Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize some of the people who are here with us today. There are some chairpersons of the school boards. John Stephenson is here with us, chair of YK No. 1. Gayla Meredith, president of NWTTA is here with us as well. I saw Ted Blondin earlier. He might still be in the gallery. He is the chair of the Tlicho Community Services Agency. For the Catholic School Board, Chair Simon Taylor is here with us, and also the superintendent, Claudia Parker, is here with us. I believe there is some staff that came in, as well, from my department: John...

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Thank you for allowing that. This is Sam Shannon, our ECE legislative policy advisor.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I have with me Ian Rennie, legislative counsel, Department of Justice.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I am pleased to be here today to speak about Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Education Act.

I’d like to thank standing committee for their thoughtful and important work on the bill. In particular, I congratulate the committee on going into the schools and speaking with the students and providing us with their feedback.

This is important information which will shape the action plans as we move forward.

Bill 12 speaks to the Motion passed by the Legislative Assembly on February 16, 2012, recommending “the Government establish a territory-wide campaign to denounce bullying...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled Education Renewal Innovation Framework: Directions for Change, 2013. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, these are just some of the projects that we are seriously looking at. We have done pilot projects in the past. We continue to do so. This could be part of the project that has been delivered through the Beaufort-Delta and along with other communities, so we could deliver that in the mains. Again, we need to sit down and work with the Beaufort-Delta and other school boards, if we can deliver a similar model, and as part of the business planning cycle as well. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Again, I’m just congratulating the Beaufort-Delta for their e-learning. It’s been very successful to date even though it’s a short timeframe that they’ve initiated the project. Now, we must congratulate them as well. This particular e-learning is new to us even though we’ve used it in other jurisdictions and with best practices from other countries as well.

In the process of the business planning cycle, we work closely with the school boards and they identify their budget for the whole year. As part of that could be the e-learning that the Beaufort-Delta can establish as...

Mahsi. Those are some of the areas that we are currently collecting data, the stats from the school boards. We need to identify what’s working and what’s not working. I fully agree with the Member that we need to re-evaluate inclusive schooling within our school system. This is an area where my department is working very closely with the school boards and we need to fix that issue, some of the areas that need enhancement. So those are key areas we are looking for. Mahsi.

We’ll definitely do that with the community of Hay River and also the surrounding small communities that the Member alluded to earlier.

There has been a survey in the past, when we started the discussion on grade extension. We can reopen that dialogue with the communities, especially with the parents. I would like to hear from the parents, the school board chairs, the superintendents, the educators and the grandparents how they feel about having regional high schools in another part of the community to send their kids over there. By all means, I will be more than happy to have this dialogue happening in the communities through the school board chairs and the school board directors.