When Grade 12 student Tasha Napoakesik fled wildfires in northern Manitoba this summer, she thought she would be home before the school year started. Instead, she’s getting ready to attend school in Brandon, while hoping to go back to Lynn Lake sooner rather than later.
It’s hard being in a new city, with new teachers and students, Napoakesik said. She’s adjusting, but the thought of home is always close.
“I don’t like really worrying about it until it happens,” Napoakesik said. “Stuff changes all the time, so I kind of just let it and do the best I can do.”
Napoakesik’s community was evacuated in May, then returned briefly in July for 10 days before being forced to evacuate to Brandon.
Napoakesik is one of more than 70 fire evacuee students registered with Brandon School Division, and the division is prepared to make space for up to 200, says Brandon School Division’s superintendent Mathew Gustafson. Planning began in June, when the scale of the wildfires made it clear families could be displaced long-term.
Winnipeg School Division had Sargent Park Elementary hosting 20 students before they went home. St. James-Assiniboia School Division has partnered with Mathias Colomb Cree Nation to provide instructional space in up to three schools, and has a number of students evacuated from other communities currently registered.
“We know that there will be a range of emotions from families,” Gustafson said. “Some families … are going to be nervous because it’s a new community, new school, and they want to make sure that they want the best for their child.”
Brandon School Division has never seen this level of wildfire impact during the school year, Gustafson said.
Kindergarten to Grade 8 students will be placed in King George and Riverview kindergarten to Grade 8 schools, while older students will attend Ecole Secondaire Neelin or Vincent Massey high schools.
The division has set up flexible intake, added education assistants and created contingency classrooms to manage fluctuating enrolment this year. With 16 more classes needing the classroom space available, he says, libraries, music rooms and staff rooms are being converted into learning areas.
The division is creating class configurations that mirror the class configurations of students’ home schools so they’ll have familiar faces and friends in class.
Marcel Colomb First Nation CAO Don McCallum says many students have registered in Brandon schools during the evacuation, but uncertainty remains. Students need a sense of normalcy when their lives have been upended, he says.
“They miss home,” he said. “It’s not the same as going home because this is a strange environment, a strange system.”
A transformer failure at the community’s water treatment plant is delaying re-entry. McCallum hopes families can return soon, though it may feel like “starting over” when classes resume in Lynn Lake.
Marcel Colomb First Nation Chief Dehlia Hart-Francois says adjusting to life in Brandon has been difficult for youth. They’re having strange experiences like catching the bus outside hotels, going to new schools and navigating a large city.
Her four grandchildren are settling into Brandon classrooms, but she worries the return home will disrupt that progress. Many students may face another delay before getting back into West Lynn Heights School.
Hart-Francois wants better planning for long evacuations, including take-home learning packages.
“Education is the key to successful students,” she said.
Napokesik’s mom, Belinda Merasty, says planning for the future feels “like walking on eggshells.”
About a third of West Lynn Heights School’s 200 students are now enrolled in Brandon. Merasty says the stability of school is key after a summer of uncertainty.
She says the upheaval has forced families to make tough decisions about their children’s schooling. While she appreciates efforts by Brandon and Frontier school divisions to provide consistency, it’s still been hard.
Keeping the children together at school has eased anxieties, she says, adding it helped her daughter feel comfortable.
“She was quite nervous at first and then once we found out that our children are together in the classrooms, that alleviated a lot of the stress for her,” Merasty said.
Merasty is planning for her daughter to attend school in Brandon this week, but says everything depends on when families can return home. She wants students to keep learning despite the disruption.
“At least we know that the kids that are going to school are getting the education that they need while they’re here,” she said. “They can take that back with them. They can take what they’ve learned from here and then continue on [in] Lynn Lake.”
For now, Napoakesik says she would rather be home with her friends and students she grew up with. Her friends are going to Neelin — the school she’s enrolled in — and she says it makes it easier knowing there will be friendly faces.
Napoakesik says they constantly talk about going home, but they have to wait for re-entry.
She hopes it’s this week.
“It’s nice here, it is, but I’m sick of it,” Napoakesik said.
Fire evacuees start school year far from home
