We are already halfway through the school year. Can you believe it? Several issues have made the last few months pass in the blink of an eye: staff shortage, the strike, against a backdrop of renewal of collective agreements, discussions around Bill 14, the list goes on…

Despite this, we have many achievements to celebrate. Since the start of the school year, we have had 126 new faces join our team. We are still missing many teachers, but I salute the efforts made by our recruitment team – presently attending many job fairs across Canada – to swell the ranks of the second language teaching team. We are also missing many Inuktitut teachers. If you know someone who would be a good fit, encourage them to come and introduce themselves to your school administration.

I must address the elephant in the room: I am fully aware that we are reopening schools for the second half of the school year while collective agreement issues have not been fully resolved.

We will continue talks with the government in order to highlight the specific context of your work, just as we are pushing to assert the linguistic rights of the Inuit. Yes, the discussions surrounding Bill 14 (formerly Bill 96) are far from over.

Although we are back to school after a strike, many schools recently closed due to harsh weather conditions or a significant spread of respiratory viruses.

Seeing that their students were missing many school days, several teachers told me they were concerned about how to evaluate and give grades to their students, considering that they did not have time to cover all the material.

I am hopeful that the catch-up plan proposed by the government will allow us to fill this learning gap.

Wishing you all the best in this 2024,

Harriet Keleutak

Director general