Robert Weistche may be new to the position of Chairman of the Cree School Board, but he is entering the third year of his mandate as Waskaganish’s School Board Commissioner. He has been on his community’s parents’ committee. He is also the proud father of four children. His eldest daughter has graduated, his son Malcolm is graduating this year and the other two, Barney and Darren, are currently in Grade 6 and Secondary I.
The Nation: What do you feel have been some of the accomplishments in your past term?
Robert Weistche: When I started my term, the Chairman of the Board was Luke MacLeod. His focus in the education field was on the Language of Instruction and the use of Cree in the workplace. It was significant in that the Council of Commissioners passed the language policy in his term. The Council adopted a resolution that Cree would be the language of instruction across the board starting in 1999. It would be from Kindergarten up to Grade 3.
That, I feel was one of the significant milestones that we covered under his term. I think that these issues are very important. Luke has done a lot and put a lot of concentration into what he did.
What do you hope to accomplish in the coming year?
That’s a difficult question. What I mean is that my term is beginning as Chairman of the Board and my mandate from Waskaganish is ending so part of that will depend on how things go locally.
But if I was to answer the question directly I would have to say that coming on to this position as Chairman of the Board, I have given it a lot of thought. I talked to some people. I anticipated if my name ever came up that I would have to respond and I would have to take a position or decide what to do. Whether or not I would go for it. I decided to go for it because if you don’t try something you’ll never know if you can do it or not.
So some of the things that I’ve been preoccupied with is the position the Board is in today. Things are going well overall. But considering the composition of the Board, some of them are new and perhaps don’t have a complete understanding or the big picture of what’s going on. So I thought the first thing would be to request an internal report from all the management staff. This internal report would reflect some of the concerns and outstanding issues that need to be resolved. Some of the concerns that could be dealt with administratively and what needs to be dealt with at the political level by the Council of Commissioners. As well, we want to focus on what’s happening across the country, like the Royal Commission’s Report on Aboriginal People. It deals with all facets of Indian life but there is a big section on education.
With the CSB today I feel we are in the lead compared to some of the other Native school boards across the country. In the 20 years we’ve existed, I also feel this is a time to look inward to see where we are at. To look at what’s going on in the CSB, both locally and regionally. We can’t dismiss the national picture either. I have somebody working on that, trying to come up with a view of what’s happening across the country and what are some of the things that the Commissioners could compare the CSB to.
So will you be looking at solutions that other Native groups have used within their own school boards?
I think we have a lot to learn from other people if we are open to that, to accepting other peoples’ solutions. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel if we see something that works? To give you an example, one of the things I see happening with our people in terms of education—we see our young people going away to college or university. There seems to be a problem there with the postsecondary students dropping out. I think this needs to be addressed. These are the best students we have and we need to ask, “Why is this happening?” We need to address that question with the students directly. Once we know what is happening then we can meet their needs.
There was a report given by the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs at Parliament. It was entitled The Sharing of Knowledge—The Path to Success and Equal Opportunity in Education. This report was in 1996 and it stated that, concerning dropouts in post-secondary education, Trent University had developed a way of dealing with the Native students. They have included in their programs provision for counselling, access to Elders, an inclusion of Aboriginal thought within the university. This in the curriculum as well as having traditional people as faculty members.
I don’t know, maybe the Board could approach such institutions as Trent to see what could be done for Cree students who are going away to school from their home communities.
The students in Montreal protested over the proposed move to the Lamborghini Building. How did you feel about that personally?
Well, I wasn’t sure what was really going to happen. To be quite honest, I didn’t know what to expect. At that time we were in the middle of a transitional period. We were getting a new Commissioner sworn in from Mistissini and the former Chairman was leaving his post, so we were like a ship without a captain or a ship without a rudder. With that, it was uncertain what could or would really happen, what the outcome would be. I think a lot of people were unsure of what would happen. Probably a lot of people didn’t know how to react or what to expect.
I know that some students were complaining that they got a cold shoulder from the Commissioners. Do you feel some of the reasons that you just outlined were part of that reason?
You’re saying the students thought we gave them the cold shoulder?
Yes.
Okay, I think some of those feelings might have been that the Commissioners were having to deal with the uncertainty. There was that break in the leadership. There wasn’t anyone designated to handle the situation with the students. Nobody was approached other than myself. I went to meet the students outside the meeting hall when they came into the building. There was a lot of uncertainty with what could develop over that action. Any kind of confrontation is always uncertain in what direction it is going to go. I think it was more being cautious than a cold shoulder. How were we going to deal with them? What were we going to say to them? What can you say at that point to make them feel that we are all on the same side here?
