Principal’s Message 

June 1, 2021

Tansi! A big shout out to all students, parents and community members of CNMS/BIL community.The beautiful summer weather is upon us and it is just in time for our land base days that we are having with the students of CNMS. Joe and his team along with the teachers are taking students out on the land for fun activities, a wiener roast and an opportunity to reconnect with each other and the land.Teachers have been in contact with their students and parents to ensure maximum participation. Please be aware that all protocols will be followed while out on the land. We hope to have as many students as possible as the school year comes to a close.This year, due to the many restrictions brought forth through the pandemic, we will not be having report card day as was held last year. Instead, we are connecting with students through having land base days and providing year end activities and will send off report cards through email.We have two notable dates that require special mention; Kindergarten Grad to be held June 4th and Grade 12 Grad which will be held on June 18th. We look forward to celebrating these two events through a Kindergarten parade and a Grade 12 ceremony to recognize the achievements of these students. We would also like to send out a congratulatory message to the ABE Grads who completed their program. With graduations, these students pave a better future for themselves and their families.Our end of school year is set for June 18th. It has been a bit of a difficult school year for most as we have not had full connection with our students. We have had only limited opportunity for face-to-face learning and online learning is not ideal.We look forward to a new school year whereby student contact can be made through attendance at school. We hope that the covid situation will improve and that we can have a “normal” school term. Our teachers and staff miss the students and we realize the impact the pandemic has had on communities, parents and students alike.Please note the date for student registration for the upcoming school year is August 31st. We look forward to having students return to school on this date and hear the bustle and excitement of a new school year.Please continue to have your students online till the 18th of June and attend the land base activities arranged for them. If you have any questions or require more information, please feel free to call your child’s teacher.

Hiy-hiy.

Principal Helen Ben

April 23, 2021

Tansi and good morning to all. It is a cool Friday morning today and spring is eluding us a bit but I know it is just around the corner. We have loved the opportunity to have the grade 10-12 students do in-classroom learning for half days and be able to ensure that they have in-person connections with their teachers. Land-based activities of fishing and netting have also started up with grades 6-9 on a rotating schedule. We are assigning 1 class per day in the am from 10-12:30 and 1 high school class in the pm. Due to covid-19 restrictions, we are limiting the number of students who go out and keeping the numbers down to 10 students per session. Joe and his team are also following all protocols such as hand sanitizing and masking while out on the land. We want to ensure that we respect the rules and try our best to keep our students safe while enjoying the activities out on the land. We have mid-term reporting coming up on April 30th for the grade 10-12 students. The teachers are working with the students to ensure that they are working and keeping up with assignments. A study hall time has been implemented to allow for students to have more support to complete their assignments. Homework packages are being developed by the teachers and will be delivered by our amazing van drivers and their assistants on Wednesday the 28th. Please send back any completed homework with the van drivers and they will ensure it gets submitted to the appropriate teacher. As you all know, all the teachers and staff miss the students and any opportunity to see them is welcomed. Please continue to have your child connect with their teacher on the google classroom sessions. Prizes are being awarded each month and tallies are being taken for the grand prizes that will be awarded in June. First-time connection is a special category to try to encourage all students to join their classroom google sessions. We need to reach as many students as possible and continue to provide the best possible education even with the limitations that the pandemic puts on us as a whole. Please encourage your child to come online during their scheduled google classroom times. Thank you for being our partner in education. We appreciate the work that you as parents do and are mindful of the challenges that we all experience due to this pandemic. Have a great weekend and stay safe, stay healthy.

Principal Helen Ben

March 22, 2021

Tansi and good afternoon, parents, students and community members of Big Island Lake.We have welcomed the grade 10-12 students to the school today and it is such a great feeling to see them back at the school!We are being very careful and mindful of covid protocols and making sure to follow pandemic rules to minimize risk as much as possible.We certainly have missed the students and we hope to be able to continue to provide in person instruction to all the grade 10, 11 and 12’s.Please be aware of some of the activities that are still going on such as the monthly school challenges and the club activities and school bingo that is set for Thursday at 8 pm.We look forward to continue to have high school students until Easter break which is scheduled for April 2-9th. We plan to continue to have classes for high school after Easter and will determine next steps for all other students once we assess pandemic situation as it emerges.Please enjoy the spring weather when you can as it is wonderful to be able to be outdoors in this spring season.Hiy hiy.

Principal Helen Ben

February 2, 2021

Tansi! I can’t believe that it is already February 2nd! It looks like we will be having an early spring according to one groundhog. I guess it remains to be seen. It would be nice to have an early spring though. It has been difficult with people under isolation, people contracting Covid-19, people going through mental health concerns due to such a drastic change in our previous “normal” world. I urge people to reach out to each other through phone calls, through texts, through zoom or google meets as we need to all stay connected. I know that a call or wellness check of some sort is usually appreciated. It shows that we are missing each other and that we care for each other. Let’s “Stay Connected”.We have had our first school bingo and another one is scheduled for February 4th. Please try your luck and have an opportunity to hear all the events that are planned for February! We have quite a few events scheduled in the next little while. First and foremost is staff appreciation. Big Island Lake has many staff and there are a lot of essential workers that are carrying on and ensuring that the community is taken care of. Please take the time to say a big thank you to those individuals. Check out our school website for more information. We have an upcoming Youth Conference that will be held towards the end of February. We are presently working on securing presenters for this Youth Conference. Visit our school website for our listing of clubs. There are a series of online clubs that staff are setting up for all age levels. Check out our website and join a club of your interest. There are lots to chose from. We look forward to connections. We hope to have face to face connections in the near future! We miss our students and working with students and their parents! In the meantime let’s “Stay Connected” virtually and through texts and calls. Hi, hiy and have a good month.

