L’heidli Tenneh, McLeod Lake Indian Band ask for SD 57 forensic audit

The Chiefs of the L’heidli T’enneh and the McLeod Lake Indian Band recently sent a joint letter to School District 57 requesting a forensic audit.

Clay Pountney and Harley Chingee claim over the past two decades their communities sent millions of dollars to the district to pay for the education of their students.

Pountney told MyPGNow.com the answers they’ve received about how the funds have been allocated has been anything but transparent.

“The system that they have, it goes to the school (the money) and we don’t know how the schools are spending these monies so we just to follow the dollars just to ensure the dollars are their for our kids and if that’s not an issue that’s fine, then we can move ahead and find out what the issues are.”

“We’ve sent a lot of money to the district and we haven’t had a solid response on how these dollars are being spent. As I said, we’ve always been focused on graduation rates and the education of our kids so this is just one piece to ensure that proper things are happening.”

Both nations have Local Education Agreements requiring SD 57 to report annually on how the funds were spent.

According to Chingee and Pountney, this requirement has not been obeyed.

Pountney added the gap in graduation rates was one of the main reasons for the audit.

Last year, the graduation rate in SD 57 for non-Indigenous students was 82%, while the Indigenous rate came in at 63% – a figure Pountney would like to see changed.

“These aren’t great numbers. What we are finding is that we are losing a lot of them say after grade twelve you get a leaving certificate and you find out what you want to be and you find out that you need to take an extra year or two of college just to upgrade to a level where you can go to school for those two to four years.”

Both communities have also asked that SD57, the Ministry of Education, or the First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) cover the fees for the forensic audit.