Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today on regional high schools, before I get into my questions, let me just make a clarification. I made a brief reference to my own children coming from Hay River to Yellowknife. I am not advocating for any student from Hay River coming to Yellowknife. It was just an unusual circumstance where they had a parent at both sides of the lake and they took advantage of an option. I was speaking to the relativity. When you’re from Hay River, Yellowknife’s big. When you’re from Fort Res, Hay River’s big. When you’re from Toronto, Taipei is big. Everything is relative, right?
Getting into my questions, I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for Education if the idea of regional high school education is on the department’s radar in any way. I believe the option should be there for students that want to remain in small communities, but for those who would like an enriched curriculum, a variety of courses and subject material, that this could be available. Is this on the department’s radar?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Specifically, if it’s on the radar, probably not at this point, but I can certainly raise that issue with the school board chairs. I usually have a meeting with them. Part of the discussion that we’ve been having about grade extension is based on the feedback from the communities, the parents. The parents don’t want their kids to be sent out to regional high school. They’ve had some experience where their children, their students, I guess, would get into whether it be trouble or the substance abuse in the larger communities due to the fact we’ve created these grade extensions into communities. This is an area that we can certainly have discussion with the school board chairs.
In my Member’s statement I was very clear to suggest that this would not be feasible, doable or even desirable if there were not home boarding or residential options available to these students that were sober, supervised, supported and in every way healthy for the children.
The Minister says that parents don’t want their high school students to go to regional centres for the reasons that the Minister stated, and he said that he will speak to the superintendents of education. Could we not perhaps find a way to ask the parents how they feel about that? Because I have run across many parents who feel that their young people do well in the small communities, they get to a certain point, they’re bored, they are feeling like the education system is not challenging them, and they would love an opportunity for their students, for their children to go to a regional centre to go to high school. Is there a way that we could actually canvass the parents to find out if they have an interest in this?
There has been a survey in the past, when we started the discussion on grade extension. We can reopen that dialogue with the communities, especially with the parents. I would like to hear from the parents, the school board chairs, the superintendents, the educators and the grandparents how they feel about having regional high schools in another part of the community to send their kids over there. By all means, I will be more than happy to have this dialogue happening in the communities through the school board chairs and the school board directors.
I think anything that offers more options to our secondary high school students in the Northwest Territories to make sure they get the best high school education they can, should be looked and should be considered. I would like to ask the Minister, do the education councils at this time have any funding in their budget for one-offs. If a parent came and said, you know what, I would like my child to go from Tuktoyaktuk to attend school in Inuvik, is there funding in budgets right now on an application or one-off basis where parents can have their student or their child attend a regional high school for the cost of travel and home boarding?
More options, I totally agree with that. That’s why we’re looking at various programming such as I mentioned. E-learning is just one of the examples that the Beaufort-Delta has been very successful; also, the tutoring in the South Slave region. Those are just some of the areas that we continue to push.
With respect to some of the areas for funding allocation, we provide funding to DECs, district education councils, on an annual basis, based on enrolment, and part of that has been distributed to district education authorities so they can expend at their pleasure. We provide funding on an annual basis and they decide where the money should be expended.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Hay River has a wonderful high school, which is not utilized to its maximum capacity, with very experienced teachers and a very wide variety of course options, so I would like to ask the Minister if he could report back to us what a survey of parents might indicate who, in the South Slave, in small communities, might be interested in accessing an education in Hay River.
We’ll definitely do that with the community of Hay River and also the surrounding small communities that the Member alluded to earlier.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
