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HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2008
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Committee of the Whole House on Supply is now called to order.
The honourable Deputy Government House Leader.
MR. CHUCK PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I move that we move into the estimates on Education.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We will continue with the Education estimates.
The honourable member for Waverley-Fall River- Beaver Bank.
MR. PERCY PARIS: Mr. Chairman, to continue where we left off yesterday, I would like to start off this afternoon, with my first questions - what I would term as some soft questions, or some housekeeping questions. I know both the minister and deputy have heard these questions before but I think, for the record, I am just going to reiterate some here.
Now I noticed the construction list, which is always of great interest to all Nova Scotians, when it comes to new schools. I would like to think that any time we talk about new construction or even those things that are classified under renovations, is that those of us, either in the House or even outside of the House, would never want to pit one community against another.
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I think when the issue was raised - I shouldn't say issue but maybe the concern was raised with - I think, the name of the school was Lakeview Consolidated School, being added to the list. There was some initial concern about how that got on the list. There was some discussion in the House and outside of the House around how that happened to be. I think probably one of the concerns that I expressed, was my initial concern around queue jumping. Hopefully, that because of Party stripes or anything, that this wasn't the case.
Maybe if we could just start off the afternoon, if the minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, could just maybe briefly comment on the current construction list and more particularly with reference to Lakeview Consolidated School going from renovation to a new construction, please.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Education.
HON. KAREN CASEY: Mr. Chairman, thank you to my critic for the question. I am pleased to be able to provide a response and clarification as to how projects that are renovation projects do become new school construction projects. My explanation will be the same as I have given before, but I will give it here again. The current capital construction list that we are working on was established in 2003 and at that time there were a number of new schools and there were a number of renovated projects there. It was an extensive list an over $400 million list at that time. We have been working through that list as capital dollars allow us to each year.
However, as we move through that list, there are sometimes changing demographics. There are changes within the school community, and often times boards come back to us and say we know it was approved for renovation, but let's look at the situation that we currently have. Sometimes that is initiated by the department staff themselves, to ask, is this the best use of the dollars that we have committed to that particular project?
So, getting to the Lakeview Consolidated School, it is one that, when it was announced in 2003, was to be a renovation project. In that particular community there are two schools that accommodate the elementary students - there is a P to 2 school and then there is a Grades 3 to 6 school. It was renovation dollars for the Grades 3 to 6 school that was approved in that list in 2003, and at that time the cost to do that renovation was about $4 million - $4.7 million. We all know that the cost of construction has risen since that time and, as we approached the beginning of expending dollars on that project, staff had a look at that expenditure and they costed it, at this point in time, to be about $7 million - over $7 million to do that same scope of work.
At the same time they looked at the community that would still have two schools - it would have a very old school with their Primary to Grade 2 population and it would have an old school renovated to the tune of $7-plus million for their Grades 3 to 6 - and questioned, is that the wisest use of our taxpayers' dollars to serve the students in that
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particular community? The decision was made at the time that no, what would it cost to build a new school that would accommodate all of the students? The projected cost for that was about $10 million, so it begs the question: Do you invest $7-plus million to renovate an old school or do you add $3 million to that to build a new school and bring all of the students from that community into one building? Thus the decision to change the renovation project to a new project was made and was announced.
I would like to also add that when I went back through to see if we were setting precedent here, we are not. Eight projects that were on that 2003 list as a renovation have now been switched over to new, so it wasn't a precedent, it was made in the interest of education programming for those students, as well as the best use of dollars. The increase in dollars are less significant when you are adding classrooms - the real huge costs in building schools would be for gymnasiums, cafeterias, libraries, music rooms and those speciality rooms. Those were already there in the Grades 3 to 6 school, so adding classrooms to accommodate the Primary to Grade 2 students allowed the costs to be reasonable.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, still staying with the construction list, one of the things that I would like know is - I should say one of the many things - can the minister provide me with a timeline as to what the schedule is going to be for the new construction? I know what we have and what I've seen is some planned openings, and I have a particular concern with planned openings of September. For instance, if I could use Waverley Memorial/ L.C. Skerry as an example, which has an opening scheduled for September 2010, I have expressed concern in this House previously that my concern is around a September opening, and my fear would be is that going to allow the building enough time for that off-gassing process that has to take place so that in September the kids will be able to actually use the facility?
So that in itself is a question, but also piggybacked on that question is I would like to see a timeline, a schedule for that, around the design work. When is the design work going to be completed for all the new construction, for the construction list? When are we going to have those planned moments where the community can have input and by what time? What are the deadlines that the Department of Education has to meet so that we can not only commit to September, or whatever the opening that has been given us, that we can ensure that we're going to meet that commitment?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, a good question because whenever you set a deadline, or a timeline, you make a commitment and in the construction business I think one of the things we've all learned is that can be a bit risky. Many things can interfere with that schedule. However, we do have a responsibility to let communities know the target date that we're working towards and it does help with our planning, it does help the community with understanding that we are keeping our commitment and when they can expect their new school.
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So it's true that September 2010 is identified as the projected completion and opening of the L.C. Skerry School. I would just like to speak, if I could, a bit about the process because, as the member knows, it's a lengthy process and it's one that's a test of everyone's patience and endurance. However, we do have a process in place and we do move through that. In particular, the first thing that has to happen, of course, is that we have to have a suitable site, and with the L.C. Skerry School we are working with the board and with the community, and I believe the preferred site is the current school site. We recognize that there are two buildings on that site and the challenge that we now have is how do we accommodate all of the students during construction time if we have to demolish one of those buildings before the new one can go up.
So those are things that have to be worked out, but once that is completed and we have finalized the site and the steering team completes its work on the design, then we're ready to go to tender and begin construction.
With respect to completion time and occupancy time - and I think that's the real question here - if we have targeted September 2010 for the school to open, we would want to make sure that our construction was completed in time for that off-gassing to take place for the transfer of equipment and furniture into the building, for the students to finish off their year in one school and be ready to start in another. So we would be expecting the construction completion would be in the summer of 2010, so students could occupy that building safely in September 2010.
However, that's something that we do monitor and if for some reason - and we've had some schools where the occupancy was delayed because construction was delayed and we didn't have that breathing time, and we also know that we had the situation at Citadel High and the period of time from the end of construction to occupancy was not as great as we would like it to have been, so we're very aware of that and we want to make sure that we respect that.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, through you, am I to interpret that as I will be provided with some sort of scheduling in regard to how tentative or unsure it may be, taking into consideration that things could change pending on availability of materials or weather, or storms, or whatever the case may be?
[3:00 p.m.]
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, we can certainly provide you with our past experiences about how long it takes to move through one step into the other. We can certainly give you that as a guideline, keeping the September 2010 opening as our target and backing up from there, because the number of months that contractors tell us they need for construction and then you back up from that to when you have your design completed, and you back up from
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that to when the site is ready. So we can give you some tentative blocks of time that are required to take us through each one of those steps in the process.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, that would be for all construction. I have only used Waverley Memorial/L.C. Skerry as the example only and I got a question mark at the end of that.
I guess my next question is in partnership with what we are just discussing now. My question is: Does the Department of Education have a business plan as such? I tried to access the Web site but I didn't see anything on the Web site regarding the business plan. If the department has a business plan, is it easily accessible and where would I get it?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, the answer to your question is yes, there is a business plan and we can certainly provide the member with a copy of that. It normally is on the Web page and, if the current one is not there, we can provide one for you.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I would like to move right along and go into an area that has probably been pretty close to me - well since I've been elected - and that's the one around lunch fees. I'm certainly not going to speak for my honourable colleague here to my left - maybe he might touch on lunch fees as well when he rises in his place. In particular, again, it seems like in the riding of Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank, this has been a particular sticking point. I think what happened around lunch fees, it grew to be an issue in greater proportion with all residents in HRM because it has an impact on everyone, these lunch fees.
I don't know if the minister is aware but there was an agreement back in - and I just want to refer to some notes here so I will get it right - I think it was in 2004 that Ash-Lee Jefferson School made an arrangement, through the EXCEL Program, which was only meant to be temporary thing. At that time, it was agreed upon by the school committee and the principal at the school that this would be a temporary thing. It was never meant to be something that was going to be in place forever and a day - unfortunately, here we are, we are still discussing lunch fees.
I certainly recognize, as a member of this House, the convenience of children staying in school over the lunch period. I certainly recognize and appreciate that regardless of where you live, whether it be in peninsular Halifax, whether it be in rural Nova Scotia or whether it be in suburbia, that parents make and plan their day - in lots of cases we have many families where both parents are working or you have single parents - where having their children stay at school during lunch hour is an added plus. Certainly, I for one would never ever take that for granted.
There seems to be an unfairness when it comes to these lunch fees. First of all, we are talking about something that was implemented in 2004 - I am quite sure it was 2004 or 2003 - which was only supposed to be a temporary thing. It all of a sudden became a
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permanent thing for one particular school. The unfairness of it, certainly in the outlying regions of HRM, and the question begs to be answered, why is it Ash-Lee Jefferson School charges lunch fees and other schools don't, within a close proximity of one another? Then we get into this whole debate, is lunchtime part of the school day? To me, it is.
What we've done is, and certainly not in the case of myself as a member, what we've done is in some cases we tried to partition off the school day which, in my humble opinion, is a bad strategy, is a wrong strategy and an unfair strategy. We tried to partition off the day, and it has certainly been interpreted by me as a way to get around the whole issue around lunch fees. So as complicated as lunch fees may sound, I think it's very, very simple.
