Since the 1960s, our community members have attended Saskatoon Public Schools division schools. I was raised in my community in Whitecap and went to school in the community until grade 5. Then from grade 6 to 12 we were bused into Saskatoon, and so I'm a graduate of the Saskatoon Public Schools division.
Back in 1994, I was elected chief, and then I approached the Saskatoon Public Schools division, a gentleman by the name of George Rathwell, who was a vice-principal of one of the schools, about looking at how we could work together to look at our curriculum and make sure the transition from Whitecap to Saskatoon was a smooth one for our students. That in a sense evolved to what we call today an alliance agreement on education.
Now we are part of the Saskatoon Public Schools division. We do still operate a school in our community. I will get into how our partnership works.
With our partnership, we have a joint governance committee, a joint operations committee. All our teaching staff are employees of the Saskatoon Public Schools division, so we get the certified teachers in the community. We have access to all of the resource materials of the Saskatoon Public Schools division, professional development, sector level services, and are part of ward 7 as well. It has been a really good partnership. Ray will probably get into some of the outcomes when he speaks.
Our agreement was considered a pilot project by the federal government. It's now in its sixth year of operation. It was considered a pilot agreement back when we signed the official agreement. It ended the education disparity for us, because in the past our community schools were getting about two-thirds of what provincial schools were getting as far as tuition goes, but we weren't getting a lot of supports. Since we've entered into this partnership, we have addressed a lot of the funding issues and ended the education disparity in Whitecap. It has been very positive for our community and our students.
We also negotiated some capital with the partnership with the federal government. We renovated our existing school, which was built back in 1996, so it met with Saskatoon Public Schools division facility standards. We also added an addition, and held discussions with our community members because our school went from pre K to 6, but our community members, parents and caregivers wanted our children to integrate into the Saskatoon Public Schools division earlier. Now our school currently goes from pre K to 4, and our grade 5 to 12s are bused in.
We looked at our grades 5 to 8 students. They are in three different schools in Saskatoon. They couldn't accommodate all of them. Then a new community just about 20 minutes from us was building a brand new school with Saskatoon Public Schools division, so we wanted to be a part of that. We represented about 10% of the student body. It's about a $27 million build, so we lobbied the federal government to put $2.7 million into that school on our behalf. Now that's the new home school for our grades 5 to 8.
The Saskatoon Public Schools division embraced it. They even named the school Chief Whitecap School, recognizing Chief Whitecap as one of the founding fathers. That's one of the reasons why. Also if you walk into the school, there's a culture room. We have elders there every day. There's smudging every day for our students. This is a public school; it's not a segregated school just for Whitecap students. It's open to everyone.
All the classrooms inside the school are bilingual. They are English and Dakota. They fly the Whitecap flag as well outside the school. It has been a great partnership to date. Our high school students attend Aden Bowman, and Walter Murray in Saskatoon as well.
The other thing we did out of our partnership is that we invested in an early learning centre. We used to operate a 20-seat day care, but we're one of the members that have signed on to the framework agreement on first nation land management and eliminated 25% of the Indian Act, allowing us to self govern our lands. It has enabled us to go through land use planning, zoning, development standards, infrastructure investment and taxation regimes. It opened our doors for business. We have now gone from a 70% unemployment rate down to a 5% unemployment rate.
That said, we have over 600 jobs in our community. We looked at our 20-seat day care and looked at expanding it and then building a brand new facility, a 56-seat early learning centre that's all based on literacy, culture and language. It was a partnership between the federal government, Whitecap and the province, and of course working with the Saskatoon Public Schools and early learning centres they operate. It's now in operation. As of this year, we have another $62 million of projects on the books and another 225 jobs coming to our community next year.
Our whole focus is on retention, as studies have shown that, with learning and literacy at an early age, children stay in school and finish their grade 12. That creates another impact on Whitecap where, because our focus is on retention, we get a lot of grade 12 graduates. They want to get post-secondary education, but once again, the Indigenous Services Canada program is capped. However, because Whitecap generates its own source of revenue, we top that up so that our students don't fall through the cracks, and they do get to attend a post-secondary institution.
The current post-secondary program is a flexible transfer. First nations that don't even have post-secondary students can use it for other expenditures, so it's not fair to those students who actually want to go to school. We're hoping that the federal government will review this and start releasing post-secondary funding based on actuals, on demands. That way the students are not the ones who get left behind. It's not a flexible transfer anymore, but it should be a transfer that is based on actuals and on results.
I'll leave it at that. I'll turn it over to Ray.