We’re just trying to do our jobs and the decision had been taken that we are going to go with that. But I don’t think it was intentional that they should feel they got the cold shoulder. It was more of a lack of hindsight on our part. We should have had a plan to deal with them when they came instead of just a reaction to the situation. This is perhaps how they came to feel like that.
What do you see as the immediate needs of the communities?
One of the things I feel is a priority with the CSB is the renovation of the school in Wemindji. This is something that has been on the discussion table since Luke’s Chairmanship. We had thought that everything had been worked out to the Minister of Education’s satisfaction and we were going to get it. But now it’s time to deal and talk with the Minister on this as a urgent matter to see if it can be resolved in the shortest time possible. I feel this is a priority for the Board.
Another matter that comes to mind is the CSB court case that we have launched against the governments. The CSB is in court seeking a declamatory judgement on the meaning of section 16.0.23 of the JBNQA. (note: the section reads: “Funding to the Cree School Board will be provided according to a formula. The formula will be determined by the Quebec Department of Education, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Crees.”) From the section it is clear that this is supposed to be a trilateral process with Cree participation. Right now the Quebec and federal governments are trying to decide the CSB’s funding without Crees involvement or participation. We are in court to clarify that so the CSB can negotiate its own budget.
Our current budget runs out in 1998. Right now we should be preparing a team to deal with that but at the moment we are more preoccupied with the outcome of that court case.
When will you be looking at a judgement on this case?
I can’t really answer that. It might be in June or September of next year but court cases sometimes have a life of their own.
There are other issues that the CSB is looking at also. There are other things that are on my mind and are being discussed by the Council of Commissioners as well the director-general. We’ve talked about the idea of having an Education Conference. This would be sometime in the New Year. It would deal with different matters. We haven’t decided or defined the agenda as such. We are probably going to include the revisions that we have done to the Cree Education Act. As you know, that is an on-going thing. We’ll probably incorporate the Cree language and culture programs into that. That is something I feel quite strong about, the Cree language programs. Where they are at and if there is anyplace where we could improve on that.
As you know, the CSB and The Nation have finalised a contract to produce a newsletter on a quarterly basis. It’ll deal with all facets of education and this will be interesting to the readers because it will be informative and communicate ideas to them. We want to increase our efforts in communicating. Not only through written material but also through public presentations to the Cree people and through radio programs as well. Possibly television too. We’ve already recruited somebody who speaks very fluently in Cree. Everybody knows him and has heard him on the radio—Gaston Cooper. He’s going to be involved in producing a radio program on what’s happening at the Board level with education.
I know you were in Waskaganish as an interested observer when the Native Women’s Association first started looking at daycares for the communities. Will the Cree School Board be taking them under its wing?
I’m not aware of any plans. These are programs that are funded through the Federal and Quebec governments. We are willing to work with the people involved in daycare. The agencies involved have just completed a tour of Eeyou Astchee. They’re looking at the present services and what needs development. A report and recommendations on that will be released later.
How about an after school program where you would watch kids. I understand there are grants for this. Will the CSB working on this to help out working parents?
There are existing after-school programs. These range from helping students who are having difficulty to assisting the student, one on one, after school. There’s also sports but this is done on a voluntary basis. The question you asked though has never been requested of the CSB to my knowledge.
The CSB recently installed a computer network. Will this be available to other people in the communities?
I know the schools will be connected. I don’t know what the focus will be in getting other people to use it. To start some sort of networking. I imagine that might be the direction some people will want to go. These days you hear so much about the Internet where everybody is connected on these different networks, so I imagine there will be a discussion on that where interested parties form a working group.
Do you have an update on the collective agreement negotiations. How is this going?
From what I hear the negotiations have been going extremely well. There have been some very positive discussions. I believe if things continue as they have been going we will have a settlement sometime in the new year.
Though the CSB is one of the smallest in Quebec, it has one of the highest firing rates according to a former employee. Would you have an idea why this might be?
Firing rate. Could you be more specific as to why these people were fired? What prompted the Board to fire these people?
I wouldn’t know why. It’s not something that we’ve investigated fully.
I’m at a loss of words here.
How about the problems with replacing some problem teachers because of the collective agreement— teachers involved in alleged sexual misconduct or who have allegedly racist attitudes. Will you be or have you modified the CSB’s screening process?
