Fraud charges stayed against school officials
Principal, assistant caught up in conflict at Enoch Cree First Nation
Charges have been stayed against the last of two school administrators accused of fraud at the Enoch Cree First Nation.
“It’s been one heck of a roller-coaster,” said Deanna Morin, the former assistant principal at Kitaskinaw School, who was facing two counts of fraud. Those charges were stayed April 17.
Her mother, Phyllis Cardinal, the former principal, was charged with one count of fraud. That charge was stayed last November.
In 2011, enrolment was up and the kindergarten to Grade 12 school was seeing its first success from a new federal pilot project targeting reading and math skills.
Then three staff members told the band council Cardinal and Morin had asked them to falsify attendance and grant records. Band members protested outside the band office. When the band council was split on whether disciplinary action was needed, then-chief Harry Sharphead took the allegations to the RCMP. Eventually, charges were laid.
The principal’s supporters said at the time the problems were simply mistakes and those calling for action had a “lynch-mob mentality.”
In addition, the band was politically divided.
Sharphead and the accusers were aligned with one side of the split, while Morin and Cardinal had been hired by the other. With the charges behind her, Morin is hoping to restart her career. She blames jealousy for the problems.
“Not single-handedly, but we built that school from the ground up,” she said. “They wanted our jobs. I guess to them we made it look easy.”
For Cardinal, now 63, the charges forced her into retirement. She had 34 years of experience, including as founding principal of Edmonton’s Amiskwaciy Academy. But “who’s going to hire someone with that hanging over their head?” she said.
She’s hoping to work parttime or as a consultant.
Like most First Nations schools, Kitaskinaw School is independent, with no school board to ensure internal band politics don’t affect how it is run. That means teachers and administrators have few places to turn for help when conflicts arise, Cardinal said.
“When I first started in education, my late mother was alive. She was a teacher as well. She advised me, ‘Phyllis, never go work for your own people.’ I went against her advice. I really did believe I could make a difference for the young people,” Cardinal said. “We’re in this crab-in-a-bucket syndrome. We have this tendency to pull each other down.”