The Saskatchewan Rivers School Division Board of Education welcomed the new Saskatchewan Rivers Students for Change (SRSC) urban representative at their regular meeting on Monday
Abby Ellis, a Grade 12 student at Victor Thunderchild School, is the new SRSC Urban Representative. ELLIS said she wanted to make an impact by being on the SRSC.
“I’ve usually just been a member and I actually wanted to come to the meetings and see what is happening,” Ellis said.
Ellis has sent regrets to previous meetings. Monday’s was the first she was able to attend in person.
“I wanted to try and come to the meetings and see what was on and what other members of the SRSC don’t really see,” Ellis said.
She explained that being around the board table will help to bring the perspective of the board to her fellow students at Victor Thunderchild.
She said that being an SRSC board representative from Victor Thunderchild School was special.
“It’s a small school that not many people even know about,” she explained. “It is a special school. It’s a great place, and it’s a place that I feel like I want to be, and I haven’t felt like that at other schools.”
Ellis said she went to several different high schools before finding her fit at Victor Thunderchild in October 2024. Ellis said that Victor Thunderchild has been beneficial to her entire educational experience.
“I’ve been going ever since, and I don’t think I would change the school. I would stay there,” she explained.
“It helps you find yourself and what you want to do for your future. There’s so many great people there. The staff are amazing. They’re so easy to talk to. The same with the students. There’s somebody for everybody there.”
She served on the SRSC committee last year and regularly attended meetings.
Ellis hopes the entire experience as an SRSC board representative will be beneficial.
“I want to try and change how I feel about school and the whole education system itself,” she said. “I have grown up thinking school’s pointless, school’s a waste of time, but it’s really, it’s honestly not. It helps build your future and your goals, and it teaches you lessons that you need to learn throughout life.
“I’ve been able to see other students’ perspectives and how they feel about school and their thought process on it and why they think they don’t want to come to school,” she added.
Hearing these other perspectives from urban and rural students in the SRSC has also helped her own perspective.
“I think a lot of how you feel about school itself is your environment and the school you’re going to sometimes, maybe you just need to switch it around, go to different schools, see what you think suits you best and where you feel belong,” Ellis said.
The 2025-2026 rural representative is Grade 11 Canwood student Tye Vaughn.
The SRSC has already set up some points they want to bring to the board table after their first meeting and elections in September. Vaughan said in October that the list includes working on more career support for students. Last year the SRSC created a series of videos with the goal of helping students navigate work and education after high school.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