Principal Helen Ben

January 6, 2021

Good afternoon, parents, students, and community members of Big Island Lake! We are happy to be back in the New Year of 2021 to welcome back students on January 11th to our virtual classroom sessions. Staff started their preparations today to plan and prepare their lessons for online google classroom sessions for Monday and to reach out to the students through virtual education sessions. We hope to have an opportunity to be able to teach students in a classroom environment as well as provide homework packages as needed. We will know what our school year will look like as we move forth. As you are well aware, Covid-19 is still amongst our midst and we still have to work hard to be vigilant about adhering to protocols such as mask-wearing and keeping hands sanitized in order to keep the pandemic at bay. At this time, I would personally like to congratulate the community members, the Pandemic team, and Leadership for their hard work and success in keeping the infection numbers low and at this time to 0 infections. Keep working hard and follow protocols as the community is a model of success in providing supports as well as having the ability to keeping Covid-19 at bay. Please help us ensure that we have maximum success in reaching our students by notifying them of the start of google classroom classes on Monday, January 11th. Teachers will be reaching out to their students to start their sessions and connecting virtually. We hope to have a successful year in educating students but we need your help as parents to ensure that students come online on their scheduled sessions with their teachers. After January 13th, under the direction of Chief and Council and the Pandemic Team, we will know what form our education system will continue with. As you all know, the decision is difficult to make and all considerations will be made based on the pandemic environment that we are all operating under at this time. Keeping students safe while providing the best educational programming is of the utmost importance. In the meantime, we will provide online programming for our students. We will provide an update as soon as we get more information in the near future. Hiy-hiy.

Principal Helen Ben

December 7, 2020

Tansi friends, students, parents, and families! We are now well into December and Christmas is around the corner. This is an important time for families to gather and spend time together, with much laughter, sharing gifts, and celebration of the holidays. This year will be a little different as we cannot have large gatherings and cannot have big family get-togethers as usual. That doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t enjoy this holiday and share the love and good tidings with each other. We need to do this in a safe and in a responsible way. Reaching out through google meet, through facetime, by text or call are the many ways we can still send love to family members and friends. Let us reach out to each other through any means possible. Christmas this year can be more personal, more heartfelt rather than the commercialized world of old. Students are seeing a much different Christmas all together with no Christmas concerts and contact with their teacher only through google classroom and or text and calls. We all miss that face to face contact and the bustle of students in classroom settings. We love our CNMS students and we cannot wait to have students back in school in the future! The teachers at the school are working hard to provide Google lessons for students and continue to reach out to their students. We have initiated some fun online challenges and incentives for students, please check out our website for details. Join us in making this school year a successful technological learning environment! Covid no more! Learning galore! 

Principal Helen Ben

October 21, 2020

Tansi kiyawaw kahkiyaw!

It is with pleasure that I am sending out this Principal’s message to greet you all and reach out to parents and students of CNMS. As stated previously, I am very honoured to be back working with the community of BIL and the staff, students and parents of CNMS. I know I have big shoes to fill with the departure of Delores Bouchey who has moved back home closer to family. I, however, am very fortunate to be back with a community that I have always had ties to through family, through previous students and through geography as a resident of a neighboring community.

As you are aware, the staff of CNMS have worked hard to adapt to our new learning environment that has been brought on by the pandemic. Staff have been learning the best methods to teach online and have also developed homework packages as well as reached out in many ways as possible to “stay connected” to their students and parents.

We have had an opportunity to have in-person teaching for grades 6-12 for a period of time thus far. We had hoped to be able to welcome all grades on the 13th of October. Unfortunately, circumstances beyond our control, did not allow this to happen.

We, as First Nations, are resilient people and we have awesome staff that are also resilient and will continue to provide the best form of education as possible during these trying times. Our children are very important and we need to continue to provide learning opportunities for them.

The Big Island Leadership has worked hard to support the learning environment for students and for this we are very grateful. Through their support, internet service has increased and chromebooks have been supplied to each child.

We urge all parents to keep an eye on our website and to visit the classrooms that are featured there. Each teacher along with their EA’s have set up virtual classrooms so learning can continue.

Let us all work together to provide an education to our students. We as staff will continue to reach out and to provide instruction by any means possible. This may be our new norm, but it is a norm that we will own and define!

Please stay safe, sanitize, wash hands frequently, wear masks and keep your bubble small, limited to close family members in the same household. Our children, elders and people with chronic ailments are our most vulnerable. Let us work together to keep them safe and healthy.

Hiy, hiy.

Helen Ben

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