Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a motion.
WHEREAS Members of this Legislative Assembly have repeatedly raised concerns about the quality of high school education in small community schools and the need for many high school graduates to receive upgrading before continuing on to post-secondary studies;
AND WHEREAS graduation rates remain low in small communities relative to the Northwest Territories average;
AND WHEREAS schools delivering grades 10 to 12 need a minimum of three secondary teacher positions in order to deliver the required range of programming;
AND WHEREAS schools with fewer than 20 full-time equivalent students enrolled in grades 10 to 12 do not receive funding for three teacher positions under the current formula;
AND WHEREAS quality high school education is an essential building block in achieving this Legislative Assembly’s goal of healthy educated people and this government’s Building our Future and Maximizing Opportunities strategic initiatives;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories revise the school staffing funding formula to ensure that all schools with at least 10 full-time equivalent students enrolled in grades 10 to 12 receive funding for at least three secondary teacher positions.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Motion is on the floor. Motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I’ve listened over the years and listened to a number of Members’ statements, listened to the government’s position on high school graduates in our small communities, especially in our small communities, Mr. Speaker. In 2009 the Northwest Territories-wide graduation rate was 53 percent. For smaller communities it was at 38 percent, Mr. Speaker.
Knowing these numbers, we are doing a disservice to our smallest communities, especially the students. Most of those who graduate, Mr. Speaker, too many of them have to go back to Aurora College or some upgrading institution just to go and take trades programs or university or any other post-secondary studies. Graduation rates in our small communities are still smaller and lower, compared to the rest of the Northwest Territories.
The reason I bring up this motion is that in our smaller communities especially, we do not have quality programming for grades 10 to 12 students. The current formula now is not doing us any good. Even if you have 10 to 15 students, you need critical mass under the current formula now to have more teachers. Right now you get 2.26 teachers per year in our schools.
Educators are complaining to us in the small communities. We need help in our small communities. We don’t have the higher numbers such as Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith or Inuvik. They’re okay. They have the critical mass. They have the numbers. In my region we don’t have the numbers. Teachers are frustrated. They have to deliver a program they know darn well won’t meet the quality that they want their students to achieve.
The students are asking for more quality programs and more teachers so they have a chance to at least get into a trades program or university program. They’re saying, what’s wrong with us? Why are we not getting the same type of funding as in Yellowknife or Inuvik? Why can’t they fix that? They can do nothing about that. Then they wonder why they’ll have to go to Aurora College to do an upgrading program; do another year because the current formula doesn’t allow us to do this.
We’re asking for that to be looked at and to be considered, to give our students a fair chance at a career that they choose to pursue.
We’ve done some calculations, some rough estimates using the 2010-2011 student enrolment numbers. We think that it will cost around $150,000, that ballpark. For example, five schools would benefit: Tsiigehtchic, Fort Liard, Dettah, Ndilo and Colville Lake. Schools in that range would benefit greatly. Compared to many other things that this government spends this money on, it would be a small investment that this motion is asking for. It’s also in keeping with the goal we set at the beginning of our term for healthy, educated people and also with the government building our future and maximizing our opportunities and initiatives.
I think that it’s very reasonable to ask for the minimum funding of three person years for schools with grade 10 or more, full-time equipment for students in grade 10 to 12. It’s a reasonable request that this motion is asking for and we think that this small investment will have a big payoff down the road.
I ask for support from the Members on this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank Mr. Yakeleya for bringing forward this motion and also extend my appreciation for letting him allow me to work with him on this particular motion and seeing the development.
I believe that the best investment that this government can make in any program is education. We can put them in health and we can put them in wildlife programs, we can put them in business programs, but the absolute best programming that we can put our dollars in is a good, solid education that will enable the next generation coming behind with the knowledge and attitude to go forward and pursue their dreams with the best of abilities, rather than being handcuffed with the lack of being able to pursue those dreams.
I know what Mr. Yakeleya is talking about because I’ve seen it myself, growing up in a small community. I realize and have experienced the limited programming that they have to offer. I must put a caveat on that particular point. I also saw ingenuity at its finest, where teachers took on programming that they weren’t necessarily familiar with and were able to deliver excellent things on the skinniest of budgets, to ensure that students wouldn’t be held back in any particular way. In being one of the fortunate students and being able to finally come to Yellowknife to finish my high school, all of a sudden you stepped into a new realm of educational opportunities that we did not see and experience. When you go to a biology class that didn’t have all the microscopes and beakers and things like that. Or you go to a chemistry class where nobody can teach chemistry in that particular school. It becomes very challenging for them to ensure that the students who want to pursue the dreams of higher education, who want to be contributors to our society, can’t be limited by what really is just one or two additional teachers into our system. I go back to my original point, which is this is one of the best investments we can make in education.