When we first raised - and when I say " we", I refer to the good people of Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank - the issue of lunch fees, it was one where I agreed with them 100 per cent. There seemed to be an unfairness here, there certainly wasn't equity involved here. When I raised the issue and then the Liberals brought forward a bill, and I think it was Bill No. 51, I think that's the bill that I'm referring to, and called for the elimination of lunch fees, I thought that when we put that to a vote that it was passed unanimously by all Parties in the House of Assembly.
So one would assume, rightly or wrongly, but I think it's a fair assumption to make, that all Parties would have vetted the whole scale, the consequences, the pros and the cons, the good and the bad, related to lunch fees - and that would include the financial implications - with their Parties before taking a vote. So at the end of the day, I remain confused as to why we got into this, I'm going to call it "the situation", where we had a school board trying to seek out solutions, and I'm going to use the words "get around" a bill that was passed, something that became legal and lawful, and you've got a school board trying to manipulate its way around a bill. Fundamentally I had an issue with that; I've got a problem with that.
I'm wondering, through you, Mr. Chairman, if the minister could elaborate a little bit and comment.
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, you know some of the things that the member opposite has stated are actually very true. In particular when Bill No. 51 was introduced and when I was having discussions with both critics, I think there was - I know there was an understanding that there were some inequities across the province with respect to lunch supervision, and I think we all agreed and we had all-Party support for the bill that that should not continue.
At the same time as that bill was presented here and it was supported, the Halifax board was in the process of doing a review of their lunch supervision policy, so there was a bit of an overlap there and probably, in hindsight, that caused more confusion than we needed.
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However, we let that process unfold, and in the meantime at the department we started looking at what existed in other boards across the province. It did not appear to be a significant issue anywhere else and, in fact, the more we looked, we realized that it was not a significant issue in some parts of the Halifax board. So we could narrow it down to a number of schools where this was presenting a problem, and the legislation, Bill No. 51, provided some clarification for that; however, we at the department believed that there needed to be some further regulations to further clarify and make it very clear what the intent of the bill was.
The intent of the bill was that students would not be charged to stay at a school for lunch period. Those regulations are being formulated as we speak but they address those students who travel to school by bus, students who are in a school because of program reasons, in particular French immersion - and that was one of the issues brought to my attention by my critic - and the third one was students who do not have enough time to walk home at lunchtime. So the regulations that will support the bill will provide that clarification.
The question of the costs to implement that bill have been raised in the public and they've been raised at the board meeting. Again, I'll refer to all other boards in the province - they are currently covering supervision of students during lunch period, in a variety of ways, out of the funding that they get as part of their board funding from the province.
Many schools across the province, and some in Halifax Regional Board, have that supervision provided by teachers. In fact I was visiting a couple of schools in the Bedford area, a high school and a junior high, and without even talking about lunch fees, I asked the principal if most students stayed for lunch and activities during lunch period and who provided the supervision, and his comment was very clear: My teachers provide the supervision. So I know that that model exists.
Across the province, as I say, there are a number of ways. Some it is teachers doing supervision, and we know that in the collective agreement teachers do not have to do that supervision, but we do know that some teachers do do that. I guess I can speak from a personal perspective, both as a teacher and an administrator - and I think my colleague across the way would support my comments - that there's no better way to get to know the students in your school than to be amongst them doing supervision, when they're not in instructional class time. The interaction that you have with those students serves everyone well.
The second thing is, again from an administrator's perspective, the period right after lunch break is often the most challenging and your office is very busy. When teachers are providing that supervision, there seems to be a decline in the number of referrals to the office - so school principals and teachers are recognizing that it is important for them to have that interaction, and they are providing that supervision.
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Other boards - again, out of the funding that they get - are hiring noon-hour supervisors to come in and provide that supervision and, as a principal, I've worked in a school like that where community folks who have an interest in the school come in and they provide supervision and they get paid for that. So there's more than one way to provide that supervision, there are a number of ways.
What we're saying to the Halifax board, and to all other boards across the province, is that we expect that supervision to be provided at no cost to students. We recognize - and it is a bit complicated in the Halifax board - that they have programs in place where they do charge a fee through the EXCEL Program and we have given that board, through the regulations, one year to eliminate that particular model for supervision. We've also said that if there is a fee, it would be to a not-for-profit group.
[3:15 p.m.]
Also in the regulations, there will be an amendment to the Act which says that effective September, 2009, there will be no fees charged. So what we're basically doing is giving that board, and those schools within the board, some time to shift to a new model. We have also heard from that board that there will be significant costs for them to do that. We're giving them a year to find a model that they can follow and do within the funding that they currently get from the department.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I think one of the things that I heard there is that the board will have to do with what it has. So what I'm hearing is that there will be no additional funding provided to the board to cover the cost of lunch-monitoring fees - is that correct?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, I'm going to have to ask you to repeat the question - my deputy was talking to me.
MR. PARIS: What I heard was that the board, particularly the Halifax Regional School Board, is going to be asked to absorb the costs and that there will not be any additional funding to cover the cost of lunch-monitoring fees, is that correct?
MS. CASEY: Thank you for repeating the question. I made a statement, and I will repeat it, that if and when boards find that they are in some difficulty and have an unexpected expense, regardless of what it is, they always have the option of coming to the department outlining the unique circumstance in which they find themselves and if there's a request for additional funds to help them out of that, sometimes that request does come and sometimes we're able to accommodate that. So I'm not ruling that out, but we have communicated to that board what our plan is and what our expectation is.
I will say this - that we will not expect students who could not walk home at school lunchtime because of the shortness of time to have to do that. We recognize that a lot of
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things have changed and we, as you have mentioned, have working parents - two parents who are working and no place for their children to go at lunchtime - and also the issue of safety and concern with young children walking in subdivisions or walking on streets without sidewalks. So safety is very much an issue here but to answer your question - boards are expected to make sure that students do not have to pay, and they have the one year to make that accommodation. If they find that they're struggling during that one year, that particular board, they can come to us and present their case.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, since we just made a wee bit of a transition - and I know that it's closely connected - from lunch fees, because I know there's an attachment there to funding, let's just very briefly explore board funding itself.
Is it fair for me to say that - no, I'll pose it another way. Under the funding formula that the Department of Education uses to fund boards, is it - and I'm not going to use the word "equal", because if you treat all the same - my question is, is it a fair formula? I say that when we talk about, and one of the things that the department has talked about over the last year or so is about declining population in certain areas of the province, which is certainly absolutely true. I hate to do this - but it's the one I'm the most familiar with because it's where I live - but when you take the Halifax Regional School Board, what we have is when you apply the formula, and it's the same formula as applied across the province, then I think certain inequities do occur because you may have a portion of the Halifax Regional Municipality that may have a declining student population, but yet you're going to have areas of the same area, such as HRM, that are going to have an increased student population. So my question - is the formula a fair one?
MS. CASEY: To the member's question with respect to funding - there is a formula. The Hogg report was accepted and within that report there was a funding formula that was used. At the time that was developed and formulated, it did try to address a number of the circumstances that are different across the province, based on geography and demographics and so on.
That formula does recognize areas where there are declining enrolments; it does recognize areas where there are high costs for transportation, but that is specific to each board, and then within the funding the board gets they, in turn, have to address some of the discrepancies, or inequities I guess, within their board. Halifax, obviously, would be one board that has the strong urban core and the very rural population, so they would look at the funding they get and be expected to address those particular and unique circumstances that exist within their board - but when the funding goes to the board, those other areas are given consideration and funded appropriately.
MR. PARIS: I still want to continue with the thought - has funding for school boards in the Province of Nova Scotia gone up equally across the board, the same for everybody, or is it at the discretion of the Department of Education where one school board may get a 3 per
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cent increase and another school board may get a 5 per cent increase? Is it at the discretion of the school board or - could you explain how that works?
MS. CASEY: We have experienced, and are continuing to experience, significant declines in our student population; in fact, last year, about 2,000 fewer students graduated from Grade 12. We're experiencing that decline and we have over the last number of years. However, our funding to boards has not reflected that decline; in fact our funding to boards has increased during that time. I guess what I'm saying is that we recognize there are additional costs and it's not related directly to enrolment and only to enrolment. There are those other factors, those other costs that boards have that are part of that formula and are given consideration in that formula.
MR. PARIS: Yes, to the minister, I would recognize that there would be things that have gone up. If you look at heating costs alone, I think probably you're going to see an enormous increase in heating costs. The real question that I'm asking is, and what I'm trying to determine is the formula and if it's across the board. If every school board is treated equally then the formula may not be a fair formula, and again it goes back to not only just students, and I think the minister put it so well - there are other reasons why education costs can go up; it's not all related to the decline in student population. For instance, it could be a renovation on a school, it could be associated with fuel costs, it could be related to a number of things. So, is it at the discretion of the school board or is it 3 per cent, or whatever the percentage is, right across the board for everyone?
MS. CASEY: I hope I'm understanding the question. I'm going to repeat an answer that I gave because I think that's the question that's being asked. The formula that's being used was designed to give consideration and take into account those differences across the province and those differences with respect to demographics, geography and other needs. So it's not a straight formula where you take your student enrollment and do your multiplication and get your funding. You have to include in that the transportation costs within the board and the enrollment, of course, is one of the factors.
