Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the Minister of Education about the junior kindergarten and getting an understanding of some of the concerns I’ve heard from in the South Slave about the education and the implementation of junior kindergarten. I’m just wondering after the three phases, after first phase going into smaller communities, the second phase going into Hay River, Inuvik and Fort Smith and then, finally, into the larger centre of Yellowknife. Once those three phases are completed, how will these organizations be able to operate under the premise of having an additional pressure of having all those four-year-olds without having any additional money?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. After we complete the first, second and third year phase of introducing junior kindergarten, those students will be registered under enrolment funding. On an annual basis, we contribute to school boards, so those students, the 40 students projected for Hay River, will fall under the enrollment funding. So we will continue for a number of years. Also, if they are upwards of or increase of 16 to 1, then there is a PTR in addition to the funding that will be identified. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The other thing I have heard from the Hay River DEA, or the district education, was that they indicated they had to use some of their surplus to fund some of these JKs. Is that true?
I stated earlier that the surplus is at the discretion of the school boards, how they want to spend it, but we’ve always encouraged them to spend it on educational programming. It is up to the school boards to spend on programming in their communities and region. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister indicated earlier in some of the questioning that they were going to do some number crunching and there was going to be an announcement on new numbers. I was just wondering if they’ve indicated that they are going to implement this program, junior kindergarten, and over the three phases, wouldn’t they have done that number crunching before? Wouldn’t they have a complete picture of where the money is going to come from to fund junior kindergarten? Why is the number crunching coming now after they’ve indicated the three phases and all the expenditures that need to be done?
I met with board chairs and the superintendents on May 13th. Based on that, I had an in-camera discussion with the board chairs only. They gave me some ideas and suggestions about it not being mandatory, optional programming, and also having the four-day kindergarten. I was receptive to that and I said I would take that into consideration, which I did based on enrollment for school in the fall. So, Mr. Speaker, it was based on the recommendation of the school board chairs that we move forward on the changes. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has indicated some of the projections of students. I guess those are some of the assumptions. My understanding is that junior kindergarten is not mandatory; it’s voluntary. So how can they be projecting what enrollments are if they aren’t mandatory, and would the department consider it to be a requirement to be mandatory?
Again, when I met with the school board chairs on the 13th of May, we gave them an extended week until the 23rd of May to go back to their communities and regions and identify how many students would be registered. So they had until May 23rd to give us the actual enrolment numbers, so it was based on the fact that we’re producing these numbers. It was corresponding with the school boards. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