I recognize the challenges put forward and recognized by Mr. Yakeleya’s motion and I think it makes a lot of sense. With those limited opportunities, what are we asking our students? In all fairness, are we being fair to them by not giving them the opportunity? It’s almost a shame to say or look back to say that the reason you didn’t succeed is because the government couldn’t find money for one more teacher in your particular school to ensure you had a balanced programming that you could actually apply at university. In some cases that’s actually the particular case, because schools are forced to deliver programming on the skinniest of marginal budgets in order to get through. Recognizing, yes, that some schools are very small, but the students are still just as important in those small schools as they are in our larger schools. I think of them in no less value. Are we empowering them with the appropriate skills and abilities to succeed to pursue their dreams, whether it’s a trade school or a university or college programming? Of course, the question constantly comes up as to why do our students, when they speak from the small community perspective, need to go to Aurora College or another type of learning institution to upgrade those skills? That by itself should raise questions of fairness.
It’s incumbent on us to ensure that our successive generation is empowered with the most abilities. I think it makes a lot of sense. If this motion could boil down to a simple point, it’s about fairness and quality programming, recognizing the restraints and difficulties and the challenges that are in there with the district education authorities and boards in the small communities, I think this can be one of the pillars that propels it to move forward. If you’re a parent, you don’t want to have the stigma by saying if I send my child to my home community school, they’re going to have to go to Aurora College years down the road. That’s not really fair. How do you think the students feel about that particular programming, knowing that their graduation certificate is not as reasonable a merit to quality as someone else’s? I mean, it’s again my point of it’s not fair to temper their dreams just because of where they live. When it really comes down to it, it is only over a few short investment dollars that could go that extra way. If anyone thinks that’s money saved on the system, well, we’re just putting it into another pile or into somebody else’s budget to teach them later on. It doesn’t make sense.
In closing, I want to stress that this probably does a lot from a community perspective, way more than the money alone. The community knowing that their students are graduating with the same quality as any other schooling system in the Northwest Territories is quite an exciting thing. The fear of that and that’s not to emphasize that the quality of programming is bad, I just believe that it’s limited. I think its limitation is what the problem is here. I would not want to let it be clouded to assume that the teachers are doing a bad job, because they are not, but they are working with the limited resources they have. I think that’s what’s holding some of the students back from some of their dreams.
I will be supporting this motion and I again thank Mr. Yakeleya for letting me be a part of this. I think if government listens very carefully, they can go through their own analysis to realize that it is not an expensive initiative that could pay big dividends over the long haul and it meets our goals and objectives as a vision of the 16th Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will support the motion brought forward by Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Hawkins today. However, I think that if we think that having three teachers in a small community for grades 10, 11, and 12 is going to result in the, I don’t know, some utopia in education, I think we’re sadly mistaken.
The fact of the matter is that it would be an improvement and, therefore, it should be an option. I, as a parent and as a representative of many other parents, believe that what would be best for the students would be options. By the time a student gets to grade 10, 11, 12, maybe it’s time for a change of scenery, if that were an option. Maybe it is time to get to a larger centre in a larger community where there are more sports opportunities and more part-time work available, more interaction with a larger body of students. I think we as a government should make options available.
Like I said, I support the motion. I think it is a step in the right direction, but I think with that, there need to be options for students who do want to pursue other things. There are many students in Hay River, even the community of a size of the school in Hay River, that still need to go for upgrading. Many, many still do need to go for upgrading. Like I said, I support it, but I think we as a government need to think. We sometimes associate going someplace else for high school with the proverbial residential school. I know from experience, my own children came out of Hay River to a larger centre like Yellowknife around the time they were 14 years old. Jordan graduated from St. Pat’s; Jeffrey came here for Grade 11; Jillian came here when she was 14. It was a very positive impact on them to have more access to different types of subjects, a larger group and more opportunities. I will support the motion.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I will be supporting the motion. I have the same issues in Sachs Harbour right now with no grade 10, 11 and 12 teacher in the community. Students are leaving for the community of Inuvik for schooling and there’s no place for them to stay. No safe place that they’re saying that there is to stay. We do have plans. I’m trying to work with the Minister’s office to get a place in the community for them so they can continue their grade 10, 11 and 12. The options are very little.
The community needs a high school teacher. It’s gone too far already. The social passing is in now that kids are being passed and having to go back as soon as they’ve got grade 12 for a year or year and a half of education in Inuvik or Arctic College just to try to get into Aurora College. That’s not right. We should be stopping this right from grade K to 12 in the smaller communities. Stop it before it starts.
