Chinook's Edge School Division has honoured its indigenous student population with the installation of special artwork.
The indigenous art installation featured the attendance of Elder Adrian Wolfleg of the Siksika Nation. The artwork was created by Janice Gallant, a teacher from …cole Deer Meadow School in Olds.
"It was a really good experience for us at division office to hear from Elder Adrian but it was also important to put (in) Janice Gallant's artwork, which is fantastic, and we see it in many of our schools," said Kurt Sacher, the division's superintendent of schools. "We wanted to have it (artwork) prominent right in our corporate epicentre to model the way across the school division."
The artwork, which has been placed in a visible location just past the central office main front door, is a collaborative design incorporating elements requested from the division's indigenous students.
The design is in the form of the traditional medicine wheel and divided into four directions, each representing the stages of life, seasons and cycles of each day.
"Having spent time with Elder Adrian with our division office staff we learned a great deal about indigenous culture and understood the artwork a little better based on the medicine wheel, the four seasons, and stages of life," said Sacher.
"We really want to honour and respect their culture, and when we are trying to create safe and caring and an inclusive environment we want our indigenous students to feel genuinely part of our school division."
The rural school division has about 11,000 students in total, with 852 being First Nations, Metis and Inuit. Sacher hopes the symbolic gesture of installing indigenous artwork at central office will continue to help the indigenous students feel they are a full, equal and respected part of the school division.
"We have 11,000 students and we have such diversity, and indigenous students matter, and we wanted them to feel included," said Sacher. "We want them to feel safe. We want them to feel like they belong in our school division and we hope this symbolic gesture helps us to continue to move down that pathway."
Kurt Sacher, superintendent of schools for Chinook's Edge School Division
"We have 11,000 students and we have such diversity, and indigenous students matter, and we wanted them to feel included."
