I like numbers. To be more precise: I like the stories that numbers can tell us. I like how when numbers tell stories, as long as they are true stories, they whisper of an unseen magic that gave rise to them.
Here are some such stories.
Since September, Biidaaban’s literacy scores have gone up by 34%.
And while we’re still below a rather arbitrarily defined benchmark, on average, we are 65% closer to surpassing it.
Since September, Biidaaban’s numeracy (math) scores have gone up by 46%.
Our numeracy scores are now comparable to Rainbow’s, and some of our classes are exceeding the Rainbow benchmark by quite a bit (not that it’s a competition, but it is sometimes helpful to speak in relative terms).
Since June of last year, student’s self-reports of being bullied have dropped by almost 70%.
Compared to 2024-25, our current rate of post-secondary first semester attrition (the students who start school in September but leave before January) is down 26%.
Since Spring of last year, the increase in use and comfort in using Anishinaabemowin at the Daycare is up sufficiently, so much so that in the last Ministry of Education inspection, it was remarked as a noticeable feature of our program (binary data (yes/no) is also data).
There are several reasons for these accomplishments. The most important is the incredible work of our learners and those who support them. We have asked students to be more reflective and respectful and take on greater challenges, and we have asked families to assist us with supporting learning in many ways. The Sagamok community has, of course, risen to the occasion.
The faculty and staff of the Education Department are to be commended for their tireless efforts to think and act in new ways to meet today’s challenges and build robust programs in so many mutually reinforcing but different directions at once!
I would be remiss if I didn’t also acknowledge the work of the First Nations with Schools Collective. Since its inception, the Collective has been developing a model for true community-level jurisdiction over Education, and at Council’s direction, we have already started organizing ourselves along the lines imagined by our own Knowledge-holders and those of our partner communities. The results – which allow for enhanced supports and cross-departmental collaboration – speak for themselves, far faster than I think anyone could have imagined.
These results, magnificent as they are, are only truly meaningful in their repetition. We will look for similar gains semester over semester, year over year. That means that the work has only just begun. The workload, the pace of adaption and adoption, the relentless pursuit of ever-better learning and teaching practices that have been hallmarks of the past year, must be the new normal.
It would be impossible to imagine such a lofty goal in a provincial or other colonial setting. The bureaucracies are too big. The work cultures are too grounded in Euro-Western thought.
But this is Sagamok. Education jurisdiction belongs to the community. And when we believe it, we just keep getting better.