 1, 2009
A panel struck to recommend fixes for Winnipeg's violent crime problem is proposing a separate school division exclusively for First Nations children.
The big idea was embedded in a new anti-crime strategy approved Monday at Winnipeg city council's protection and community services committee. The report, prepared in consultation with some of the city's biggest names in business and government, looked at six ways social programs -- such as family resources centres and a better education system -- could cut crime.
One of the 20-page strategy's most tangible ideas was the creation of a separate, publicly-funded aboriginal school division, much like the one created 16 years ago for French-speaking Manitobans.
"Why should Aboriginal People be denied the same thing?" asked Damon Johnston, president of the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg, at Monday's meeting. "It can only rest in racism."
The province is often criticized for allowing eight school boards to operate in Winnipeg, carving the city into separate school divisions where most cities just have one. And the idea for an aboriginal school board has appeared before, winning limited support among parents and the provincial government.
But Johnston and Social Planning Council head Wayne Helgason said a school board run by First Nations with tailored language and life skills courses could help shrink sky-high dropout rates, rebuild aboriginal culture and combat crime and poverty.
A First Nations school division could also provide better services to kids moving to Winnipeg from northern reserves to attend high school.
It's not the first time a pitch to create a separate education system based on race or culture has hit the table in Canada. Two years ago, Toronto's public school board was gripped by a debate over a proposed black-focused school, which some called 1950s segregation disguised as cultural sensitivity.
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