Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday the Minister of Education tabled this document entitled "Education Dispute", regarding the Inuvik teachers at the elementary school, and it is now affecting the teachers at the high school in Inuvik. Yesterday I mentioned that I believed the honourable Minister was not disclosing all the facts in his statement, and I would like to make a few comments to this effect relating to the Minister's statement.
In the first part of the Minister's statement he mentioned it was at the teachers' request that the community council was turned down last November. I would like to point out that these requests were turned down after being previously approved. The teachers in question are upset because all three in-service activities in question were supported by the director and the staff, and the staff of SAM School were encouraged to various degrees to participate in them.
I will refer to the three days in question. The first is on March 12th, as a special needs profile in service in the morning, and this in-service activity was led by Lynda Mann and was actively supported by the director of education and the supervisor of schools during the course of last summer in meetings with the principals. This support is reflected in the minutes of the Beaufort/Delta Divisional Board of Education on November 29, 1991, and in their minutes dated May 24, 1991.
The second in-service activity was the new language arts communication curriculum scheduled for March 13, 1992, in the morning. Five teachers were given five days to develop this unit by the Beaufort/Delta Divisional Board of Education last spring. These teachers put in more than five days of their own time, and over 100 hours were used to put together a curriculum that is about 125 pages long and currently is not going to be used. If it is not, it will be a real waste of resources.
The third issue is regarding the SAMS language arts unit, in support of a new language arts curriculum in-service activity scheduled for March 13, 1992 in the afternoon. The Beaufort/Delta Divisional Board of Education staff development plan has been in existence since 1989. However, the board was overly optimistic in its time line, and the actual curriculum guide, kindergarten to grade six, was not received from the department until March, 1991. The school plan was amended to 1991-92 and approved by the board. This school plan was reviewed at a three-day orientation for all new teachers in the summer of 1991, and staff were assured that these activities would support the staff in implementing new programs. These were detailed in the staff development strategy.
The SAM School plan for 1990-91 was approved at the March 26, 1991, meeting of the now defunct Inuvik Education Society. Not withstanding item number three of their minutes, where the director declared the supervisor of schools can approve the 1991-92 school plan, apparently without recourse to the community education council, in point of this fact, this 1991-92 school year was approved by the supervisor of schools and was identical to the 1990-91 plan approved by the Inuvik Education Society.
The SAM School staff were shocked when this school year plan was turned down by the community education council in November, especially since it was done in an in camera committee meeting, without the principals present, who, by legislation, are ex officio members of the committee.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to refer now to the second paragraph where the Minister stated, "This means that teachers are not participating in school activities that take place outside of normal classes until they get what they want". I would like to state that this issue could have been resolved because members, especially the NWT Teachers' Association president, tried to resolve the matter for the past two weeks with the Department of Education and tried to meet with the Minister also prior to supporting the work-to-rule schedule.
A letter dated February 18, 1992 was also sent to the Minister requesting a meeting either here or in Inuvik. To my understanding there still has been no meeting to discuss these specific issues.
Mr. Chairman, in paragraph three the Minister states that teachers are required to spend 190 days "or just a little more than six months each year" teaching our students. The school year in the NWT resembles very closely school years in the rest of the country, with variances of a few school days more or less. In other provinces extensions to the school year have been put forward and rejected by parents. Simply put, parents want the summer with their kids, and Canada's climate is probably the main factor. It is no different in the North. Not withstanding, it was disappointing to see the Minister obliquely trying to assess blame on teachers for the length of the school year. I do not believe the Minister believes that teachers have an easy job; however, he is certainly getting bad advice from his department when he stands up in the House and claims teachers work a little more than six months. This comment is irresponsible in the extreme, especially from a new Minister and a new deputy who should be trying to solve problems and cement partnerships with teachers rather than making comments which have negative connotations and are politically sensitive.
Yesterday, or two days, ago the Minister, Steve Kakfwi, stated his admiration for public servants who have had to make do with less, and on the heels of his comments honourable Minister Allooloo contradicts the essence of these comments. Sure, we are all aware of the efforts that teachers put into their commitment to teaching and to community life. I think most teachers, or quite a few teachers, spend a lot of their time after hours and on weekends working with our children and working in other community activities, and I do not think these were taken into consideration when you made your statement.
The preceding is not the only bad advice he is receiving; it has been stated that the Minister was told by his advisors that he should not meet with the president of the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association because the president only wanted to use the current work-to-rule as a collective bargaining negotiating ploy. Absurd in the extreme. The work-to-rule was generated in Inuvik and not prompted by the NWT Teachers' Association. In fact, the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association recommended to the teachers in Inuvik that they hold off their actions for a couple of weeks until some kind of meeting could be held with the Minister.