Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, that decision was made on the recommendation of the board chairs.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Thompson.
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.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Moses.
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.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Thompson.
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.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Moses.
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.
Thank you Minister Moses. Deputy Minister 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.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Haener. Mr. Thompson.
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.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Moses.
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.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Thompson.
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.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Moses.
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.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Minister Thompson.
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.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Moses.
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.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Thompson.
My time is going to be up, so you may as well put me back on the list. Again, we as the government are giving the school $150 million. The problem is we are saying, here is the money, so if we get a problem, you guys have to fix it because you are not addressing it. Is the government downloading onto the schools to make the hard decisions? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Each education authority knows their operations' needs, what their operations have consisted of historically. They have always made those decisions. They understand the back-and-forth with the department in terms of budgets, the decisions that they have to make. That is why they have an elected board for the oversight. It has always been like that. They have always had to make the decisions, whether it was a tough decision or not. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Next we have Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have a few questions about junior kindergarten funding. First of all, has the department come to an agreement with the Yellowknife school boards on the question of who is paying for the busing? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Deputy Minister Haener.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Busing is something that we are working with all the education authorities on currently. They have agreed to engage with us to re-examine the funding formula in relation to busing, and that would be a collaborative process. We anticipate that work to continue for the next several months. Again, we are working with them. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Haener. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I guess we will see some change in this line item for education authority contributions to reflect those changes when they are made. What I notice now in the main estimates, page 35, education authority contributions, is that the $2 million that was announced in the budget is not here. Where would I find that money? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When the main estimates were printed, we didn't make that decision on the $5.1 million, so it is not reflective in here. That money will come through a supplemental since the decision was made. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that clarification. There is a small reduction in the amount of money going to the education authorities. Could the Minister confirm the current understanding of how much of a reduction there is to the district education authorities, since these numbers now seem to be unreliable? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Moses.
Some of the reductions are focused on the enrolment rates that we get. We do see a decrease in some areas. Some of that was also reflective of our education renewal initiatives, as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not sure that I totally understood that. The enrolments for this school year were counted at the end of September, so there is some certainty about how many children are in the schools. I am not clear what the uncertainty is in coming up with a definitive number here. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Assistant deputy minister of corporate services, Mr. Lovely.
So the reduction that you see in education authority contributions is a result of a couple of items. Because the funding that we provide to education authorities is based on enrolment, when we see those enrolments drop, there is a savings associated with that. We took those savings and reinvested that back into the education renewal initiative. There is also $600,000 in reductions to the administrative component of the funding formula. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Lovely. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Mr. Chair, although the Minister has been saying that junior kindergarten is fully funded, the education authorities are still looking at a reduction in their allocations for the coming fiscal years. Do I have that correct? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct. Some of the items that Mr. Lovely just pointed out reflect that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So Mr. Chair, in fact, junior kindergarten isn't being fully funded by the government; it is being funded by both the government and the education authorities. Is that correct?
Thank you, Ms. Green. Deputy Minister Haener.
