Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. In February of this year I asked some questions of the Minister with regard to a safe schools policy for all of the schools within the NWT and the Minister responded. Thank you very much to the Minister. I did get a letter which pretty much told me that all schools have an emergency response plan in place. But I was not referencing an emergency response plan, which is like a lockdown if we have a shooter in the school, or a bomb threat or so on. I’m referencing a safe schools policy which looks at all aspects of the safety of the students and the community: bullying, kids at risk, kids involved in drugs and alcohol, involving partners like the RCMP and so on, family violence and violence in the school.
I’d like to ask the Minister, in his letter he advised me that the department would review and revisit fairly regularly, and I’d like to ask the Minister if there’s been any movement on the part of the department to look at a safe schools policy for our schools in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular subject is very important to our school system and especially with the school boards across the Northwest Territories. We did address that with the school boards and they’re fully aware of it. There are, as the Member indicated, potential partners that are involved, RCMP, NGOs, and also parents getting involved in this. There’s also a question of an anti-bullying policy into the schools. Those are the areas that we are consistently working on, and I’m glad the Member raised that issue because this is an area that is broad to cover all schools so we are doing what we can as a department to work with the school boards across the Northwest Territories to make it happen.
One of the other things that was in the letter that I received in March, further to my February questions, was that the Department of Education, within negotiations with the NWT Teachers’ Association, would bring this issue to the table. I would like to ask the Minister whether or not, now that the negotiations have been concluded with the NWTTA, there was any decision made during negotiations whether or not there is an implementation plan as he’s referenced in his letter?
With specifics to the NWTTA negotiations that were undergoing and the conclusion of that, the Member is asking for specific information on this which I don’t have in front of me, but I will be more than happy to get back to the Member on what is the status on those initiatives that were discussed at that point.
I appreciate the Minister’s commitment. I’d like to ask the Minister, I’m well aware that one of the boards in Yellowknife, Yellowknife Education District No. 1, has a very involved Safe Schools Policy. It could be used as a template for all the rest of the schools within the territory. I’d like to ask the Minister if the department would consider taking the YK No. 1 Safe Schools Policy and sending it to all the schools within the territory and encouraging them to develop their own policy from this template.
Those are the types of discussions that we do have at the board chair level. The Safe Schools Policy of YK District No. 1, we can certainly utilize the policy that they currently have instead of reinventing the wheel.
What’s before us, if we can enhance that policy for other school systems then, by all means, we will definitely pursue that and have our discussions with my department and the YK No. 1 as well.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister is going to do something, that he’s going to talk to board chairs. But I think this goes beyond board chairs and I think this is something the department could do directly with the schools. I’d like to ask the Minister when I could expect him to provide some concrete action… Sorry. When he could report to me that there’s been some concrete action on developing policies in all our schools.
Before the end of session I will get back to the Member on the status, what my department is pursuing on this particular subject on the Safe Schools Policy and working with the YK District No. 1 and other research that we’ve done within Canada and will provide that information to the Members.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
