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Clarence Joe would be proud

Editorial

In 1965, high-ranking Sechelt Nation elder Clarence Joe told an interviewer that his people were finally at the stage where they were sending their children to “non-Indian schools, public schools.” He called it “one of the major steps we have taken.”

His own daughter, he said, was “the first Indian girl” to attend Elphinstone High School. “She was the first one to break the ice there, my daughter.” “It was quite an occasion when that happened,” said the interviewer. “Yes,” Clarence Joe agreed. “We have come a long ways in a short time.”

Fifty-three years later, another major educational milestone has been achieved. School District No. 46 announced this week that in 2017-18, for the first time, the graduation rate for Indigenous students was on par with the completion rate for the district, which stood at 83 per cent. This marks a giant shift from even a decade ago when fewer than half of the district’s Indigenous students finished high school.

Almost 600 students at SD46 in the last school year self-identified as Aboriginal, and only about one-quarter of them were shíshálh Nation members. So this is part of a bigger story. But that does not diminish its importance to the Nation.

To quote the great Clarence Joe, you have come a long ways in a short time.