Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize to the Minister. Could you please clarify that? Somebody was asking me a question and I got sidetracked, so I apologize to that, Mr. Chair.
Debates of Feb. 20th, 2017
This is page numbers 1779 – 1836 of the Hansard for the 18th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was program.
Topics
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, that decision was made on the recommendation of the board chairs.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Shane Thompson Nahendeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I guess I'm a little concerned, though, that we are going to a see an influx of approximately 1,200 students in junior kindergarten, and we are going to see a reduction into this area here; specifically, for my junior kindergarten to grade four classes that are in the small schools. Has the department looked at that, and how inclusive schooling will, in fact, impact the whole classroom? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
February 19th, 2017
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the implementation of junior kindergarten, as I mentioned, we currently have 20 communities that are running junior kindergarten programs right now, and there has not seemed to be a big impact. In fact, I know for the Member's riding we do have support from the superintendent that it is working well. As I mentioned earlier, with the four-year-olds going into the school system, they will have access to more supports, more resources, and more teachers within the school setting. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Shane Thompson Nahendeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for his answer. I guess I am struggling with this fact that, if you are going to take the supports that are out there for kindergarten to grade 12 or grade 9 and you have to use those supports at junior kindergarten, now we are going to have an impact on the whole school because, if you take a person away from where they are supposed to be into the other area to junior kindergarten, it has an impact. Will the Minister look at this area of concern and see how it can be better addressed? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, junior kindergarten is play-based. I don't think they are going to be getting too high into the adding and more concrete education. It is play-based. We do feel that the staff in the schools will be able to work and help out the junior kindergarten as well. As we are doing the rollouts, we are still chatting with the education authorities on how this is going to roll out in their schools. For a little bit more detail, I will ask my deputy minister, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Haener
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The main estimates do not actually currently reflect the situation with inclusive schooling. We had planned, and we had worked with the education authorities, to redistribute funds to establish a centralized team of supports for the education authorities for inclusive schooling purposes. Through the course of discussions on the implementation of junior kindergarten, the education authorities asked us to change that plan. Therefore, there is a million dollars that we won't be allocating to that support team, and instead will be available for the education authorities to use for inclusive schooling purposes. We will continue to talk with the authorities over the coming year and into the future about how we move towards creating that team of supports for them, because they do recognize that there is a need for greater equity throughout the system for access to things like speech therapy, occupational therapy, and those kinds of services, which that specialized team was going to help with.
The other thing that we are continuing to roll out, and this work continues, is to increase the number of program support teachers in schools. These are individuals who actually work with teachers in schools to help them create specialized plans for students in the classroom. We continue to work with them on rolling that resource out as well.
The other thing that I just want to flag is that the ratio for student teachers for junior kindergarten that we are funding is 12:1. That is higher than in other classrooms. With a ratio like that, we expect that there are more resources available in the school for those younger children. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Shane Thompson Nahendeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister and the deputy minister for their answers. Now, that just opened up a whole bunch more questions. When we talk about the pupil-teacher ratio of 12:1, this is a territories ratio; this is not a school ratio. Correct? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is more of a funding ratio. With the junior kindergarten, when we were implementing it, we looked at the PTR and we felt that 12:1 was sufficient. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Shane Thompson Nahendeh
Thank you. It is a funding ratio but it is still globally the Northwest Territories is funded that way. We are not going to see a junior kindergarten teacher in Wrigley. Correct? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you. Our legislated PTR for across the territories is 16:1. When we did the 12:1 ratio, it was on funding, but it was also on a school-to-school basis. We do feel that it is sufficient to roll out junior kindergarten as we have in 20 of our communities already. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Shane Thompson Nahendeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair and I thank the Minister for his answer. Again, I am going back to the question. It is the funding ratio of 12:1, so you are depending on your school. If you have 20 students, you are not going to get an extra junior kindergarten teacher because, according to the ratio, we are at 16:1, now we are at 12:1, so they should only get the two teachers in that school. If I understand this correctly, there will not be a junior kindergarten teacher brought into Wrigley if they have 20 students? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have said it before, where we fund the education authorities over $150 million. They have their own responsibility in how they budget their line items and getting the decisions that they make with funding that we do give to them. That would be a decision that the education authorities would have to make. Thank you.