Building Student Success with Indigenous Parents Banner

Building Student Success with Indigenous Parents (BSSIP)

It's Our Time: First Nations Education Tool Kit Teacher's Guide (National and Manitoba)
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) developed the It's Our Time: First Nations Education Tool Kit Teacher's Guide to promote and enhance First Nations student success by preparing and collecting relevant resources for schools, teachers, facilitators, and other community stakeholders. The resource will also help to increase understanding of First Nations history and culture among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples by providing relevant tools and resources. The school-based aspects of the resource complement both First Nations and provincial curricula, and offer a teacher-friendly resource that can be used in creative and flexible ways.

Creating Racism-Free Schools through Critical/Courageous Conversations on Race
This support document is aimed at promoting school divisions, schools, teachers, parents, and students to undertake critical and courageous conversations on racism to create inclusive and equitable classrooms and schools for First Nation Métis Inuit students and all students.

Critical/Courageous Conversations on Race: What your child is learning at school and how you can help
This support document provides a vision of how parents and grandparents can help prepare their children to meet the challenges of an increasingly diverse society while creating local and international communities characterized by diversity, justice and equality.

The Building Student Success with Indigenous Parents (BSSIP) was launched in September 2004.

The goal of BSSIP is to increase the involvement of Indigenous parents in education. The funding has assisted schools in developing partnerships and programs with parents and the community which will contribute to the educational success of Indigenous students.

To be eligible for funding under the initiative, engagement strategy proposals from schools divisions needed to address the following requirements:

  • Identify improving academic achievement of Indigenous students as a priority in school and divisional plans,
  • Involve Indigenous parents and organizations,
  • Reflect coherence with the Indigenous Academic Achievement grant, and
  • Support overall school planning and programming.

School division proposals could include single and multiple school sites or partnerships between neighboring school divisions. 

Schools have taken the lead in forming and maintaining effective family-school partnerships that positively influence all students’ learning. The strong relationships have changed the future – not just for students and their families, but also for schools – in the form of these educational partners jointly implementing approaches intended to enhance student motivation, engagement with school, academic progress, school attendance levels, sense of wellbeing, and lower dropout rates. Families and schools are working together as real partners. The scope of these partnerships is wide and includes support by school leaders for family involvement in school activities, a strong commitment by all partners to student learning success, a welcoming school atmosphere and two-way communication. The partnerships that this fund supports will become models of the way we would like school communities to function.