The new school at Fishing Lake replaced a handful of portables used at the school for decades. (Fishing Lake School/Facebook)

By Mat Barrett

Portables to Permanent

Fishing Lake First Nation officially opens new school

Feb 5, 2020 | 5:34 PM

After decades of portable trailers being used as a school on the Fishing Lake First Nation, there’s now a permanent structure.

On Monday, Feb. 3, a grand opening was held for Chief Sabatiwasis School. Various delegates were there from the FSIN, as well as the Horizon School Division.

Prior to the new building being built, the school was essentially a few portable trailers. It started as just a high school almost 30 years ago, and then grew from there into a Kindergarten to grade 12 school. Rhonda Kayseas has been principal of the school since July. She is also originally from Fishing Lake and said she saw the conditions of the old school first hand.

“You don’t realize what kind of situation you’re in if you didn’t have something else to compare it to,” Kayseas told northeastNOW. “I had something else to compare it to. So, the conditions were extreme. I literally wore my jacket all day long, and when it got cooler I wore my winter jacket all day long. So it was really refreshing to come into the school here and be able to take off my winter jacket, and my winter boots.”

Now, Chief Sabatiwasis School has smart boards in every classroom, a gymnasium, the school also hosts the daycare, their ‘Headstart’ program, the pre-kindergarten program, on top of the Kindergarten to Grade 12 learning. Kayseas also added they will be able to do more teaching of their traditional language, and land based learning as well.

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She said the students first full day of classes was Wednesday at the new facility.

“Kids are happy, they like their building, they’re proud of this building,” Kayseas said.

“Lots of smiles today.” _{-Principal Rhonda Kayseas}

Kayseas added with the new facility, they try to plan for it being ready to go, but there’s still a bit of an adjustment period.

“We prepared as much as we could, but we couldn’t really prepare for what we were going to come into,” she said. “Especially with the amount of students, so in terms of supplies and things like that, we need to get more, more of everything now because we had such limited items before.”

The $30 million facility now holds 180 students all the way up to Grade 12. Kayseas said before, a lot of students would go to school in Wadena, including herself. However, even though the old school had all the portables was lacking plenty of things, there is always the history that remains.

“But one of the things it didn’t lack, was the spirit and heart of the teachers,” Kayseas said. “They taught the kids everything that they needed to learn, they’ve had graduates from there, and there’s been a long line of graduates coming from those portables. So, the teachers really poured their heart and soul into the students that went there.”

Kayseas also thanked Wadena, their neighboring community for their support of having kids from Fishing Lake go to school there over the years. Some of the principals from Wadena were at the grand opening and Kayseas said they were in awe.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6