That was all established and accepted in the Hogg report and I've said this to other boards and I will say it here for the record - we need to take a look at how effective the implementation of the Hogg report has been. If we find that, you know, there are discrepancies there, some boards feel that they've not been fairly funded, then a review of that implementation will identify those things. That will give us further direction as to, if we make changes, and when we make changes. That formula has been used for a number of years and I would welcome an opportunity to review that to see if, in fact, the implementation is fair to all boards.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I certainly welcome that comment by the minister and the comment that I'm welcoming is the fact that you will review the Hogg report in the funding formula with respect to the fairness of it. I would request that when that process
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takes place, I hope it will be sooner as opposed to later, and if the minister could give me a timeline also when we might expect that to happen and also upon that happening if that information will be made available to me ASAP?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, the review of the Hogg Report funding formula would be a fairly comprehensive review and we would certainly want to look at having the right process in place for that review to take place. All I can tell the member opposite or others in the House is that I will make a commitment to have that and once we have a timeline, the member opposite and all members will be made aware of that and there will be opportunities for participation in that process.
MR. PARIS: I still want to stay with some dollars and cents stuff here. Board elections, we've got an election coming up in, I guess it's October of this year. Board elections - are they funded by the school board or are they funded by the Department of Education?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, the elections that are upcoming in October, both school board and municipal elections, are cost-shared. The school board elections are cost-shared by the municipality and by the department. I can get you the details as to what portions of that, if that would be of interest. I don't have that now but I know that they are cost-shared.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, a quick follow up to that answer and I thank you for that. Is that going to change anytime soon? Is the cost that's now being absorbed by the Department of Education, is that going to be downloaded to the school boards?
[3:30 p.m.]
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, I'm not expecting any change to that soon but I would certainly want to remind the member opposite and all members that the costs of that board election, the board's contribution to that should not have any negative impact on services to students.
MR. PARIS: When I hear that may not happen soon, then I guess a red light goes off and says to me that maybe it is going to happen. I appreciate and recognize when the minister says it will not impact what goes on in the classroom. If I'm deducting this properly, then I guess I would assume - I don't want to assume too much - that future budgeting for school boards will reflect that added cost to them if those prices are downloaded onto them.
MS. CASEY: The way this cost-sharing works is that the municipalities pay their share, the boards pay their share and then the board bills the department and we provide them funds to cover the cost of their share.
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MR. PARIS: I don't want to beat this one to death, just so I understand, that will always continue then, for the next number of years you don't see any change in that?
MS. CASEY: To the member opposite, as he would know, each year is a budget year, but we have no plans to change the structure and the model that's currently used.
MR. PARIS: I'm really enjoying the way this flow is going because there has been some good transitions here, at least for me, from my perspective.
Now we'll talk about boards and board elections. It raises, for me, the last board elections, along with the municipal elections, there was some fall-out as a result of the school board elections. Certainly, in one part of the province, a member of the African-Nova Scotia community went to court over a seat that he was vying for, a board seat, the African-Nova Scotian seat. Also we had a case in another part of the province where somebody went to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission.
My next question to the minister would be, what steps has the department taken to rid the elections of these current, flaws or these past flaws that existed and caused all these disruptions in our political process?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, I understand that the concern with what happened in the past has been addressed through the elections officers. Because it is through their office that the elections are conducted, we have given some advice to them that steps be taken so that the situations that happened in those two you've mentioned do not happen again.
MR. PARIS: Those steps, those initiatives that have taken place, would those be available? Would I receive some type of documentation from the Department of Education? Or, do I have to go through Elections Nova Scotia?
MS. CASEY: I would suggest that information should be available through Elections Nova Scotia.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, still with board elections, currently, as it stands now, we have the seats that are provided for the African-Nova Scotian community, I know that there has been some past discussion and I know I received a letter from the department with respect to a Mi'kmaq seat. So I guess my first question is, will that be on the agenda for this year, for October? Will there be a Mi'kmaq seat, similar to the African-Nova Scotian seat?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member, it is my understanding that the members from the Mi'kmaq population are appointed, rather than elected. So that would not be part of the election process in October.
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MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I'm seeking some information, still staying with board elections. There has been certainly raised to me, since I have been Education Critic, a lot of inquiries made to me by parents of learners with disabilities. So there have been a number of conversations certainly at the table that I sat, about the possibility - or is it feasible or is it reasonable - to have somebody who sits at the board table who represents or, and I don't want to use the word expert, but certainly has the knowledge and the wherewithal to address those issues. Those concerns that confront not only children with learning disabilities but also have some knowledge of what parents go through as well. So have you had any inquiries related to that and if so, maybe you could elaborate for me.
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, you know, when board members are elected, they come to the table with a mandate to represent all of the parents and students within the area from which they have been elected. That brings a great diversity to the boards that assist them in making their policy decisions, and recognize that that diversity allows a lot of expertise and a lot of a professional knowledge to come to the board tables. Is it ever possible to have a professional or a specialist from every segment of education represented at the table through an elected board member? No, it isn't, but the intent is to get that broad range and that diversity there.
But board members and board staff do benefit greatly from advisory committees and advisory groups that provide them with the information that they need and the background they need to help them make good policy decisions. That's the model that we currently work through and work with and it appears to work well. Any group that, whether it's for learning disabled or any other group of students or parents who wish to have their concerns heard or wish to give advice to the board to help them with their decision making, that's an open and ongoing line of communication. Board members welcome that opportunity. They know they can't all be experts in everything but they certainly can seek out that expertise through their advisory groups and through their board staff.
MR. PARIS: Madam Minister, you brought up the word diversity and I guess it made a mental switch for me. I can remember certainly in my years in the public education system here in Nova Scotia was oftentimes - I'm not going to say sometimes, but oftentimes I was disappointed, as a youth, growing up in Nova Scotia, about the lack of recognition of that diversity in our textbooks.
So I guess the "A" part of my question to the minister would be, does the minister feel or think that the textbooks in Nova Scotia adequately reflect the diversity in the history of Nova Scotians? Taking into consideration the strong contributions and the strong influence from the Mi'kmaq community or communities - I shouldn't say community and I apologize for that - but communities of Nova Scotia, as well as those of African Nova Scotian descent, along with the Scottish and the Irish and everybody else.
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MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, I'm pleased to know that I'm providing the segue for you to move from one question to another, I seem to be doing that well.
With respect to your question, though, and I've gone on record and I will repeat, that with respect in particular to African Heritage Month I believe is when I made the comment. I was in a school talking about African Heritage Month. My comment was that the biggest mistake we're making is that we identify one month to be African Heritage Month, that that should be something that is 12 months of the year and I really believe that. I believe that about all cultures that we represent and that we respect and that we want to learn more about.
Specific to the Mi'kmaq or the African Nova Scotian population, we have curriculum folks at the department who review curriculum with the intent to incorporate into that aspects of our culture so that every student, as they move through the curriculum, have exposure to and recognition of and appreciation of all of those cultures in our province. So we have made a commitment to review the curriculum, the Grade 10 curriculum for Aboriginal population. We have - through the Black report, there were a number of recommendations on curriculum. One of them is the African Heritage English 12, which has been introduced, which again is an option for all students, as one of their graduation requirements and one of their selections throughout Grade 12.
So we are slowly working on that, we recognize it, we know it's not enough but I think we're moving in the right direction.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The honourable member's time has expired on this round.
The honourable member for Kings West.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and welcome to the staff from the Department of Education, familiar faces here for the past few years.
My first comment is really a general one and it's been a year since we've taken a look at some of the detail that we are able to do in estimates, plus look at some of the program initiatives that have been going on. I first want to take this opportunity to say that working with the minister and with my colleague, the critic for the NDP, I think the three of us have had a very productive relationship in the best interests of students here in Nova Scotia.
[3:45 p.m.]
I do want to applaud the minister for her availability, for her time to work on issues that are brought to me, as the Liberal Education Critic, and also to my riding as an MLA. That is something that no matter about our partisanship when it comes to education, we do
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have a very common interest in trying to make good decisions and improve our education system. So I thank the minister for that.
The area that I was looking at, I guess our questions will be broken up into three parts, P to12 and post-secondary, and then I guess that kaleidoscope of questions from my colleagues, which will come for Part 3. I was going to do some on university education today. There were a number of students from ANSSA who were here in the House but they've had to leave. I know some students are still writing exams. So perhaps they will come back tomorrow.
An area for me that has been I guess one of the special interests that I have been an advocate for, starting back now about three to four years ago, and that's with the specialized schools and the programs they offer. I know it started with Thomas Aquinas and the possibility they would have to close their doors before a school year ended. It was, for me, the very first time to look at the two schools in metro. I was fairly familiar with Landmark East, because it has been established for such a long time and also being close to my riding in the Annapolis Valley. So it gave me an opportunity to take a look at what went on at Bridgeway Academy, and now Churchill Academy has taken over the programs that were offered at Thomas Aquinas.
There is no question that these schools are filling a tremendous need, perhaps we may even say a void left by public education through the process of inclusion. I think they are rightly connected because some of the students who had special needs, whatever the disability may be, and most of them are around language processing of one kind or another. So these students had to be left behind, perhaps, for two or three years before they were able to get the support, in some cases, of course, from their school board. The province has always recognized that students may not be served completely by the public school, and there was an opportunity for boards to assist with a student going to Landmark East, for example, and then these other two schools came along.
The 2007 Budget announced a one-year extension of the program with no mention in it of 2008. Now, this year, we see that the per-student allocation of school boards was $6,400, and to allow that money to follow the student if they need specialized education that the public school was not able to provide.
So my first question to the minister is, why has the government not made a long-term commitment in regard to the Tuition Support Program?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, I would make a comment before I begin to answer the question that the reference to a very strong working relationship that I do have with my two critics, I believe, has made some changes that have caused benefits to all students in this province, and I thank you both for that support. I believe that we look at issues based on what
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is in the best interests of students, and that is not a bad starting point. So thanks for your co-operation and I look forward to that continued partnership.
