Ground broken for OKIB immersion school

“It’ll be an elementary school, from pre-school all the way to Grade 7. It is an immersion school so the nsyilxcən language, which people might know as the Okanagan language, and the culture, will be taught here just like you would have French Immersion in school districts,” Gareth Jones, Director of Education, Language and Culture for the OKIB, told Vernon Matters following the groundbreaking.

“So it gives the children the opportunity learn their language and practice their cultural traditions as well as fulfilling the provincial curriculum. So it’s important to have this here.”

Jones said the University of British Columbia Okanagan and Nicola Valley Institute of Technology have teaching programs specializing in Syilx language immersion, and graduates of that program will be hired on to teach the local students. They will be supported by what Jones referred to as ‘Language Learners,” or people learning the First Nations languages as adults.

Along with teaching the regular provincial curriculum in the traditional languages, Jones said culture will be brought into classes through stories and outdoor learning opportunities.

Incorporating the OKIB’s language and culture into the provincial curriculum was also very important to the band’s leader.

“Your culture, your identity, your world view is all locked into those words and how you describe certain things,” OKIB Chief Byron Louis told Vernon Matters.

“There’s words in our language that can’t be translated into english, or any other language for that matter, because the understanding cannot be transferred in that exchange, and it’s so important when you think about that.”

Louis noted there were approximately 10 people in the 2,200 member band who fluently spoke nsyilxcən, the language of the Syilx people, and this school could be an opportunity to revive the language.

“The thing of it is we have children now that are being taught by those 10 that are moving towards being fluent,” Louis said, noting other First Nations in North America have been able to revitalize their languages, and he hopes to see the same.

“If we can get back to having anywhere from 80, 70, 80, I’d even be just happy with 20 per cent [of the population speaking the language fluently]. We can rebuild that language, well not actually rebuild, but teach it, to where it’s being spoken again.”

The new school will be able to accommodate approximately 120 students once built, allowing for an expansion on the existing immersion program for young OKIB students.

“Currently we’re at 90 [students] and it keeps going up every year as the announcement of the new school comes on board,” Jones told Vernon Matters.

“I know for next year’s enrollment we’re already cresting 100, and I’m sure for the school opening in 2025, it’ll easily meet it’s 120 [capacity].”

Louis added the new school could also be built on to accommodate students up to Grade 10 with portables and extensions if necessary, and Jones said there were plans in the works to offer the program to older students moving forward.

“We do have permission in September to start a secondary school program out here. It’ll be run out of one of our modular units, but most of the classes will take place on the land,” Jones told Vernon Matters.

“We’re actually working on the curriculum right now and we’ll be hiring a teacher and assistants for them and we hope to have between 10 to 15 secondary students in that program this coming September and have a preliminary go at it. Then, once the elementary school is in place, the next project is building the secondary school.”

Louis said the new school will be a part of the transition away from residential and day schools that he said started in the 1950s when band councils pursued educational opportunities for their children, resulting in many OKIB members growing up to be doctors or lawyers or other professionals.

He said this new school, located next to the snc’c’amalaʔtn child care centre on Westside Road overlooking Okanagan Lake approximately 11 km from the turnoff at Highway 97, shows the Band’s continued committment to education.

“When we asked our people where do we want the school, this is where they chose,” Chief Louis told Vernon Matters.

“You tell me, what’s the value of lake front property in the Okanagan? Instead of economic development that everybody else would have [done], they said the priority is education. That is a true wealth.”

Construction of the new school will cost roughly $20-million, with Indigenous Services Canada providing $19.3-million of that total.

The school is expected to be built and ready to accept students starting in September 2025.

A concept image for the OKIB’s new Cultural Immersion School (photo courtesy of the Okanagan Indian Band)

At the ceremony Thursday, the OKIB was presented with a wampum, a beaded belt to mark ceremonial, diplomatic and other special events, from Tim Laronde, a representative of Chandos Construction and a member of the Nipissing First Nation.

The wampum was accepted on behalf of the Band by Virginia Gregoire, and Louis said that gift was very significant.

“The history of Canada is written on this [wampum]. You go to the Two Row wampum that was signed between the Six Nations and the Dutch; you go with Royal Proclamation of 1863, everyone hears about it but there was another wampum belt that accompanies that that interprets that royal proclamation, and that was the Treaty of Niagara in 1764. Those are to be read together and this is the material that it’s written on,” Louis told Vernon Matters.

Louis added the wampum was “probably one of the most valuable gifts that was given to our community” and would likely be “prominently displayed” with an explanation of its significance once the school is built.

He also said the OKIB would ask members of the Three Fires Confederacy to visit the school once opened to provide more information on the wampum to the students, the members and the general public.

“That’s also part of the education process. Where else can you learn that?” Louis noted.

TOP: Virginia Gregoire accepting the wampum on behalf of the OKIB / BOTTOM: Louis and Laronde discussing the significance of the wampum (photos by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

by Liam Verster

Ground broken for OKIB immersion school

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