This morning was very inspiring as STC, Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, and the provincial government announced that construction on the new St. Frances Cree Bilingual School would begin this summer.
The elementary school which will cost $46 million dollars to build will be home to 700 students and will open in 2025. The new school will be located at the corner of 7th Street of Grosvenor Ave.
The bilingual school was first established in 2007, and 150 students began attending that fall.
“We can talk about residential schools and the dark history as they tried to take the Indian out of the Indian, well this school is going to put the Indian back in the Indian and we can be proud of that. We can celebrate that because we are correcting the historical wrongs,” Tribal Chief Mark Arcand told the crowd.
The three-storey school is designed to include a research and learning greenhouse, an elder’s teaching room, a medicines lab, a programming space, and a child and family wellness centre.
“Truth and Reconciliation is the turning point when it comes to improving the lives of First Nations people,” Tribal Chief Arcand said, adding that with the creation of the new school, “we are investing through identity, language, and culture to improve the lives of First Nations people.”