With respect to the issue of tuition support and students with special needs, this came up I guess perhaps in 2006 when I first came in, but there was a recognition by this government that there were students whose needs were not being adequately met. Students with some severe special needs, in our public schools. It was this government that introduced the Tuition Support Program at that time and it was introduced as a two-year program, expecting that during the two years students would be able, with extra supports and additional one on one intervention, to close that gap and go back into public schools and have success. That was monitored. It was watched. Parents were recognizing that students were benefitting from that program and so the request came and we supported an extension of that into a third year. So the Tuition Support Program, as it currently exists, is a three-year program again with the expectation that the third year would be a transition period for the staff in the receiving school and the staff in the designated school to work together with a program that would ease the transition for students from one facility to another.
After I came in as minister, one of the things I called for was for the review of special education delivery in this province; that report was received. The report was very extensive, a lot of consultation across the province. The committee heard from parents, from teachers, and from others across the province who spoke specifically to special education programs and to the Tuition Support Program. Folks in this House will recall that one of the recommendations in that report was to discontinue the Tuition Support Program that this government had introduced and I'm sure they will recall that was a recommendation that I did not accept.
My comments at that time were if we believe that the responsibility of public education is to meet the needs of all students as best we can, then we have to look at how effective we are or have been. I was not prepared to take the opportunity for students to attend a designated school and was not prepared to take that opportunity away from them if, in fact, that opportunity was helping them meet the need. Until we were able to deliver a program as good or better than the one that they would receive there, I was not accepting that recommendation and the Tuition Support Program would continue. So that's a little bit of the history of where we are.
We made a commitment also at that time when my report was released in December 2007, made a commitment that we would bore down and look at the Tuition Support Program, in particular, to see how effective it has been. We know that the program that's delivered, and as my critic has mentioned, three sites, three schools that have an excellent reputation, and they are designated as schools to which our students can go with some of our tuition funding. When you look at the geography of this province, you recognize that for some students that is a severe disadvantage. Two of those schools are in metro, one is in the Valley, and so that causes me some concern.
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Ideally students could get that program in their own community school but until we have teachers who are trained and understand the particular disabilities that students present and until they have strategies that can effectively cope with those and help students succeed, we wanted to leave that option of a designated school open to them My purpose in calling for a review of that Tuition Support Program, in particular, had to do with what they deliver, how they deliver it, and where they deliver it because I think that if that is a model for meeting the needs of learning disabled students in this province, that we need to look at equity.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Madam Minister, for that overview and reflection on your comments when the review came out. I was certainly one critic who was very pleased that the Tuition Support Program was endorsed by the minister, and would concur that it is needed and hopefully we are going to be looking at a time when we can transition to each of the districts hopefully - the seven districts, plus CSAP - which would offer specialized education in some type of renewed or reformed format for the future.
When you did respond to the special education report in December of 2007, you announced the hiring of consultants. I'm wondering, could the minister update the House on the progress and the mandate that the consultants have been given? Just if we could get a status report on that, please.
MS. CASEY: Yes, I did certainly indicate that part of this addressing the concern and looking for possible solutions was to have someone in place to take the lead on that. It is in the budget that's before us and we are looking, with budget approval, to have that person in place and a working committee struck June of this year. I think the information that was released at the time is that they would be expected to have a report to me in June of 2009, with recommendations as to what we need to do, what we can do, and what we should do to provide a broader menu of choices for students who have special needs.
So, pending approval of the budget, that position will be advertised, filled, and the working group will begin their work and they will report back in June of 2009.
MR. GLAVINE: I don't know if the minister is trying to elicit another response from me on the budget, but I won't go there today. One of the current requirements for qualification is an IPP, and we know that different schools, if not so much maybe school boards, but different schools do use this mechanism, this tool, in different ways.
That being said, it seems that at least a child is two or three years below grade level before we have an opportunity to look at tuition support, and I personally find that troublesome, especially since some students are able to get an educational assessment fairly early on and we know the severity of some of the learning disabilities, ones I know the minister would be very familiar with. I'm wondering if that's troublesome to the minister and
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would also be one of the areas perhaps as we refine tuition support and the criteria, while hopefully we're on a path to full public education delivery of Special Ed. programs.
[4:00 p.m.]
MS. CASEY: It's true that at this point in time, the criteria that we use to determine eligibility, I guess, would be that the student must be on an IPP. That, I believe, was established because there needed to be some measure to determine that there had been some intervention, that an IPP had been set up at the school with the team of support, including parents, and that there had been some attempt at the school level to try to meet the need. So the IPP was part of the criteria, and if a student had been identified and assessed and was in need of an IPP, had been following one and still not having the success that we all wanted, then that would help determine their eligibility to go to a designated school.
But I'm hoping - I know the member raises the question about educational assessments and I know that there seems to be a lot of students who do need an assessment to determine appropriate placement and curriculum - that the review that this committee will be doing will be addressing that very thing about what criteria has to be used in order to determine that a student is not able to make the gains required in a public school and needs the support of a designated school. So I think we agree on that one.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Madam Minister, for that perspective. One of the other areas around tuition support and special education that surfaced with the review panel, and also when the report came out and there were media reports surrounding the panel's findings - one of perhaps the disconcerting pieces of information that came forward for all of us I'm sure was that there were parents who did not know that this program existed.
I'm wondering if the minister, through the Department of Education, has started to address that and is there a means in place where more parents can at least be aware of the program? If their child is in great need, they may not be able to go to one of the three schools immediately if they don't have available space but if parents aren't aware of this assist - because we know that one of the things that the department looked at was, I guess to some extent, the means to go to these schools. So I'm wondering about information through the public education system to make parents aware?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, the challenge I guess with any program that we have is that of communication. Boards certainly are well aware, and have been aware, of our designation of three schools and I believe that the schools themselves have an excellent reputation across the province. However, we can always get better at communication and if that means that we communicate to the school boards that they in turn have their special education consultants or coordinators or their directors of programs make sure that this information is available as students are being assessed, then that's certainly something that we can do. But we, last year, had 124 students who took advantage of the Tuition Support
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Program. We also know that some of the best means of communication comes from those who have experienced that particular program. So it's another way of, I guess, making sure that people are aware but if communication - again, to the boards through their schools and to their parents - will make that information more readily available, that's something that we can do.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, one of the issues that did arise from the special education review was that the minister moved in a different direction from the panel on one of the recommendations at least, and probably the one that garnered the most public reaction for certain. However, there doesn't seem to be yet that very clear determination about permanent funding of the program until each of the boards is able to adequately have in place delivery of a comparable, a similar type of program, because I'm sure the minister, if she didn't read in detail the report at the committee level when parents and grandparents came to speak in support of the tuition support - maybe Madam Minister did. For me it had to be one of the most, well, quite gripping accounts of their children with the challenges to get the assessment, meet all the criteria, and get the tuition support but on the other side of that, once their child or grandchild started to go to one of the three special schools, just how profoundly their learning started to be engaged and how, school, again, all of a sudden became for the first time an enjoyable experience.
We all know that if a child is not thriving in school, the kinds of challenges, then, that teachers have, that parents have and the frustration on the child's part. It's an area that until we're able to deliver more fully, we know there are some things currently being done - we have special education teachers in public school, but we're under-resourced and perhaps don't have the intensive work that's often needed. Just this past weekend, I met a teacher in the AVRSB system who's doing special education, but it's two days at one school, three days at another, which makes it very, very difficult for continuity and that kind of intensive work that we know a student with disabilities needs.
Is government looking at holding on to tuition support and having it available until we're able to fully introduce back into public education?
MS. CASEY: Yes, I did read, and I did find it emotional, and I understand, rightly so, that parents want the very best for their students and we as a government - and as the minister - want to do the same thing. That's one of the reasons why we were not prepared, and I was not prepared, to accept the recommendation to discontinue the tuition support.
To answer your question, the Tuition Support Program that we currently have - which is a three year program - will continue until we have a program in place that is as good as or better than, so students who go into that program still have the three years with the expectation that the third year is transition.
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I do want to make a comment about our increasing our capacity at the schools to meet the needs of those students. Since 2004, we have added at least 175 people into the system, teachers into the system - whether it's special education teachers, whether it's resource teachers, whether it's learning support teachers - in an effort to make sure that we do have the resources there to help these students cope.
Many of them do want to stay in our public school system. That would be their preference. So we have to boost up and ramp up our abilities in the schools to meet their need, and we've started to work through that. So I think it's, I guess, an acknowledgement that we're not going to discontinue a program that works, we are working to improve our delivery models in the schools, and when those two come together we will be looking at students having their needs met in our school. I would say this, there are some students whose needs are so severe that it will be very difficult for us to meet them in a public school system.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Madam Minister, for that kind of insight into the future of the program and how you view, I guess, delivering adequate education programs to our children who have some of the greatest needs.
Just moving a little bit - one of the areas is generally language processing. When we take a look at trying to support people who leave school early or, in the past, whose disabilities weren't always met with successful remediation in the school system, we know that in our province, and we also can say across the country, we do have fairly significant challenges with literacy.
We know the federal government did drop some of the funding for literacy. This is a little bit outside of the P to12 but it has that connection because very often it's people who did not make it through to Grade 12. I know that on Prince Edward Island, the former Premier, Pat Binns, lobbied the federal government quite successfully to restore programs and I'm wondering if you or your government had looked at getting some support restored for literacy? We know how significant that is in terms of workforce training and especially today when we have a workforce retention problem and a worker you have who can be upgraded and skills improved. That's why I did endorse and support the bill with regard to workforce development going along with labour.
