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PRINCE ALBERT — With a new board in place following the Nov. 13 election, the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division reaffirmed their commitment to have a rotating list of trustees delivering Land Acknowledgements for each meeting.
The reaffirmation was done at the first meeting of the board in its new form on Friday, Nov. 22.
Director of Education Neil Finch said land acknowledgements are done as a part of their commitment to Truth and Reconciliation. He’s glad to see that commitment reaffirmed.
"The last couple of years we started having individual trustees bringing the land acknowledgement just to bring some diversity to what that looks like and also to make it more genuine and meaningful, and we're going to continue that with this new board,” Finch said.
At each board meeting, trustees provide a land acknowledgment to honour the Indigenous stewardship of this land since time immemorial.
The order from 2023-2024 was continued until after the election for the 2024-2025 school year. However, all trustees will not have an opportunity to provide a Land Acknowledgement in the current school year, newly elected Darcy Sander will provide the first meeting for the next school year.
For the current school year, the last three months of Land Acknowledgements will be done by new trustees Jill Brown, Neru Franc and Mira Lewis.
Before the organizational meeting on Friday, Nov. 22 trustee Bill Gerow read a Land Acknowledgement from the Grade 3 class at WP Michel School in Big River. Finch said that was a great example of the purpose of the Land Acknowledgement
“Every time an individual brings it forward, it just looks a little bit different,” Finch said. “It talks about what the land means to them in that moment.”
With this being the first meeting of the board in a new form, Finch welcomed the new voices at the board table.
"It was a nice that that was the first meeting with the board and when you get four new trustees, there's just a new energy and renewal and different thoughts around the table that we haven't seen. We had great ideas before with the existing board that was there before the election, but it is nice to see some fresh ideas coming forward with our new trustees,” Finch said.
The board went through trustee orientation in the morning before the organizational meeting and closed and open sessions of the regular meeting.
After the orientation, the entire Board spent time together team building before holding the Organizational meeting.
