Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for your attendance today. I know you all are giving up valuable time to be here and to share your knowledge and experience with us. We are looking for some answers to push forward on some solutions to this challenge we face around graduation rates and success in schools.
I'm going to start with Ms. Oakes and Ms. Braunberger, please.
Ms. Oakes, you talked about the far-reaching consequences of a one-size-fits-all education system. You went on to share the success that Headwater has had in this two and half year relationship with Thunderchild First Nation. Very specifically you talked about measurable success, measurable success at every level, being the teacher level and increased engagement and urgency and intentionality, and rigour in planning and delivery. You talked about improvement in traditions and ceremonies and values and language being incorporated into what was going on. More importantly, and maybe the biggest thing, was the success of the actual students. You talked about some very measurable and statistical proof of the success. It's my assumption that that success you had there would lead ultimately to greater graduations or to better graduation rates. I think that's the expectation.
You never mentioned it in your comments, but in your brief you talked about Indigenous Services Canada being a partner with you. I think it's a great thing that they did that.
My question for you, though, is this: At the end of your pilot project or this program you did, was there any follow-up or any kind of outreach done by the department that would come back and talk to you about some of the success you had to determine if it would be scalable and replicable, or if it could be taken out and done in other places to achieve the same success you did there?
Was there any follow-up or any work done that would allow you to share that success and see if we could replicate it?