Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This leads to chronic problems in many of the classrooms in Yellowknife and I'm sure it's the case in lots of other schools. You will see grade 5 and 6 in combined classes of 31 students, and you may see another grade in another school that have only eight kids, or you may see two kindergarten classes at 18 each, which is like an absolutely perfect class. I think every class would want to be a size of 18. Then you go to another floor in another school and you see a French immersion program with 31 kids. That would all be in the same school district. I understand that we need to give enough flexibility to school boards to make those decisions, but, at some point -- and the same argument applies here as I stated with respect to special needs funding -- at some point as I sit here and work to increase funding that goes to schools, I'd like to have more clear parameters defined about how the monies we allocate are going to translate into classrooms. I appreciate that we're using the same formula as every other jurisdiction in the country, but could it be time for us to look at it differently? Could it be a time for us to look at it and see if we should continue to follow what other jurisdictions are doing, or is there anything unique about what we do in our communities, or our Yellowknife schools are small, large, medium communities, wherever, but something unique to the North that might suggest that we need to do something differently? Because I'm telling you, even though we have increased PTR funding by as much as I think three to one, by now, in the last five or six years, I think we went from 19 to one or 18 to one to 16 to one. What can we do? Would the Minister look at that, please?
Sandy Lee on Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 14th, 2006. See this statement in context.
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 16: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 14th, 2006
Page 1030
See context to find out what was said next.