But, literacy is a big issue, it's been identified by many, recently, as one that we do have to make a concerted attack at. So, to just rephrase my question again, has the minister engaged in any kind of dialogue to help some of those funds be restored?
MS. CASEY: A couple of comments - when the federal funding was withdrawn or redirected, it did have an impact on the ability of communities, in particular, to deliver their literacy programs. I'm sure the member opposite has had the opportunity to attend adult literacy graduation ceremonies. There's nothing that moves you any more than to hear people
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who have, for whatever reason, not had success in public schools but who have gone back as adults - some of them, a long working career before they've gone back - but they recognized they wanted to improve their own skills and they wanted to have more confidence in their own abilities. When they tell their testimonies, it's certainly heartwarming.
So, with any funding reduction that could have a negative impact on that, it's obviously a concern. The council of ministers across Canada expressed their concern in writing to the federal minister when that happened. At that time, we were supporting about 33 different community groups who were carrying on adult literacy programs out in the communities. As the critic has mentioned, that is no longer a part of my department, that has gone over to Labour and Workforce Development. That's not to say that when it was in my department, we didn't make every effort to remind the federal government of the importance of that. With the limited funds that were there, we were still able to have very successful programs delivered by very capable people in our communities.
[4:15 p.m.]
Through the Chair, you may want to hold that question for the new minister, if you wish. We have not seen any indication that that money is going to be restored.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, I hope to get the opportunity in terms of funding for literacy and the tremendous call for support of the programs. I won't tell the minister's colleague, the member for Kings North, that she doesn't quite have his new department title down yet, I'm sure he would be very disappointed to know that.
To move in bit of a different direction here, we're now closing in on two years since the Halifax Regional School Board saw the minister invoke Section 68 of the Education Act and remove governing authority from the elected board. The new board was an appointed, one-person board, Howard Windsor. Some of his decisions, I think, can potentially have ongoing ramifications for education in HRSB. I'm hoping some will be reviewed by the new elected board that will come in, in October. We saw, perhaps, a little bit of defiance around the school lunch fees, which I know the minister has talked about quite extensively today and I think perhaps among the school boards, central office and the Department of Education, I think this can be resolved and resolved very satisfactorily, going forward, and I have no problem with seeing it happen over a couple of years.
However, I was one of the people who asked my caucus, and brought it to the caucus for deliberation, to ask for elections for a new school board and the record will show that within days of that decision, we had asked for it. There is nothing wrong in this context to perhaps look back, do a retrospective analysis, and I'll be very direct and ask the minister if she would still go in the direction of having just one person take on school board functions? We regard school boards and their role in this province, I would say if not universally, strongly accept it as having a very important role in function in our school system, and I'm
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wondering if the minister would perhaps reconsider another approach if such a dilemma were to rise at another time, in another board, or repeat here in HRSB?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, the model that we currently have in this province for delivery of education includes elected school boards. I have made this statement before, I will repeat it, that when school boards and school board members understand their roles and their responsibilities and the relationships one with another and with their staff of the board, then they are effective. In most boards across the province, that exists and that's what makes them functional and effective.
The situation that presented itself in Halifax was one that needed some immediate attention. It wasn't something that happened one time, but it was a series of ongoing events that did not seem to be improving and had the potential to interfere with the delivery of programs in classrooms because it was causing the board to be unable to effectively deal with their board meeting agendas or to deal with policy development, thus the action.
To get to the member's question about, is this a model? I repeat that a one-person board, in this circumstance, was able to provide the bridge between the time when the board had their responsibilities removed and the new elections. It brought stability to the school system. It allowed staff to work with the one-person board. One of the things we were very careful to do when we set up that model was to make sure there was opportunity for public, parents to have access to Mr. Windsor and to make sure the agendas that were planned for the month included opportunities for school advisory councils and others to have items on the agenda and opportunities for presentation.
So, we wanted to make sure that ability for communities to feel they had a voice in the work their board was doing was something that was important and we tried to write that into the model that we introduced with one person.
There are always decisions that boards make that people question. There are also opportunities for boards to, I guess, revisit issues and decisions that have been made. It's not for me to predict what will happen in an election this October, but I do hope those people who offer and who are elected in Halifax and all other boards across the province, come to that election, and to the board table, with the same motivation and desire to do the best they can to represent the people who elected them.
I go back to my comment about diversity. They will bring diverse ideas, suggestions and expertise to the table. If, in fact, any board - and the new board in Halifax would be one - if there are issues that come back to their table as a new board, they can revisit any of those and if there are decisions that were made that a new board deems may not have been the best, then they have the ability to change those decisions.
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So, I'm hoping, as I said, that the elections will allow some interested people to come on board and that they will take their job seriously. I know the Nova Scotia School Boards Association is very anxious to work with all board members, professional development programs and modules they have developed, for board members to participate so that they can become a better board member and they can understand the role of governance and be effective.
It was a solution that worked in the interim. It's not the only solution. A few months ago, we made some changes in the Strait Regional School Board with a couple of areas within the operation of the board that needed to be addressed. We used a different approach there, but, again, it was all in an effort to make sure that critical decisions were made so that students' programs would not be interrupted and, in fact, would be supported.
MR. GLAVINE: Just to pursue this area a little bit further, one of our responsibilities, as legislators, is to review legislation, to amend legislation, to bring in new legislation when we see that updating and so on is needed. I'm wondering, Madam Minister, when you came to take a look and work with the power of the ministry and also what was contained in the Education Act, did you find any deficiencies in terms of how you may have been handcuffed in dealing with one or both of the boards that you have had to deal with?
I considered both issues to be very serious, to take from the primary mandate, obviously, of what school boards are in place to do - a distraction, a deflection of teacher, student and administrative issues. I am wondering inside of that Act, did you have the ability to deal with one or two school board members individually? Is there a governance model there? Is there a code of conduct that says to the minister that you do have some directives within legislation to proceed, or are there perhaps some inadequacies in that legislation?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, I became very familiar with the Education Act very quickly on this one because I needed to make sure that any decisions that I made were supported by the wording in the Act. So we did do that and we did proceed. We know that my decision was challenged by some members of the board and we know that my decision was upheld by the judge. We also know that now there are a fewer number of board members who are challenging the decision of the judge. However, with respect to my interpretation of the Act, I believe that it was certainly within the Act for me to do what I did.
There were some limitations in the Act, there is no question, because one of the things that we looked at initially was not one person but perhaps a team of two or three people who might assume that responsibility. The Act is clear in its reference to "a person". So that certainly is something that, as I said, could be seen as a limitation in the Act.
The other comment that you made and really a question, I believe, was respect to the code of conduct and directives from the minister. The minister, prior to my coming in, certainly had been working with the Halifax board and given some directives with respect
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to code of conduct. So we did, prior to my time, exercise our authority there in an attempt to bring about some change.
So the Act does allow for that, and it does allow for directives. The limitation, I would say, for the minister, was the one person wording, "a person", and that certainly may be something that we need to revisit.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, when I raised that issue - and I want to make it very clear that I am not reflecting on the tenure of Mr. Howard Windsor. Rather, you know, the whole question of transparent accountability with a one board member is one that was raised throughout that period of him being the school board.
[4:30 p.m.]
So I wanted to raise that here today, and I would hope that perhaps, again, some renewal of the legislation can be allowed for at least a team to be put in place if a board becomes dysfunctional and the minister has to step in. I'm wondering, are you prepared to move in this direction and is there some review going forward? I would go so far as to ask, in relation to taking the HRSB out of the Nova Scotia School Board Association, are you just going to leave that to the new board or are you prepared to recommend at least it be a topic for their consideration?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, . . .
MR. GLAVINE: Several questions.
MS. CASEY: Well, I see a couple there. First of all, with respect to any decision to go back and amend the Act, I would want to wait until we have the results of the appeal. I think it's important that we respect the judiciary here and see what comes out of that appeal.
The second thing has to do with the membership in NSSBA. Each board makes a decision as to whether they want to be a member of NSSBA and for all of the boards, their decision has been to pay their membership and be part of that association. Halifax has made the decision in I believe it was - how many months ago - a few months ago, early, I guess, February, early 2008, that they would withdraw from NSSBA. But again, that is one of those things that I believe will be revisited by the new board and I would expect that when that new board gets together and they talk about whether they want to be members of NSSBA, whether they see there is a benefit there, that they will make that decision at that time.
I certainly would encourage all boards to be members of NSSBA. I think there are a number of modules and a number of programs that are available for professional development for NSSBA members. I think it would be healthy.
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MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, my critic opposite has brought up the Hogg Report and the funding formula. As a first question, I am wondering if, at that time, the Department of Education or, again, the ministry, put in place any kind of a review mechanism or was it left ad hoc for the minister or Department of Education to review the funding formula? We all know there have been a number of changes, even in a very short time, around declining enrolment. We all know what is happening with the cost of heating our buildings, also resourcing our schools. Any time, of course, we add courses such as the new physical education course in high school, this is demanding, as well, on the current funding formula. So I am wondering if there was ever a plan to review after five years or whether the minister, herself, has heard from boards that perhaps it is something that should be done.
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite, I did speak to the Hogg Report and to the need to look at the effectiveness of the implementation of that. When boards raise questions about their funding and is it adequate and what about the equity issue, that would lead us to want to make sure that the formula that we were using is meeting the needs of those boards and recognizing that over the number of years - I think we have started completely implementing the Hogg Report two years ago - so we need to look at what has changed since the formula was established. Have conditions changed that would cause a review of that? We would be looking at - I guess we always do an ongoing internal review, but we would be looking at deputy and superintendents, taking a look at how that is impacting on them, has that changed over the course of two or three years of implementation and take our direction from there.
