Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we move into the post-COVID world, we can't forget all of our students who have had a pandemic disrupt their last three years. According to the Yellowknife school boards, due to the various closures the schools here in Yellowknife have lost up to one year of school days. And I know that this is a problem that the entire world is facing and that students around the world got behind during COVID-19, but the reality is is that our students were already falling behind before COVID and a pandemic certainly didn't help.

This worries me, Mr. Speaker. Our teachers have been performing performance assessments and many say that their students are already one year behind. And what does this mean in the long run? I think we have to provide extra resources to our schools to make sure that we are not going to see a COVID generation graduating in the decade to come.

Further to literacy and numeracy skills, students have not been able to explore the arts throughout the pandemic. With rules of no singing or public-staged performances, I worry about the socialization of those children and I think we need to see some extra support to make sure that our students can once again sing and dance and be children in the classroom, Mr. Speaker. Academics are not the only recovery in the schools that will need to be addressed.

I know many students are seeing signs of increased anxiety and the pandemic just highlights the importance of in-person learning, and that it's just more than education. There are various nonacademic supports that we need to see. And I know the Minister has been meeting with the school boards, and he's been hearing these concerns, but I'll have some questions to make sure that we provide our school districts and our schools the resources in the years to come to get our children caught up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.