Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to talk about an issue in the riding here where a parent has come forward with a concern about access to kindergarten. Before I go into my statement, I should make it absolutely clear that there’s been no breach within the system, and of course, the school board is providing full and fair access within their rules. Before I talk about what needs to be done, I should also stress that the Department of Education is working fairly as well.

Now that I’ve laid that out.... To be honest, Mr. Speaker, we all know the rules around entering kindergarten. You have to be five before the date of December 31. Well, what happens in the case when you’re born not days after December 31, not months after December 31 but a few minutes after the date of December 31? That parent would have to wait a full school year before their child could access kindergarten.

Mr. Speaker, Alberta considers an option where if you are in that type of situation, you can go through a little bit of a review, and the school board looks at your situation and does some tests on some kids. What they do is evaluate if that child should or could enter that school year. They do a bit of a functional review. They work with the parents, and they find a way to say, “Is this considered a reasonable option?”

Mr. Speaker, we don’t have that type of option here in the Northwest Territories. We have a school board that would be willing to take a child who just happens to be five moments after the cut-off date, and we have a parent that would really like to do that. I know we have an education system that would like to provide those types of opportunities, but the problem is that we don’t have a policy to allow that type of negotiation or discussion or any type of flexibility in that process.

Today I rise on this point because I have a parent with that predicament right now. They would like the education system, through the Education Minister, to come up with a policy and possibly a solution to build some flexibility in that type of review. We’re not talking about bending rules for one person. We’re not talking about bending rules that would breach any type of policy. What we are talking about building is flexibility into a system that is sensitive to the needs of children and parents.

Mr. Speaker, ultimately, the Department of Education needs to build a framework so this policy could be looked at by a school board. I think this is ultimately a school board decision worked out with the parents. We don’t have rules, like Alberta does, to allow something like this to even be considered.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you, and I will have questions again for the Minister later today.