MR. GLAVINE: One of the areas that has been brought up in some of the discussions I've had with either school boards or the superintendents, is when their declining enrollment percentage just falls under that 2 per cent. Two per cent may not seem like a significant percentage, but if you're just under the 2 per cent, most are saying and concluding and analysing that it does have quite a significant impact on the delivery of programs that they're being asked to. In fact, it really says if you're in an area where we get multiple years of 1.5, 1.7 and so forth, we can see some inequities that are building. I'm wondering if there is enough leeway and discussion with boards when the minister is taking a look at budget proposals for the next school year, that in fact may have a trending which is just below that 2 per cent threshold.
MS. CASEY: To the member opposite, again, I talked about ongoing discussions and internal review. I know that every year when board superintendents and chairs meet with the deputy and staff to look at budget building and funding, they identify what some of their cost pressures are and whether the formula is addressing that or not.
We also know that within that Hogg formula, there is the 2 per cent declining enrollment that some boards are able to take advantage of. It's my understanding that five boards, currently, have taken advantage of that 2 per cent - it's kind of an odd way to say you take advantage of declining enrollment, but that has kicked in for five of the boards. There's
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always, if you're just a little bit off of that 2 per cent, then you don't benefit from it, but I think the fact that five boards have taken advantage of that, suggests that was a good condition, I guess, to write into the Hogg formula because it did recognize that if and when there is declining enrollment, there needs to be some compensation for that.
Again, board chairs and superintendents talk about that a lot and bring their concerns to the office. As I said, we will take a closer look at the effectiveness of that and board chairs and superintendents will be part of that.
MR. GLAVINE: I know I don't have a great deal of time left in my first one hour, so I'll probably come back to the Hogg report; there are a few other questions. I just wanted to ask the minister - I guess, for me, what was a little bit glaring in the budget was capping the Grade 4 class at 28. Is this a departure from what I saw as a really strong initiative to cap elementary class sizes at 25? Is this the pattern for Grades 4,5 or 4,5,6? I'm wondering if the minister would comment on that, please.
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, the whole issue of capping class sizes is one that we struggled with during the budget building process. Recognizing that we do have in place the caps of 25 for Primary, Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3, and recognizing that certainly implementation of that took some administrative work on the part of the principal to make sure that they could implement that with their staffing and having facilities to accommodate the students and so on, it's a good initiative. It's one that our Premier announced and having those caps in place has proven to be a good decision.
The cap that we're looking at in our budget for this year, for Grade 4, is a cap of 28 as opposed to a cap of 25. One of the things that caused us to take a long hard look at that is the impact that that has on a school with respect, as I said, to staffing and facilities and spaces, but we also recognized, at the same time as we would be capping the Grade 4, we would be introducing about 2,000 more students into our elementary schools, so quite an impact on elementary schools, positive in that we believe that having the change of entry date is good for our youngest learners, but also recognizing that there would be some staffing and spacing implications there.
So the decision we made, and a bit of a compromise is, yes, we recognize we don't want classes of 30, 35, 33, or whatever, in our elementary schools. Can we cap at 28 and can we protect those classes from going up to 30 and 35? We wanted to do that and so we did it, we did it with the 28, but we also made the comment that we will monitor that to see how effective that is and we will keep track of that as the year unfolds.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time has expired for the Liberal caucus.
The honourable member for Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank.
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MR. PERCY PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I have to say to the minister maybe we just have to replay the tape again, go back an hour in time to where we left off. We were talking, if I'm correct, about curriculum and we were talking about inclusion and textbooks. I think the minister left off with talking about the options that you have with respect to Mi'kmaq studies and African Nova Scotian studies, if I remember correctly. I just want to explore that just a little bit because one of the issues that I have, and I agree with what you were saying about Black History Month or African Heritage Month being one month of the year - that February being the lone month that we recognize the contributions made to personkind by this particular targeted group, and it should be 12 months of the year. I couldn't agree with you more.
[4:45 p.m.]
Having said that, Madam Minister, I'm curious and I'm wondering again about the curriculum and about those textbooks being more reflective of our society because this is the year when we're celebrating Democracy 250. I know that the minister would know this from her education and from her past that even though we are celebrating Democracy 250, democracy has been around for a long time and certainly with the Mi'kmaq population of this country that they also exercised a form of - they had their own democracy so democracy wasn't introduced in Nova Scotia with European contact. I would venture to say that history will also indicate that certainly in the continent of Africa, democracy was a well-practiced exercise.
So having said that, it goes back to my question about the textbooks. I say this certainly not out of any malice, it's more out of, I think, mutual concern we have for our public education system. I certainly know from my own personal experience that if the pages were more inclusive and there was an accuracy for the way history has been in Nova Scotia and in Canada, I think it would go so far to some of these problems that we are faced with today when it comes to the area of diversity and some of the 'isms that we face in our society today.
I'm a firm believer that we can never start too early with teaching our children about the diversity - and I must say, I think that's what made me so proud when I passed along the book to you, Madam Minister, from an elementary school in my riding, about friendship and how astute and how knowledgeable those children were in making sure that they were as inclusive as possible. I think that also is a testament to the teachers and to the staff and to the principal of Holland Road School, because I think what they've passed on to those particular students is something that we should be doing in all our schools, regardless of what the grade levels are. So, if we could pick it up where we left off, Madam Minister, if you could comment a little bit further about the inclusion aspect and how that relates to the textbooks that we have in our classrooms today.
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MS. CASEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the member opposite - we were in discussion about what we were doing with respect to curriculum and we are constantly reviewing our curriculum with a mind to diversity. We are constantly reviewing resource and reading materials that we can put into our libraries, into our school libraries, or into our classrooms.
We have had, and as the member would know, opportunities to review books that do speak very strongly to the culture and heritage of African Nova Scotians and the authors have been very co-operative. We have approved books to go as resource material to those classrooms. I'm thinking in particular of junior-senior high school readers, but we do take it seriously that we have a responsibility to all of our learners.
One of the things that I have the pleasure of doing and the advantage of being able to do, is to meet with the CACE group who give me advice. It is an advisory committee and they are very mindful of the curriculum and of how we might be more inclusive in that curriculum. I was delighted with the work of the school and developing writing and publishing their own book and I think I said at the time, that that's a lesson for adults and students as well, to read the messages in that book about friends and making and keeping friends.
We've done a number of things, I guess in our schools, through the Racial Equity Initiatives, to make sure that our teachers, and other workers in our schools, are sensitive to and aware of and I think that's a good beginning because we have to have that awareness and understanding and appreciation in our teachers so that they, in turn, can be the role models and convey that to our students.
So we recognize that we can always be better with curriculum content and with resource materials, but I think we're moving in the right direction. We have over $4 million this year to implement recommendations out of the BLAC Report and last year was the last of a four year and we maintained that into our budget. I think that's a good indication that we recognize the importance of those initiatives and want to continue to work in that area.
MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to make it very, very clear that what I'm talking about is inclusion and I certainly recognize and am certainly not criticizing those initiatives that the public education system has in place. One of the concerns I have is those initiatives that we are talking about now and discussing are optional. When I look at some of the courses that are offered, students have a choice of whether they take them or don't take them.
What I'm seeking here again, and I reiterate, is one of inclusion and that inclusion goes beyond just around - it's not solely targeted to cultural inclusion because one of the things - is it all right to use a prop, Mr. Chairman?
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MR. CHAIRMAN: No problem.
MR. PARIS: No problem. One of the things that I talk about is inclusion and it's for all individuals regardless of what your gender is, what your sexual orientation is, whether it's around culture. One of the things that impressed me so much - and I know this is a reiteration - but I just felt so good when I saw a group of elementary school kids produce this book and I can open it up and not only do I see individuals of different pigmentations with respect to their skin, but I see children being displayed in various ways of disabilities as well, which is all part of the learning experience.
I might add, when we talk about disabilities, it's one of cross-disabilities and too often we have a mindset when we think of disabilities and it's only that that's visible to us and there are many individuals in our society who have disabilities that are also invisible and this is all part of the diversity picture. So I certainly wouldn't want us to lose sight of that. Again, my emphasis here is one of inclusion and not a stand-alone or separate from, but part of.
I don't think there was a question in there, I think I was maybe making more comments than anything else. One of the things that you've proposed - and I guess it's between you and your government - is mandatory physical education. I wonder if the minister could again elaborate for me what that looks like, because I think you won't get any argument from anybody in society that we have to be healthier, that we have to exercise more, that we have to be more involved with those activities that require some type of physical exertion. We know that the school is not going to be a stand-alone, that there are other partners that we have to have outside of the school system who are going to maintain that.
I think, Madam Minister, if you could, when you get up to respond to this, I wonder if you could also include in your response- because I have a concern also about programs, programs that are involved in school that may be restrictive mainly because of the financial barrier that some students may face with respect to participation. I'm talking about those activities where you may represent your school on a particular sports team or it may require a road trip, which also has an associated cost, too, which for many students, again, is a barrier.
I also recognize that part of your elaboration could be also in the facilities. I know we have schools in the Province of Nova Scotia that lack adequate facilities and we are also aware some of the partnerships that we have, the facilities aren't as easily accessible as they would be if they were in the hands of the right - if I can use the word- right provider. So if you could elaborate a little bit on that for me and make some comments. Again, I think it's still staying with the theme of being inclusive and how more of our youth who are involved in the public school system can be involved and part of those exercises.
