Jackson Lafferty

When I speak to DEAs, we have an agreement in place where when it comes to rolling out the K to 12 programming and not only that, even post-secondary, we have a representative on there from the local DEA onto the DECs. I deal with the board chairs. Any issue brought to my attention comes from the committee perspective as well. By the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, it is the board that decides which community will be delivering JK. Some of the community decided not to pursue it.

Again, it was me that provided the flexibility whether it is optional, full time or part time. Initially it was...

Those are just some of the surveys and also the inventory that we’re going to be collecting from communities, and based on that, obviously, the decision needs to happen, or if there are going to be changes, obviously, I would have to bring it back to my Cabinet colleagues and say there is an outcry in this area. That is the input that I’m seeking from the general public, because we’re responsible for the whole Northwest Territories, not just 23 communities but for regional centres and also for Yellowknife in order to deliver a successful Junior Kindergarten.

I’m open and I want to hear from the general public’s perspective. Whether it be a symposium, a forum, the survey that I have just committed to, I want to share with the 23 communities, the regional centres, even from the Yellowknife perspective. If JK is coming to them, I want to hear them, the parents. I want to hear the parents. Right now I am just hearing it from the school boards, but I want to hear from the parents’ perspective, because what we are hearing now is 23 communities with Junior Kindergarten is working fine for those communities that are delivering it, but at the same time I...

When we first decided to roll out the Junior Kindergarten, obviously there was a discussion at the board level. I met with the board chairs back in 2013, in October, and introduced the JK. At that time we were talking about the cost factor, how much it was going to cost us. Obviously, throughout the time, we talked about how we were going to subsidize the JK as we move forward. We said, well, there’s $150 million going to the school boards already, how can we best utilize that funding to get the best results? Those are the discussions that we’ve had with the 23 communities that will be...

Mahsi. Throughout our engagement with the communities, a list of dates have been identified, such as developing a response team that’s made up of regional representatives, early childhood development consultants, ECE superintendents and also the departmental headquarters, as well, when it comes to dealing with the small communities.

At the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, all JK students were given information as well. Since we’ve been discussing the rollout of Junior Kindergarten in 23 communities, since September 26th to 27th, we hosted a forum, a symposium and had the educators come...

I believe I did share that with the Assembly here. I’ll share that information again on the number of those individuals that were trained last spring and this past fall. That is continuous training with new staff that are coming on board, because we have to be prepared to deliver the qualified programming. It’s a curriculum base. It’s a play-based curriculum base, so we need to have those staff that are qualified to deliver that. There has been training that took place, so I will provide that list to the Member.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Part of the survey will be to find out what the 23 communities, if there is any major issues that we may have missed out on from the parents, from the community organizations, even as far as the regional centres and also Yellowknife, just to share their perspectives. We may have missed out on various key initiatives that they may bring to our attention. I want to hear from parents as well. Those are just some of the discussions that we had over the weekend, how can we best reach out to those communities, and that’s what we’re doing. Mahsi.

When it comes to the delivery of Junior Kindergarten into the regions, the 23 communities, we’ve worked with them since day one, even as far back as October when I first met with board chairs first introducing Junior Kindergarten. This is an area where we, again, have to evaluate our programming for the 23 communities and what have we learned from them. It’s only three months into the delivery of Junior Kindergarten. It’s not, like, a year into the programming, but now we have to re-evaluate. So that’s where our situation stands. Again, it’s our DECs that we have to work with. Mahsi, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is the Member visited a community and there was one organization that may not be supportive of the JK, but there are other organizations in the community that we’ve been dealing with on constant occasions. Not only that but the school board that’s responsible for that particular community, we deal with the school board. So the DECs, the school board, make the decision working with us to deliver Junior Kindergarten into their community. That’s the avenue and the protocol we follow. The decision is from the DEC. Thank you.

It was the Finance Minister, our Premier and I who have stated that we are going to re-evaluate our situation. We still have time until the next delivery of JK into our regional centres and also to Yellowknife the following year. This is a situation where we are seriously looking at and also to share some perspectives from the 23 communities, the regional centres and from Yellowknife’s perspective. We’re doing what we can to reach out. Whether it be the taskforce that we established, the toll-free number, the website, we’re doing what we can to reach out to the communities.