Create A Business Out Of Truancy Elise Stolte

Rory J. Koopmans, B. Admin., #203, 8912-156 Street, Edmonton, Alberta T5R 5Z2

February XVth, MMX

Hon. David G. Hancock, QC, MLA, Minister of Education, Progressive Conservative, Edmonton-Whitemud

Dear David:

If you take a look at Page A1 & A2 of today's Edmonton Journal, you'll find a very interesting column by Elise Stolte on truancy in the Northland School Division. Focusing specifically on Wabasca's Mistassiniy High School.

What I propose David is this. If you look at the subtext of the article, you will see that kids miss school because they have to often parent siblings because their parents are tied up or are just not cognitively capable. They also use the excuse that kids are out hunting for sustenance for their family's, and quite often with them.

So why not turn these two ideas on their heads? Why not offer business courses on how to start up daycares/child care centres to the kids, potential fathers & mothers alike? As well as offering courses on how to set up a hunting/trading post. So that hunters can learn how to not just salt up & preserve meats. But how to obtain maximum profits in selling the meat & say pelts/skins/blubber of the animals they kill? This could be done through say opening a hunting store.

If you teach the kids that coming to school is fun & they can become business pros if they finish High School by offering credits in the very areas they are focused on, their attendance record will go up. As a result of this respect for aboriginal culture & ways of thinking, they will then perhaps then want to go & explore furher educational opportunities in technical institutes, colleges & universities. Realizing that the farther they go in school, the better off they will be & therefore by extension the better off they will be able to help out less fortunate members of their tribes/villages/hamlets.

Happy Family Day David To You And Yours And Bless Donald Ross Getty For Creating This Day,

Rory

Source: The Edmonton Journal.