Jackson Lafferty

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. When it comes to whether it be family day homes, the daycares, we’ve made some changes already. There’s been some recommendations brought to our attention by those operators and we’ve listened to the operators, we’ve heard their concerns, we’ve made some changes. From here until we deliver to all the communities, we’re going to make those changes along the way. We have done so and we will continue to do so. Mahsi.

Mahsi Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome to our gallery, through you, Mr. Speaker, Meagan Wowk, ECE early childhood and kindergarten coordinator who is here with us today. Also, Dr. Magdalena Janus is also here with us. She is the co-creator of the EDI program from the Offord Centre for Child Studies and is training the junior kindergarten teachers on how to use the Early Development Instrument.

There are also teachers that are here with us from each of the communities offering Junior Kindergarten, except from the South Slave DEC where all their JK teachers are already trained to use the EDI. The...

Mahsi. Again, this Junior Kindergarten has been a topic of discussion for a number of years, even before I got on board as Education Minister in 2007. Through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and also earlier engagement, that the pre-learning should be first and foremost a priority of this government. That’s why we laid down the early childhood development, the overall framework, the 10-year agreement. So this is an area that I feel will benefit the communities and the 23 communities that we service. We have the teachers here today being trained on the EDI, we have teachers that...

On May 23rd I met with the DEA chairs, and this particular subject came up. Due to the fact that I’ve listened to the DEA chairs and superintendents, who were part of the discussion, as well, that I should give some flexibility, which I have. Whether it be part time or full time, I gave them the flexibility. The DEAs can decide on that; not only that, the other areas, if it’s going to be full-time, part-time or optional programming. We gave them the option to deliver this into the communities. That’s the reason why we have 23 communities.

I’m the Minister responsible for the whole Northwest...

The recommendation is with me, as the Minister responsible, and there have been various discussions that took place for over a year, since 2011 until today, even the latest there has been some correspondence that came to my attention that I need to follow up. There are some legality and network issues that we need to deal with.

Again, it is a large file, so we want to have the best product for the whole Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Again, I have to emphasize that during the life of this Assembly, we will be delivering and signing off this document. Mahsi.

As I stated, with a large file such as this, we’re getting a lot of feedback from various parties and we’re followed up with those concerns or issues brought to our attention. There are some general ideas of where we should be focusing on.

All the great work that the Safety Advisory Committee recommended to my office, we are building on that, and again, we want to deliver that during the life of this Assembly, send out the final agreement and start implementing it. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi. As I stated, there is no major issue or complaint about the delivery of Junior Kindergarten in 23 of our smaller or remote communities. There’s been some questions here and there, more clarification from the teachers that are teaching our Junior Kindergarten. They are being trained.

So, as I stated before, there hasn’t been much of a major issue or complaint brought to my attention as Minister responsible. But with any issues or concerns that are brought forward by the teachers or the principals or the organizations, we follow up with them, and I can provide some of the detailed...

Mahsi. When we first rolled out the JK a couple of months ago, we knew that there needs to be a response team. We did establish a Junior Kindergarten response team made up of regional representatives and also from ECE perspectives. So they are the ones who are giving us advice, suggestions and making some changes along the way. Not only that, from the general public, the professionals, the teachers, the parents, there is also a hotline within my department that we’ve established so we can hear the general public’s perspective on delivery of the Junior Kindergarten in the 23 communities, the...