Your previous question. I think that the question you are asking now may be tied into that. I know there have been some cases that have come up before the Board. We have dismissed teachers based on information they have tried to pass to the Board that was false.
It was not correct. Maybe they didn’t possess the papers. There have been cases where teachers have been dismissed for actions that they may have committed—aggressive actions that they may have taken against students in a particular situation. Allegations of sexual misconduct have also come up.
In terms of schools and screening today, teacher selection is a local matter and the interviews are done through the parents’ committee. The selection process is then recommended to be done by the executive committee. The local personnel as well as the parents’ committee are responsible for screening as well as checking references of the applicants.
The Board overtime has improved its screening process. Three years ago the executive committee undertook new procedures that have been implemented in response to difficulties incurred by poor screening and people who slipped through the cracks. These are applied right now across the board through the personnel services of the CSB. References that are given by candidates are checked. There are three asked for. As well there is a list of 18 items we go through and need verification on for each candidate. So I think they are very stringent and I feel we have worked on that and we are constantly improving it.
It is true that in the past we’ve faced various grievances concerning screening and selection techniques, but at the same time we’ve taken necessary actions to dismiss teachers who’ve provided false declaration. We’ve taken consistent action and expended great amounts of energy to deal with this, and I hope that it will minimise future difficulties in the selection of teachers.
What have you done or undertaken since you started? These are short one-year terms so a person in your position must work hard and fast to accomplish something. So the question is what have you done?
The role of Chair of the CSB is a very important function. Having been given the confidence of the Council of Commissioners, I come to this job with ideas, with a vision of what we could do. Right now my main task has been to orient myself in the job. To familiarise myself with some of the work that has been undertaken by the previous chairpeople. Basically to understand how the CSB functions.
After all not everyone comes to a job knowing exactly what is expected of them. It’s been a learning process for me and I learning as I’m going along. I hope I can build on the successes and past achievements of my predecessors in the position as Chair of the Board. It has been well-represented in the past by such people as Billy Diamond, whose focus was on creating a Cree education system. Kenny Blackned’s accomplishments in bringing home education and dealing with the finances of the CSB. As well, Paul’s and Luke’s terms in their efforts to have concrete plans to improve the quality of education and they have done a lot for the board.
In the coming year, I know the CSB faces issues and new challenges that I will have to face as my predecessors faced theirs. We have a school to renovate in Wemindji as well as the legal action I talked with you on. This could have an impact on the financial picture of the CSB in the future. As well, the CSB is faced with a new protocol in education and language. I hope I can use the examples of the previous Chairs with my fellow Commissioners in building the education system for the future. I think the Cree people can be proud of their last Chairmen and their accomplishments. I know we will move forward as a result of those efforts of those who went before us. We all work and have worked for the well-being and the future of the Cree Nation.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
If I was to say a few words in closing I really feel that it’s important that people realise that the CSB is like somebody told me, “The Board is like a big boat that’s setting off into uncharted waters. The boat has its own radar and navigation instruments—the navigation instruments being the information of our students.” I think in order to get where want to go, we need to understand what’s going on internally with the schools, the administration, the staff. I would like to see regular reports from the different departments and committees regarding successes and failures in doing the job of educating our students.
I know as a parent, and I think a lot of parents would agree, the school is a place where a lot of our students go and they feel it. School is a place that holds their emotional system and psychological safety as the highest priority. I think we need to ensure that, and we have that responsibility as parents and educators to provide the best services that we can.
One of the things I would like to address as Chairman of the Board is this safe school policy. The Board has adopted a policy where we want to ensure that the schools we are operating are run in a manner that is consistent with the well-being of the child. We understand and know there are problems we encounter in our schools. The focus and energy we want to direct to the safe school policy is so the children feel they are going someplace they’ll be well taken care of.
I think the Board has that responsibility to the parents. To ensure that we are taking care of the children and we are looking after the needs of the child. We are ensuring them the best education possible under the circumstances that we have to live with, considering the remoteness and isolation of the North. I know we have good teachers and I know we have good staff. I think we have to work on building that confidence in people and giving them the confidence we are doing the best that we can.
Good luck in your position and in case I don’t talk to sooner, Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to you and the family.
Merry Christmas to you too.
I would like to wish each and every one of your readers a joyous celebration of peace, harmony and goodwill for this Christmas season that is upon us. For the time we spend with our children and families may you all have a Merry Christmas and a happy prosperous New Year.
