Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement was regarding the students in Sachs Harbour. Mr. Speaker, you know we’ve been working on this for the last two and a half years in regard to getting a residence either in Inuvik or getting a teacher into the community so we can start providing grade 12 services in the community of Sachs. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister make sure the students of Sachs Harbour have a suitable and safe place to stay while they live and attend school in Inuvik? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Our department will do what it can to safeguard all the students that are in schools throughout the Northwest Territories. The Sachs Harbour students that are going through the residence system in Inuvik, that falls under the Beaufort-Delta District Education Council, so we will be working closely with them as the Department of Education. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, well, I did some groundwork for the Minister’s office. Mr. Speaker, we’re looking at renting a house in Inuvik that, I suggested in my Member’s statement, would be used by Sachs Harbour students. Mr. Speaker, I’m not asking the Minister to ask Beaufort-Delta education for the extra money. Is there any money left in the department for having this house opened for the last three months of the school year? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to residences, students being housed in residences throughout the Northwest Territories, it does fall under the education council and we provide funding to them to offset the costs of students that are being residenced in a community, regional centre or boarding or residence form. Mr. Speaker, this is an area that the Beaufort-Delta needs to look at.
I’m glad the Member is trying to come up with some solutions and ideas. I commend the Member for that and also his riding. We need to work closely with the Beaufort-Delta. If the Member hasn’t approached the Beaufort-Delta, I would highly encourage him to do so. I, as the Minister responsible, will work closely with the Beaufort-Delta Education Council. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, people in Sachs Harbour, all we want is our children educated. Right now, the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority is going to say yes, Mr. Jacobson, we have no money. We have to go see the Minister. Mr. Speaker, all I’m asking from the Minister is to get me three months’ rent for this house in Inuvik to try to get these kids back into school, if they’re not there already trying with an unsafe place to stay.
Mr. Speaker, we have to help these kids. We have to help these families to get the education to our children. Mr. Speaker, this Minister can do that by telling the staff. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, obviously, we want the same thing too, for our kids to be educated throughout the Northwest Territories. We’re 100 percent behind that as well. These students are under the status of the Beaufort-Delta Education Council. Whether it be Sachs Harbour or Inuvik students, the money that they receive is for those students that are primary residents of Sachs Harbour school or Inuvik. We need to work with the Beaufort-Delta Education Council. As I stated before, the funding is allocated to them and we need to work with that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to me today that we’d work for the upcoming school year, either having a teacher in the community for grade 10, 11, 12, or a boarding house in Inuvik before the new school year? Thank you.
We will be in touch with the Beaufort-Delta Education Council to see what can be arranged for a meeting. We will be in the Beaufort-Delta in May to have an Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative forum. So this will be an opportunity to discuss what’s going to be happening this fall and next year and the funding that’s been allocated or will be allocated. Based on that, we can discuss further with the Beaufort-Delta Education Council. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
QUESTION 9-16(6):
CANCELLATION OF FUNDING FOR
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement I focussed on the cancellation, the sunsetting of the nutrition program that was run by the Food First Foundation. I mentioned that there were a lot of comments. There are six pages of comments from educators across the NWT and none of them are negative, Mr. Speaker. They all point to the positive aspect of this program and the need for children in schools to be fed in order to learn adequately. I believe the Minister of Education, Cultural and Employment would probably agree that students with full stomachs have improved learning. My first question would be to ask the Minister what focus does Education, Culture and Employment place on that principle. What emphasis is placed on nutrition or food programs within ECE? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, our focus is on the students, the well-being of our students to be well educated in our educational system. We provide as much resources or funding as we possibly can through the district education councils or district education authorities. So we will continue to provide those services and we are already seeing results from those students who are graduating in the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
I didn’t really hear a focus on foods and nutrition within the Minister’s answer, but I’d like to read one comment from an educator in a school that is unnamed, but the statement goes: “As soon as the students arrive at school, the breakfast teacher asks the students if they’ve eaten breakfast. They cannot go to their classroom without eating breakfast. That is how important breakfast is to our students’ learning.” I’d like to ask the Minister whether or not there is any appetite on the part of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to reinstate the $400,000 that is sunsetting. Thank you.
As the Member stated, this program has been sunsetted. It was just for a year, a year project, but we are focussing on other areas as well. As we’ve discussed here in the House, Healthy Food for Learning, all the school boards are getting funding. All the communities are covered in that respect. Breakfast for Learning...(inaudible)...for Healthy Learning, health promotion funds, Drop the Pop, Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, a forum that we’re having. There’s been a discussion on how each student should be a successful student in our educational system. So, Mr. Speaker, we provide as much as we can to support those students. Whether it be nutrition, their food, the education materials, it’s been provided through our Education department. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that they provide as much as they can, but it’s certainly not enough and I think we’ll find with cancellation of this program it’s going to have a huge impact. There are two comments from teachers again: “the school nutrition program has positively impacted attendance” and “student attendance is higher on days when breakfast is being served.” The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is focussed on attendance, the Healthy Foods Initiative or the Healthy Foods Program is focussed on attendance. I’d like to ask the Minister how much of the money that -- I think he said $232,000 earlier in this session; last session, I guess -- how much of that $232,000 in the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative will be available to schools for nutrition or healthy eating activities to replace the foods that are going to be sunsetting? Thank you.
The funding that we provide to the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative covers areas of student attendance or provides incentives for those students who are returning to school. This Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is still a working document that we are collecting input from different regions. So we can definitely have a discussion in this area. We still have two forums to attend and we’ve attended four other forums. We cover a vast variety of different programs that we offer. The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is attendance-based. These students we’re talking about, it covers as well.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to admit I’m a little confused now. When we reviewed the budget for education, the Minister suggested that the Aboriginal Student Achievement funding could be used as a replacement for the $400,000 funding that Food First Foundation was using to provide nutrition in schools. I thought I heard the Minister say they don’t really know how this money is going to be used. My question to the Minister is: can a school apply to the Education, Culture and Employment department to get funding to provide breakfasts and lunches and the foods that our kids need to learn properly?
Breakfast, lunch, supper. We are currently providing funds for healthy learning, Healthy Food for Learning and other programs I’ve highlighted. The community schools, regional schools, are all applying for the funds. We’ve highlighted Beaufort-Delta, Commission Scolaire, Deh Cho, Tlicho, Sahtu, South Slave, YCS, YK1 have all accessed funds. So the money is available. They can provide those services. We’ll continue to provide the programming and resources that we can. We’ll continue to do that.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
