SASKATOON — St. Frances Cree Bilingual School in Saskatoon, the largest Indigenous language elementary school in the country, is expanding even further thanks to a significant donation.
Dakota Dunes Community Development Corporation has announced a $250,000 donation that will be used to build a powwow arbour on the school’s grounds.
The school, located on Grosvenor Avenue and 7th Street East in Saskatoon, will be home to the ‘pwātisiwakamik’ outdoor gathering place, which will allow the school to host cultural ceremonies and events such as mini powwows and round dances.
“When parents send their (kids) to St. Frances, they know they are going to be in a school that is steeped in language and culture,” said Kelley Cardinal, superintendent of education at Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools (GSCS).
“Everyone is very excited to see this building open because the students of St. Frances will now have a dedicated space that reflects who they are, what their culture is about, and a space that will lend itself to a sense of pride and empowerment in who they are,” said Cardinal.
Enrolment has steadily increased and as a result, the school was split into two campuses to accommodate the need.
Construction of the replacement school is expected to be done in the fall of 2025.
The majority of the teachers at the school are Indigenous, and classes are modelled after Indigenous ways of learning, said Cardinal, with more dialogue, conversation, and hands-on learning; less sitting in perfect lines and listening to a teacher lecture.
“When students can see themselves in the learning and see themselves reflected in the space, that removes barriers that would previously have hindered learning,” said Cardinal.
The Government of Saskatchewan funds construction of new schools, but various aspects of schools, such as specialized learning spaces, cultural spaces, or playgrounds, are not funded. Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools seeks donors, like the Dakota Dunes Community Development Corporation, to fund parts of the school determined as critical to the school, but not core parts of government funding.
Milton Tootoosis, chief economic reconciliation officer at SREDA, and one of the province's leading advocates for Indigenous language, said this sort of immersive, is what Saskatchewan has needed for a long time.
“It’s 100 years overdue. Maybe we should’ve had this from day one, not 100 years later,” said Tootoosis.
“I’m cautiously optimistic. If our funding commitments are equivalent to what the French system gets, then I applaud it. But I think the Indigenous language schools are still underfunded in comparison,” he said.
The education gap is part of Tootoosis's concern the other is a lack of practical language opportunities outside the classroom.
“We know they don’t spend nearly enough hours to really teach a human being our language. Do the parents speak it at home?” he said.
“It’s a good start. It’s about time. But, there is a ‘but’.”
To help push and vitalize language, Tootoosis founded the YXE Cree Speakers Society, which holds conferences, workshops, and research, and creates reports on strategies for moving language forward.
Their new language report will soon be released on https://yxecreespeakerssociety.ca.
