Jens Haven school report shows significant action needed to help young people in Nain

A very sad and disturbing report regarding the education and social experiences of young people in Nain must be taken seriously by government and appropriate resources, action plans and reporting mechanisms put in place to ensure the complex needs of students in this northern Labrador community are addressed, says Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones.

The 2006 report commissioned by Jens Haven Memorial School and submitted to government outline some very startling statistics. In the student body at that time, 72 per cent were impacted by some sort of trauma in their lives such as the suicide of a family member or friend; the majority of students in grades 4 through 7 were performing at a basic or below basic performance level; only 46 per cent of students starting school were graduating; fetal alcohol spectrum disorder was prevalent in a number of students; and two thirds of students required moderate to intense support in the classroom. There has been no update to determine whether any progress has since been made.

“I was saddened after reading this report about the challenges facing students living in Nain,” said Ms. Jones. “Government never released any of the details contained in this report even though it had been submitted to them by the school administrators. We have no idea whether government has acted on any of the problems outlined in the report, and we certainly have no idea whether there has been any monitoring process to determine whether numbers have improved over the past three years.

“Under questioning in the House of Assembly, I was very disappointed with Education Minister Darin King’s response to this report. He stated that he felt this was an attempt by the school administration to leverage more funding from the province. The statistics outlined in this report do not lie and if the minister is not willing to accept that there is a serious problem at this school and action must be taken, I fear we will continue to see more and more children negatively impacted and have their education severely disrupted.

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