Jacobs reflects on first school term

Falen Iakowennaiéwas Jacobs is now taking on a more active leadership role as director of education at the Kahnawake Education Center (KEC), now that her onboarding process has wrapped up.

She officially began in August, and spent the entire fall working closely alongside her successor Robin Delaronde, who’ll continue to mentor her until the end of the academic year.

“When I applied for the position, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but anything that’s worth it, I’m sure is not,” said Jacobs, previously KEC’s associate director. “I’m ready to put in the work. I’m here. I’m dedicated. I’m committed to seeing our vision and the community’s vision for education continue to move forward, and it’s been a great experience so far.”

Her education at McGill University in educational leadership has boosted her confidence, she said. She’ll soon graduate with a master’s from the university - and is currently juggling her current role alongside her final semester there.

This year KEC’s focus is on fostering better relationships, Jacobs said. Student and family engagement coordinators have now been appointed at each school in the hope of getting parents involved in running their schools, she said, mentioning the Kahnawake Combined Schools Committee.

Leadership at KEC also began the academic year by updating each school’s success plan.

Shared goals revolving around literacy, numeracy, language and culture, and wellness form the foundation of each success plan, with each shared goal providing a framework through which each school can set its own individual goals, Jacobs said.

“Leadership has been working with their school success teams over the past few months and getting plans and projects in motion. So that’s been a great success,” Jacobs said.

Starting this winter, she’ll also be dedicating time to creating a new program to foster more professional development in the organization. The idea is to identify leaders within the school system, said Jacobs, who said she hopes to see the program up and running in the coming months.

Asked about challenges faced over the fall, Jacobs pointed to absenteeism. It’s not an issue unique to Kahnawake. Ever since the pandemic, schools have been struggling to get students to commit to being in the classroom.

“The pandemic and those few years when there were lockdowns and the move to online learning, we’re still seeing some big impacts from that,” the education director said. “We’re really trying to promote the importance of regular attendance, and working with students and families to ensure that they’re able to get children to school.”

In the first term, Jacobs took the difficult decision to publicly denounce aggressive behaviour from parents and guardians toward staff. She did so in November, when she sent out a stern letter saying there was zero tolerance for threats of physical. It’s an issue KEC has already dealt with for years, Jacobs said, but incidents had started to become more frequent over the fall.

“We’re trying to connect back to our ways, which are all about respect,” Jacobs said about her decision to get the letter out to parents. “It wasn’t something that I took lightly, because it could have been received negatively or positively. Fortunately, the feedback that I did hear was that it was received positively. There was some negative feedback, of course, we can’t always please everybody.

“We still have those incidents that pop up, but we handle them accordingly,” she added.

Outdoor learning initiatives at their schools have also now been boosted through additional training over 30 of their teachers completed that certified them as forest and nature school practitioners. The training was provided by the Child and Nature Alliance of Canada, and Jacobs said she hopes to form a new cohort so more staff can be certified through its program.

“The children love outdoor learning. They’re making connections. There are so many benefits, and cross-curricular benefits to outdoor learning,” the education director said. “You can do math, and you can learn science, and all of these things, but how do we help students to make connections to our ways and our culture?”

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