The Birth of the Kahnawake Survival School

Kahnawake takes control

Up until 1978, Kahnawake teenagers traveled off the reserve for their high school education because there was no high school in the community. Students attended schools on the island of Montreal as well as in the neighboring town of Chateauguay. But in November of 1976, when the Parti Québécois was elected to power in the Province of Quebec, events were set in motion that would give birth to the Kahnawake Survival School.

It all began when the leader of the Parti Québécois, René Levesque, pledged Quebecers that he would begin the negotiations for the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada. As part of this plan for separation, the National Assembly of Quebec passed a law into effect called Bill 101, The Charter of The French Language. In this legislature Native people were classified as though they were immigrants in their own land. According to Bill 101, Native children who attended school outside of their communities and who wished to receive an education in the English language were required to apply for an Eligibility Certificate.

Bill 101 violated the Two Row Wampum Treaty, which was a guarantee that both societies would live side by side, without infringing on the other's sovereignty. The Mohawk people felt that if they signed the application for a license for an English education, they would be recognizing the right of the provincial government to legislate culture and education for Native peoples. This was unacceptable to the people of Kahnawake.

The Combined School Committee of Kahnawake sponsored a series of meetings in Kahnawake to protest Bill 101. The Kanienkehaka requested from the government that native people be exempted from the legislation. All parties involved refused the request. In response, on September 6, 1978, all Mohawk students enrolled in Howard S. Billings, in Chateauguay, walked out and marched back to the reserve.

The Kahnawake Survival School was born.

The Survival School becomes a permanent reality

The community chose the name "Kahnawake Survival School" because it was felt that if the people of Kahnawake did not build their own secondary school designed for Mohawk needs, they would not survive as a people. The eagle, a symbol of strength, vigilance and pride in Mohawk tradition, was chosen as the school's emblem.

The school began to operate with volunteers for two months until funding was provided by the federal government. At that time, the administrative and teaching staff were offered salaries. Some of the staff refused to receive any salary and continued to volunteer their services.

After its first year of operation, the Kahnawake Survival School began moving all of its facilities to a centralized site away from the main part of the village. After two years of operation, the school had hired and trained a staff of Mohawk teachers and administrators to work along with non-native people to provide a high quality education to the future generations of the Kanienkehaka.

Students who attend this school share a common destiny. Learning in their community gives purpose and structure to their educational experiences, and eventually control over their destiny as self-reliant Mohawk men and women with a strong sense of identity and self-esteem.

The Kahnawake Survival School offers a unique and complete high school program of studies that parallels the provincial curriculum but is enriched with Mohawk and First Nations history and culture. It maintains a student/teacher ratio of 15-to-1 ensuring quality instruction. The School uses the Quebec education curriculum as a guideline for programs of study with appropriate adaptations to meet the specific needs of Kahnawake students. In these ways, the school offers a quality education that meets the standards set by Kahnawakeronon and, as a result, meets or exceeds the standards of Quebec public and private schools.