Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Many schools, including those in Yellowknife, are shortchanged when it comes to support in funding for inclusive schooling. This is the practice of including all students with special needs in regular classes and providing the extra support they certainly need and deserve.
Yellowknife schools are attracting special needs students from far and wide. Why? Because it’s a clear demonstration of the good quality schools we have here. As well, sometimes the families need to come to Yellowknife for the other services, which include health care, respite and counselling.
Insufficient support for inclusive schooling is a real fallout for all students and teachers. Similar to Mrs. Groenewegen’s statement, classrooms are disrupted and certainly learning is slowed down. No one is benefitting from this funding shortage because the workload for those teachers increases. It’s not the students’ fault, it’s the department’s fault for not supporting our teachers and our schools.
Poor support for inclusive schooling is probably a factor of overall student achievement. My thought is we all agreed that was one of our biggest priorities. There are several problems with funding for inclusive schooling. One is the funding formula and, as Mrs. Groenewegen highlighted, it’s important that maybe we start attaching it to the student, not just throwing gobs of money to a school board and asking them to allocate, which doesn’t spread fairly. There have been cuts to inclusive schooling and I think that’s a real shame. It should be a black spot on our mark as a government going forward.
It’s not too late. This government could wake up and get attention to this issue that needs special attention. As it turns out, the situation can be saved, but I think it’s unfair to schools like here in Yellowknife and other regions that are attracting these students that need higher staff ratios for them to participate fairly. We’re not talking about subtle differences here. We’re talking about sometimes it’s as high as 20 percent higher in student ratios, which is unfair to the school board that must try to cope and deal with these situations.
The system needs funding for inclusive schools to change. I can’t repeat this enough. I, like other Members such as Mrs. Groenewegen, believe that inclusive schooling funding for students needs that extra oomph and it can only be done by attaching it to the student, as she said and I continue to repeat.
An exclusive education policy is absolutely meaningless if this Minister and this government doesn’t step up to the plate and finally put the responsible resources behind them. If we want to support our educators and our board, this is when this government must finally heed the call of these teachers, these school boards, these trustees. By giving them the responsibility and respect that they deserve, fund them properly.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’d like to thank my teachers, I guess, back home who had an influence in my life. Ms. Janie Jones back home in Tuk, still teaching there for the last 30 years. Ms. Anne-Marie Cameron, my Grade 5 teacher. She really did a lot of work with me that year, for the best. I’d like to thank my old principal, Mr. James Anderson, and my old high school teacher, Mr. Grant Gowans. Thank you, colleagues.