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MS. CASEY: To the member opposite, I think I have three questions I recorded there; if there are others, perhaps you could ask them again. But, first of all, with respect to the mandatory physical education, that was a commitment that was made by our Premier and this government. I think everyone understands the rationale behind that. We are certainly encouraging physical activity with all of our youth and adults and we recognize that one of the best places to start having adults become physically active is when they are students.
To that end, this government is requiring a physical education course as mandatory for graduation. We have put that in place, that has been communicated to schools and to parents and students. We expect that every student, by the time they graduate in 2011, will have completed a high school physical education program. There are a number of choices there, students have different choices to get them that mandatory course, but that is the expectation.
We also recognize that physical activity and physically active lifestyles should go beyond the gymnasium, beyond the classroom. We're encouraging people who participate in physical education programs to go outside the classroom. Some of that may be able to take advantage of other facilities in a community, but we recognize not all communities have skating rinks and curling clubs and ball diamonds, but where they are, participation in those activities, outside the classroom, is something we encourage.
What we want to do is to hook people on physical activity so that they will continue on. It's not limited to one course at the high school level. I've heard people make the comment, will one course at a high school level make someone physically active? The answer is, absolutely not and that's not the intent. The intent is to give students exposure to a lifestyle that, hopefully, they will continue on and become physically active adults. We are encouraging it to take place outside of the classroom.
I hope that speaks to your second question, which had to do with facilities. We've worked with our school boards and with our schools to look at what facilities they do have. Can they accommodate this? That's why we've given some time to make sure schools can adapt and they can look at their schedules to make sure they can accommodate those students as they move through. There is that expectation.
[5:00 p.m.]
The third question had to do with fees. It's clearly stated that school boards and schools will not charge fees for academic programs that are delivered in our schools, whether that's a fee for materials for a tech shop, materials for a family studies class, any fees that are related to that particular program that's delivered by the province and is a requirement of students to take, students will not be charged a fee. Now, when you look at sports teams travelling, when you look at class trips and those kinds of things, the policy on fees there, I think, is specific to fees that are a true reflection of the costs. So if there's a fee to go through
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a museum or something to that effect, if there's a fee to be paid, it's the actual cost of the fee at the museum, and I'm using that as an example. So there are no fees that will limit or prohibit students from taking courses that are required for them to graduate. I'm not sure that's all the questions but that's a few.
MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Madam Minister. When I am talking about fees, I'm talking more about those fees that a student would have to pay - and here we are, we're talking about promoting healthy lifestyles, and I don't think you're going to get any disagreement on that, but I think what we're talking about, what I'm talking about is those barriers that a student may face who wants to play on the varsity hockey team. There would be a fee associated with that and so for some students that fee can be a barrier. I'm only using hockey as an example because I guess that's a sport I'm more familiar with than any other sport, and it could be any number of games.
What happens is, if there's a fee for the sport itself and you're representing your school, and then if you were going to go in a tournament that required an overnight stay, there are additional costs for that to an individual who's already struggling to meet a fee to represent the school. So I understand and appreciate what we say about the promotion of healthy lifestyles and we're not disagreeing on that. So it's about those barriers. When I see in the budget on Page 17, that $500,000 is going to be invested to make physical education a mandatory high school credit, which raises again two more - I'm sorry, maybe I should end there because I've asked you a question and I'll save the other two questions after you've answered this one, fair enough?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, yes, more than three questions might be a challenge for me to remember so thanks for stopping when you did. I think specifically you're asking about students who play on varsity teams at their school and the costs that might be incurred as a result of that. Those are school fees, school funds, student council raise money to help support their school teams. There are fundraiser activities. There are partnerships where, you know, somebody in the community may be able to provide the ice time at the rink for curling or whatever. So, I think there are all kinds of ways that those costs can be covered.
I have yet to see a student who was denied access to play on a team or go on a school trip because their family could not afford it and most schools have students in that situation and they provide, they have access and they make sure that happens whether, as I said, it's from a student council fund, whether it's from a teachers' fund, or whatever, but specifically for those school teams that represent a school, there are funds that are generated at the school level to make sure that those teams can participate and their uniforms and their travel and so on. So I hope that addresses that question.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, it does but it doesn't, because what I am talking about is over and above those contributions and those partnerships that you just outlined - there is still out-of-pocket money involved. So regardless of what the partnerships
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are or what is being contributed to lessen the fee - and that's all it does, it just makes it cheaper for me to play - I know from experience, and I know from the last two years as an MLA, from parents and students calling who just don't have enough money to participate, the end result is they just don't bother and there are a number of reasons for that and they all make common sense, and it's around embarrassment for the student and a whole bunch of other reasons.
The $500,000 that is going to be invested in the mandatory physical education, how does that shake down - where is it going and just what is it targeted for? I know the emphasis is to make physical education mandatory in the public school system, but can you break it down for me.
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, one of the required programs at high school was a combination CALM/PAL course, which was the Career and Life Management and Physically Active Lifestyles, and those two half courses came together for one full course and what we did, in order to make sure that we expanded the physical activity part of it, was to take the PAL course and make it a full credit course and incorporate the components of the CALM program into PDR and other courses at junior and senior high. So that's the model that we have used.
The $500,000 that is there is for additional staff, to make sure that we have the staff in place to deliver that program, Again, the phasing in of that, so that students have to complete a course by the time they finish, graduate in 2011, gives schools and students a chance to adapt to that. So that is the model we are using; that is how we are able to add a mandatory course without increasing the number of course requirements.
MR. PARIS: When you say "adapt" - it seems like a word I've been using a lot today is one around assumptions, and I am thinking of individuals with disabilities. So the student with disabilities, how does she or he partake in those physical education classes and what sort of accommodations are going to be in place, if any, to accommodate that particular student?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, teachers have done a great job of accommodating students with limitations in their Phys. Ed. classes over a number of years. As long as I have been a teacher, I know that has been very much a focus for teachers, to make sure that students with limitations are included in as many of the activities as they are physically able to engage in. The mandatory Phys. Ed. class has a number of components - leadership as an example - modules that would not require strenuous physical activity. So, again, there would be modifications within that class so that the student could participate and could be successful. We are not expecting them all to be athletes. Those who are physically able will benefit because they will, we hope, develop a lifestyle that will include physical activity - and we have all seen athletes with severe physical limitations who have been very successful, so
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we want to encourage all students to be as physically active as possible, recognizing there are limitations and there will be adaptations.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, one final question, I think, on this theme. Does mandatory mean no exceptions, that regardless of what, it is going to be mandatory to take physical education even if I don't want to, regardless of what my health is?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, mandatory means that all students must take that particular course; however, we know that at all levels in our public education system we have adaptations, develop individual programs for students based on their needs, and whether it is in English, math, history or physical education, many students move through the system with an IPP which allows them to participate based on their ability, whether it's physical or otherwise.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I know when my critic opposite was up in the previous hour you started to touch on cap size. Also, during that discussion, you talked about some of those schools in the private sector, you talked about tuition support, and I think I heard something that went pretty well that no student will be left out - those weren't the exact words but that's how I interpreted it. One of the things that I thought I heard was that we have some gaps in the public education system when it comes to individuals with learning disabilities, hence those individuals may go on to the private sector, hence tuition support, so on and so on.
So one of the things I think that sets the private sector apart from the public system is the ratio of students to teacher - they have smaller cap sizes and that has always been seen as a plus. Now I know one of the things that you were discussing with the critic opposite was that there are some things that are contingent on what size, on what you are going to cap it at, whether it be 25 or 28, and one of them would be do you have the space. We can have cap size at any number, but we have to ensure that the space is there.
When I hear that and recognize that and I also hear the conversation that we have already had in my first hour around declining school populations, it throws up a question for me around this whole thing about cap, and I am of the opinion and I hope that you will agree, that the lower the cap size, everybody benefits. It makes a better learning environment for the students, it makes it easier for the hard-working teacher who is trying to reach those particular students in any classroom, and so, Madam Minister, I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit on that - the cap size versus space versus declining populations.
[5:15 p.m.]
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, the question about do we value small class sizes - I think the announcement by the Premier that we would be capping class sizes is an indication that, yes, we do value that. Since we've started the implementation of that cap size initiative,
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we have spent over $12 million to add teachers to Primary, Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3 to make sure that we were able to cap that class size, so I think that's a pretty clear indication that we do value that and we do recognize that the smaller class size certainly gives more opportunity for individual attention between teacher and student.
We certainly also recognize that capping the Grade 4 class at 28, as I responded to the earlier question, is an attempt to make sure that we honour the commitment to cap and that we also recognize that without a cap students at upper elementary could be in a situation where class sizes were 30-plus. So we set the cap at 28 for Grade 4 and the commitment that was made was to cap to the end of Grade 6, and we will continue to keep that commitment as we move through future budgets and through the next upcoming years. We also acknowledge that with that cap of 28, we will monitor how that impacts on the facilities, on the spaces - and you mentioned that.
You know, it's the same as the changing demographics and I guess this is probably an outcome of the changing demographics. Many of our communities in Nova Scotia e have declining enrolments, which means we have empty classrooms - and those communities would welcome an influx of students. We never seem to have the students where we have the spaces and so that's a challenge. When you get into the metro area or along the corridor, the corridor and metro seem to be the two areas of the province that are not suffering from a severe decline; most other parts of Nova Scotia are. So the challenge about space to accommodate the early entry date for Primary and the capping of the class sizes is specific to the corridor and to some areas of the Halifax board, the metro area - and your area, I would expect, is one of those. I hear that from my colleague in the House, the member for Sackville-Cobequid.