I wish we could fix this all in one fell swoop but it can’t be done. We have to start off slow. I think this motion will start it off. It’s all small communities that are being affected, not just the ones that are named, all across the Territory.
I do support it and I look forward to putting it to the vote.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. To the motion. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will also be supporting this motion. The Minister mentioned in his budget address a number of places where additional funding was being planned for expenditures. One of those was the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. I think those sorts of things fit exactly with this program, from what I know of it. I recommend that we do have the dollars for this and that it be made. I will be supporting the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. The Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would be pleased to share some information with the Members on the Member for Sahtu for bringing this motion forward on the high school staffing funding formula. Small high schools in the Northwest Territories, as you know, are funded through the school funding framework. We are talking about approximately eight communities. Once communities have reached 10 students or more, then there are options that have been referred to as grade extensions. That’s an option that we have been working with and has been very successful.
The Member also stated that 2.26 teaching positions are needed. It’s not only that, Mr. Speaker. In addition to teaching staff, there are classroom assistants, program support teachers and counsellors within the school system. However, Mr. Speaker, I’m more than willing to direct my department to review the funding provided to senior secondary programming for small schools, taking into consideration the motion that’s before us. This motion is a direction to our government, so Cabinet will be abstaining from the vote. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. I will allow the mover of the motion some closing comments. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just by hearing the Minister’s comments I think the government has a heart. Today is happy Valentine’s Day, so I think they have a heart.
I want to take the opportunity, also, to wish my sweetheart a happy Valentine’s Day, while I have the floor.
Mr. Speaker, certainly, when you look at situations like this, this is the reality of some of the smaller schools and some of the quality of education that students have to do Monday to Friday, day in and day out. That’s what we’re up against. We have larger centres and this does not impact them. There’s the critical mass there. Certainly teachers are well aware of this. They know the hard work that they do in the small communities. They know the resources they have to use and be available and they try their best. Certainly when they finish a university degree in teaching they want to do their best for their students. When their resources are not there, they do what they can do. By having the Minister listen and by having the government listen, maybe we can help the teachers and the students.
Teachers know the work that they have to do in the small communities. Sometimes they get overwhelmed that they have to satisfy the teachers and the school, the parents and the children. What I’m saying, Mr. Speaker, is that this motion will greatly improve the quality of programming we want in our small communities. It’s a small step to a bigger picture by having, hopefully one day, the same access of programming in the larger centres. We don’t know when that’s going to happen, because we just have the critical mass. You know it and I know it. But we’ve got to help our students one step at a time to get there. They do come from smaller communities into larger centres -- I do hear them -- because there are no more opportunities. Fine. But there’s also the students that miss home, miss family and miss the culture. It’s hard on them also, because you don’t know if their grandparents are going to be around long or something’s going to happen to their family. They are looking at those types of things when families are being sent out.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say that if the Minister could direct his staff to look at an investment like this. I heard it on the radio this morning from one of the guest speakers saying that if we were to invest in some of our communities and programs and especially within our youth, that it will pay off in the long run. This motion is saying it’s doable to help with this government here. I want to ask this government here to see if it can do it within the life of this government here, to give this direction to the staff.
I just want to thank the Members for allowing me to bring this forward and to support the young kids here and ask this government to have a heart, especially on today’s date here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The motion is on the floor. The motion is in order.
Question.
Question is being called.
---Carried
Item 19, first reading of bills. Item 20, second reading of bills. Item 21, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 4-16(5), Executive Summary of the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project; Tabled Document 30-16(5), 2010 Review of Members’ Compensation and Benefits; Tabled Document 38-16(5), Supplementary Health Benefits – What We Heard; Tabled Document 62-16(5), Northwest Territories Water Stewardship Strategy; Tabled Document 75-16(5), Response to the Joint Review Panel for the Mackenzie Gas Project on the Federal and Territorial Governments’ Interim Response to “Foundation for a Sustainable Northern Future”; Tabled Document 103-16(5), GNWT Contracts Over $5,000 Report, Year Ending March 31, 2010; Tabled Document 133-16(5), NWT Main Estimates 2011-2012; Tabled Document 135-16(5), Response to the Report on the Review of the Child and Family Services Act; Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Social Assistance Act; Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Conflict of Interest Act; Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act; Bill 20, An Act to Amend the Evidence Act; Minister’s Statement 65-16(5), Devolution Agreement-in-Principle, Impact on Land Claims and Protection of Aboriginal Rights; and Minister’s Statement 88-16(5), Sessional Statement, with Mr. Abernethy in the chair.
By the authority given to me as Speaker by Motion 31-16(5), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily hour of adjournment to consider the business before the House.
