First Nations Schools Scrambling to Safely Reopen

September 4, 2020

Fix Our Schools is focused on ensuring that all Ontario students attend safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. While the majority of publicly funded schools in this province are funded by our provincial government, the federal government is responsible for funding First Nations schools. 

Mirroring the underfunding of public schools and education by the provincial government, the federal government also leaves these crucial elements of our society chronically underfunded. Ontario’s publicly funded schools currently have $16.3-billion of disrepair after decades of chronic underfunding from the provincial government. Even before we saw the challenges of COVID-19, overcrowding, disrepair, and, unbelievably, something as essential as safe drinking water have all been challenges that schools in Ontario’s Indigenous communities face.

Now, the federal government is very late in providing what appears to be grossly inadequate funding to First Nations schools to ensure a safe and effective reopening of schools amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a Globe & Mail article by Willow Fiddler entitle, “Funding delay leaves First Nations schools scrambling to safely reopen”, the federal government just announced $112-million in funding for schools on reserves to help pay for things such as ventilation, personal protective equipment, and cleaning supplies. Fix Our Schools has been quoted as saying, “too little funding, too late” in response to provincial funding for a safe return to school, and this comment certainly applies to this instance as well.

Dobi-Dawn Frenette, executive director of Northern Nishnawbe Education Council, the tribal group that oversees Dennis Franklin Cromarty and Pelican Falls high schools, said that “many of our students may not have access to a learning device, access to [internet] connectivity, they may not have access to a study space, many of our communities don’t have clean drinking water.”

While the rest of Ontario is concerned with what online learning will look like this fall, many Indigenous students aren’t even getting access to that level of education. In fact, according to a CBC report from August 27, some schools serving First Nations students will be resorting to landlines and fax machines to resume some kind of remote learning in September.

Many Indigenous students already make great sacrifices to get the education that every Ontario student deserves. To attend high school, 78% of Indigenous students from reserves in Ontario must leave their communities. Children must live in a residence or board with another family, impacting their mental health, access to community support systems, and inevitably their level of success. Now, because of COVID, the impacts are even greater.

Students who attend Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School in Thunder Bay and Pelican Falls High School in Sioux Lookout leave their communities to live near these off-reserve First Nations schools. These schools are designated as provincial private schools but receive education funding from Indigenous Services Canada to operate. According to Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller, funding for these off-reserve schools is a “jurisdictional triangle”; and they sometimes get caught in the middle of provincial and federal funding delays and confusion.

All of Ontario’s students deserve an education in a safe, well-maintained, healthy building and if that isn’t possible in the short-term, they deserve access to robust online learning, which requires access to wifi and devices. Fix Our Schools worries that our First Nations students may not have access to either of these education options. Unacceptable.