Since I had the chance to talk with Tanina Williams and former Signal Hill Elementary Vice Principal Clare Hanbury, about the school’s powerful Blanket Day Ceremony, a statement they shared has stuck in my mind. For many First Nations people, it was the school that was the site and agent of harm. And so the burden for reparation on schools is deeply felt by leaders, teachers and allies within the school community. To transform school into a safe place, of learning and change, for everyone, is big work, and not easy work. Institutions don’t change quickly or easily. (I had to stop and record this paragraph from a recent sci-fi read, because it was so on-point: “What you have to understand is that bureaucracy is an organism, and the prime goal of every organism is self-protection. Bureaucracy exists to protect itself.”) So kudos and courage to the change makers who work to shift things from the inside.

Tomorrow, Thursday 28, Signal Hill Elementary will close its week with Truth and Reconciliation Day, with an open invitation for all families to attend and join. Starting out front of the school at 10:45, The Survivors’ Flag will be raised.

Drumming, singing, and dancing will take place on the outside field, and staff and students will wear orange shirts that they have been designing and creating, marking the 10^th anniversary of Orange Shirt Day.

Since the revelations about residential schools’ missing children made mainstream media, starting at the Kamloops Indian Residential school, the Canadian flag has flown at half mast at many institutional buildings, including our schools. Jenn Morris from the school district explained to the Pique that this was a response of our entire school district “to the uncovering of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Residential School in May 2021. After consulting with local Indigenous communities and with the Board of Education’s full support, we have kept flags at half-mast until the Survivors’ Flag could be raised district-wide in honour of Indigenous survivors and their families, and as a symbol of our ongoing commitment to Truth and Reconciliation.”

It took some time to make this possible across the entire school district, because new flag poles had to be installed.

We shared about the Survivors Flag last year – it’s a flag rich in symbols, that work to weave together so many lives and stories and hopes and heartbreaks, a flag we can all unite under.

Following flag-raising ceremonies, the Canadian flag will be raised from half-mast.