Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister and I absolutely agree with the Minister that this needs to be looked at, but we were told that this was going to be looked at some months ago. The fact that it’s rolled into the Education Renewal Initiative confuses me and makes me somewhat apprehensive. The Minister is tabling that Education Renewal Initiative document this afternoon. So I don’t understand how we can roll the inclusive schooling evaluation into a document that’s about to tabled. Can the Minister explain that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also would like to welcome the chairs of the two Yellowknife school districts who are here, Simon Taylor from Yellowknife Catholic Schools and John Stephenson from YK Education District No. 1. I want to say it was a pleasure to see Mr. Ootes and Ms. Baile here in the House earlier. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you, Mr. Hawkins, I think. I stand again today to once more voice my concerns about the way the Department of Education, Culture and Employment funds inclusive schooling in our schools. The department directive on inclusive schooling states, “Inclusive schooling is intended to ensure equal access for all students to educational programs offered in regular classroom settings.”

As I pointed out in March of this year, this very preamble highlights what is wrong with how inclusive schooling in the NWT is currently being funded and addressed at the departmental...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Madam Chair. At the outset, I want to thank the Legislative Assembly for giving me the opportunity on this committee to travel and to look into this particular bill and this issue. It was certainly an issue that provided us with a lot of input and a created a lot of thinking amongst committee, both individual and us as a group. I want to thank the Ledge staff for the work that they did setting up our travel, setting up our meetings and so on, and looking after us as we travelled. And I would like to thank all the presenters that we heard from. They were many. I particularly want to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to support this motion. I fully support the concept behind universal, affordable daycare. Mr. Bromley spoke to many of the positives that have come from universal, affordable daycare in other jurisdictions, and the research, in my mind, proves the value of an early childhood daycare program. Just reading from the whereases, it decreases poverty, it increases after-tax income, decreases the child poverty rate, it builds a better-quality labour force, it increases the number of women in the workplace. All those things are things that would benefit us in the NWT...

I’m still confused and I’d have to say, and I spoke in my statement and I need to tell the Minister this is not working. From the perspective of school boards here in Yellowknife, but also other school boards in the territory, the Inclusive Schooling Program funding that they’re getting is not working.

I want to know from the Minister will he commit to doing a study of inclusive schooling funding and a study of the Inclusive Schooling Directive and make some revisions? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my statement and I have some questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

I spoke to a review of inclusive schooling, which we had been advised by the Minister was being done. I’d like to first of all ask the Minister for an update on that inclusive schooling review. Has it been done and when will it be made public? Thank you.

Some months ago, the Minister promised the department would do a review of the inclusive schooling funding formula, but there is no evidence to date that that has been done. It’s time to revisit and redefine the funding formula for inclusive schooling. The entire inclusive schooling directive must also be revisited, revised and redefined. Both of these must be done in consultation with education stakeholders, developed with them, not designed by the department and then presented to stakeholders for comment.

We spend a lot of money on inclusive schooling. We must evaluate how we are spending it...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.