La Loche Community School is a K-12 school with approximately 900 students and is part of the Northern Lights School Division #113, which controls the entire northern portion of Saskatchewan. In terms of area, Northern Lights is the largest division in the province. The school itself is divided into two buildings. The first is Ducharme Elementary and the second is Dene High School. The elementary school houses Kindgergarten through grade six and the high school has grades seven through twelve. It is important to note that the buildings are on opposite ends of town from each other. The school principal stays in the high school and the assistant principal controls the elementary school. Although they are considered one school the differences between the two are night and day. The principal and the assistant principal do not agree on many things and consequently the schools have very different policies and procedures in place for everything from discipline through to how classes should be run. Most of my focus will be on the elementary school because that is where I spent my time, however I will try to contrast with what happens in the high school as much as I can.

I spent four years in La Loche and taught different grades every year. My most recent experience was teaching in a grade six classroom. The children in the classroom ranged in age from 12 to 15 years old. The division does not use the "no fail" policy that is in place in Manitoba. The children are held back for a maximum of two years before essentially being pushed through the system.

Teaching grade six in La Loche is quite a different experience from teaching in a place like Winnipeg. Although the curriculums are similar, the way the teachers are asked to teach is very different. In La Loche we used a number of programs that were essentially workbook and reader type programs. They were what I like to call "boxed programs". They matched up fairly closely to the curriculum and so the teachers simply taught right from a book. There was very little room for the creative aspect that we see in Manitoba where the teachers come up with the "how" in terms of their teaching technique. The ability to teach our students in a way that catered to them had been taken away. There were a number of reasons for this, the biggest was the high teacher turn over that the school division experienced. Generally teachers will stay for a maximum of two years and then move on. This meant that the children often had large gaps in their knowledge because the teachers would teach or not teach certain aspects of the curriculum depending on their students.

My understanding of what was taking place before they introduced all of these "boxed programs" was that teachers were staying on specific concepts until the students understood them, and typically that is what any good teacher would do. Unfortunately in La Loche this often meant that the same concept could be taught all year because the students simply weren't understanding them. The result at the end of the year is that students were receiving less than a quarter of the curriculum for a given grade and were consequently missing even more knowledge when they started the next grade the following year. Even worse, if the student repeated the grade, they were often re-learning the same concepts because the teacher would simply repeat what they had started the previous year.

In an attempt to fix what was happening the school began to introduce the "boxed programs" and told the teachers to simply move on and stay on schedule regardless of whether the students actually understood what was happening or not. In effect we were teaching to the top of the class instead of the middle or bottom because it was only the top few that were able to learn new concepts in what was considered to be a reasonable amount of time. The theory was, to use an analogy, that if we threw enough spaghetti at the wall eventually something would stick. That was essentially what we did with the curriculum. We threw all these different concepts at the students and just hoped that they picked up at least some of it.

The high school worked in a more traditional manner. The teachers were able to plan their own lessons and were not forced to teach various programs. When the students began grade seven they were typically behind with the exception of the top few. Keep in mind that when I say students are behind it's usually by at least two grade levels and often it is much farther than that. The high school teachers refused to offer specialized programs for students that were not strong enough academically. They wanted to appear "normal" like you might find in most Saskatoon or Winnipeg high schools. The consequences of attempting to appear normal were dire. Out of a class of 200 grade twelve students only 20 to 25 would graduate in a given year. Of those only one or two would go to a post secondary school of some sort. (When I refer to school population I'm actually referring to all students whether they attend or whether they are just on the books because they haven't officially dropped out or been taken off by the administration. The number of students that actually attend with some regularity is probably less than half of the number that are actually listed on paper in grade twelve.)

It is important for me to point out that both schools meant well. It often appeared as though the elementary was slightly more willing to accept the reality of teaching in La Loche because they were willing to accept that most of the students would never be high academic achievers. There were only a select few (most of them were the children of the teachers) that had a chance at going to university. The best we could hope for the rest was that they would either pick up enough skills to function on a day to day basis or, if we were lucky, that they would learn a trade or a skill and move away from La Loche for work.

My experience as a teacher was mixed. While I enjoyed teaching grade six, I only saw 10 of the 20 students that were actually registered in the class. The faithful few that came to class every day were generally good kids. They did their best, amid all the trouble they were having at home, to learn what they could and I appreciated their effort. I had one or two in my class whose parents had indicated that they were intending to move to Saskatoon when their children finished that year. They wanted their children to have a proper education and they didn't feel La Loche was the place to do that.

While I enjoyed grade six, the younger grades were much more challenging. Attendance was almost perfect at that level because I think, for the most part, the children simply enjoyed the stability of school. Once they got to grade 4 or so that would change and the attendance would start to drop. What that means for the early years teachers is that they deal with a lot of behavioral issues in the classroom. Referrals to various para-professionals are a normal part of the year for those teachers and along with that a specialized education plan is often created.

It can be heartbreaking to see some of the homes these children come from. Fetal alcohol syndrome and ADD/ADHD are two of the most common reasons for referral. Medication is often given and the routine of sending children to the special education office to get those medicines in the morning and after lunch is normal. Also in the early years program the teachers are asked to brush the children's teeth. The dentist's office is in the elementary school and they provide tooth brushes and toothpaste for all of the classrooms. Parents often neglect this job at home and consequently the school has picked it up. The only thing that is not provided is a hot lunch or milk program. The school simply doesn't have the private support of businesses to provide meals for the children, although if they could find it I'm sure it would be implemented.

The school in La Loche is doing and has done its best to provide for the children they teach. There is still much work to be done. The school can't fix all the problems, but hopefully the school can be a source of comfort for the students that go to it.