So I know that that's a challenge, but what we've done in preparation for this is to work closely with superintendents and principals to look at what facilities they have, what they anticipate their population will be, and do they have enough spaces to accommodate them. So there's a balancing act there, but we've tried to give that the attention that we believe it needs in order to make sure that kids are accommodated in their own space with their own teacher when school starts in September.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, when we're talking about cap sizes and we're talking about space - this is an easy question because I know you've got the answer right off the top of your head - does the Department of Education look at birth rates and projections and take into development, as part of the equation, does it involve for instance the municipalities and do you know how many permits have been issued for a certain subdivision, whether it be in Cape Breton, whether it be in Yarmouth, whether it be in HRM - so do you track all of those things that are going to impact and have a say on what the eventual outcomes are going to be when you talk about, whether it be new construction, or about cap size, or whatever it be?
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MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, we certainly do follow the demographics; we look at projections. We have to, and boards have to, and we get a lot of our information from boards because they have to look at what their anticipated enrolment will be and are they able to accommodate the students who will be arriving at their doors.
One of the most recent, I guess, examples of that would be in anticipation of the students coming into Primary in September 2008. Through information that came to us from boards, and boards work very closely with public health to look at birth rates and the number of four-year olds who will be coming in and so on, the information that we got through that network told us that we could expect about 2,100 students who might be additional Primary students come September 2008. So that gave us a pretty good handle on the numbers that we were expecting and, in fact, right down to the areas of the province where we could expect that influx.
So that information helped us determine what schools will be impacted most heavily by this and do they have the facilities and so on. So the short answer to your question is, do we look at projections and birth rates? Absolutely, and boards monitor that constantly.
You mentioned about subdivisons and developments within a community. I had an opportunity to work with facilities planning after I retired and one of the things that we were doing was looking at a population in a school, a new school and how many students might be accommodated there. What's the growth around the area? Is it in the heart of a lot of subdivisions? One of them in particular - the member for Hants East will remember, we worked together because there were a lot of subdivisions coming up along the corridor at that time, so what's a municipality looking at for subdivision development. All of that information plays into the population that you can expect in a school and therefore, the size of the school.
MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. See, I knew the minister would have the answer to that question right at her fingertips, right off the top of her head.
The library funding - and you might have to help me out here, Madam Minister- but that has been increased, according to this proposed budget, by $500,000. Is that going to be equally distributed amongst the libraries and what does that translate to per library?
MS. CASEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not sure the microphone is on . . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we have a problem here. We have some technical difficulties so the committee will recess for five minutes and we'll come back to the minister. Thank you.
[5:25 p.m. The committee recessed.]
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[5:33 p.m. The committee reconvened.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Committee on Supply is now called to order.
The honourable member for Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank.
MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question that I asked had to do with library funding and the question, maybe it had an (a) and (b) part, was it equally distributed across the board or is it based on needs so each library would get a certain amount, depending on what the needs were and how much does it work out to? Is there an average that each library gets?
MS. CASEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the question with respect to libraries. We currently, as you know, have nine library boards in the province, 77 sites around the province, and our funding for those library boards has increased this year, pending the approval of the budget.
The distribution of those funds is per a formula that is used, based on input from the boards, about their needs and their demographics and those kinds of things. So there has been a formula that has been established.
However, concerns were raised with me last year about that formula and was it still appropriate, was there a need to review that and to look at, is that the best distribution of those dollars? So as a result of that, a Library Funding Task Force has been struck and their mandate is to come up with a memorandum of understanding which will look at a funding formula. Their work is to be completed and back to me by June of this year, so that task force has been working over the last year and they will, as I said, come up with a funding formula and a memorandum of understanding, which we will then receive and try to recognize if it is equitable and if it will address the needs.
The additional $500,000 that we're putting in the library budget this year is an attempt to try to, in the meantime, add additional support until we have a new funding formula and until we have an MOU. It brings our support for libraries to $12,263,000, divided amongst the nine library boards. As I said, the distribution is based on the funding formula.
MR. PARIS: Is it possible, at some point in time, that I could get a copy of that funding formula?
MS. CASEY: We can certainly get you a copy of the formula that is currently in place and, as I said, the report that comes in to me in June will have a new funding formula. Once that has been accepted, we can get you a copy of the new formula.
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MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and through you I thank Madam Minister. On the MOU, will the MOU take into consideration - because one of the problems that I've always had and we've already talked about, we talked a little bit about board funding here today. What I have issue with is sometimes formulas - I just hope that between the formula and the MOU that there's a recognition of need. By that I simply mean that the need for the nine library boards may be somewhat different. I'm kind of looking at, the flaws with formulas are they treat everybody the same and sometimes that's not a fair way to do it.
MS. CASEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We know that whenever there's a formula established, the committee that's looking at developing that formula has a lot of factors that they have to consider. The Department of Education has a representative on that committee as well as the municipalities because they are funding partners, the Nova Scotia Provincial Libraries, the Council of Regional Libraries and the Library Boards Association of Nova Scotia, so there's a fairly broad representation there and they certainly do represent, and are very able to articulate, what the needs of libraries are. So we're expecting that having those experts around the table, with the background information that they have about libraries and how they are funded and what their needs are, should translate into a formula that does address their needs. So it's a fairly broad representation, but every one of those groups that is represented is intimately familiar with library needs.
MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I must say, Madam Minister, to you and to your staff, it has been a very diverse afternoon, if I can say that. It seems like we touched on a number of subjects over the last couple of hours and yet I'm going to jump to another one, if you can just indulge me. The Nova Scotia Community College campus, last year, if my memory serves me right - was last year the first year of the graduation class of the transitional year program at the community college?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding that last year was the first intake for that transitional class.
MR. PARIS: Does the minister know, with that first intake, what the retention rate was?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, I don't have stats as current as today, but it's my understanding that the intake was 19 students and into the Fall and close to Christmas, I believe there were 17 students who were still there, but those are old stats, I can certainly get the current ones for you.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I would very much appreciate if you could get me the current statistics on that. On that same note, has the community college, to the best of your knowledge, implemented any strategies with respect to the overall retention of so-called, not my words, targeted groups.
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MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, I have to confess I don't have an answer to that question but we'll get it for you.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, that would be very much appreciated and I think one of the things that I have to say while I do have the attention of the minister and of the staff is that we can implement all the strategies that we want to attract non-traditional individuals, regardless of what it is, but if there's an original issue around retention in the first place, then it doesn't do a whole lot of good to attract those non-traditional students when, in fact, you're not going to hold on to them. So that's just a comment more than anything.
Back to funding again, I found the Imagine Our Schools process very interesting and I found it even more interesting at the end of that process, that after the Imagine Our Schools made their recommendations, I found it quite interesting that staff also came in with a set of recommendations. I guess my question to the minister is, with what Imagine Our Schools cost, and it was a significant cost to that, I'm just curious, the question begs to be asked, could we have done this internally as opposed to going externally?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member, I'm pleased to hear you speak of the process because in fact there is a process that we follow with respect to capital construction and school closures and I respect the process. So with the Imagine Our Schools, this was this particular board's way of determining what the needs were within their communities and they did choose to go outside to get a consultant to do that work. We ask all boards to do that. How they do it is their decision, it's not ours, but we do ask boards to do that because we need that information, they need that information, for long-range planning. So with the Imagine Our Schools initiative within the board, they looked at, and their consultant looked at, all of the facilities and the demographics and the needs and so on. That doesn't mean that staff don't do that as well so you're right in some recommendations from the consultant and some recommendations from staff.
As I said, we have asked all boards to do that and we take that report that comes in to help us decide what future planning we have for the schools and communities in that particular board. But that's only part of the process - and I want to go back to that word - because once that is received, there is a capital construction committee with representation from both department and boards, the School Boards Association and so on. They receive that information and use that to help them develop a capital construction list. We also have that information coming in because, as you would well know, we passed legislation here about the school closure process. So part of the process there is for boards to identify schools under review.
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[5:45 p.m.]
So the Halifax board is following the processes that we have set out and, as I said, the decision to go with an outside consultant would have been a board decision and it would be a cost borne by the board to do that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank has approximately five minutes let.
MR. PARIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So actually, and I certainly wouldn't want to even suggest that this be any hint of micromanagement on the part of the department, so what I am hearing is that the board can make decisions independently when it comes to outsourcing some things, even though it may be something that could be done by current staff members.
MS. CASEY: Yes, you are absolutely correct, that would be a decision made by the board as to how they would garner the information that we were asking them to get.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, I know the time is getting somewhat limited here. I want to branch out into assessment tools. Recently, and over the past, well certainly since I have been Education Critic, I have seen press releases boasting about the assessment tools that are being used by the department to determine where students are on their educational track. I guess my question is, those assessment tools, are they Nova Scotia tools? Are they national tools? Who has developed the tools?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to be able to speak to that because we have a number of assessment tools that we use and my belief is that we don't make all of our decisions based on one assessment, that we need a variety of assessment tools and all of them, and the results of all of them, help direct us with respect to programming and curriculum. So I am glad that we have a number of assessments. We have international assessments, we have national assessments and we have our own provincial assessments.
The assessments that we use to determine students' performance on our literacy and math assessments and our high school graduation English and math exams, are developed by teachers based on the curriculum that has been developed by teachers and they are marked by teachers. I think that brings consistency because we know that the assessment is based on the curriculum that is being taught. So the international and national ones are just opportunities for us to get a look at how our students fare on those different scenes but our provincial ones are prepared and marked by our own teachers.
MR. PARIS: Mr. Chairman, with respect - and I think one of the ones that I read was that two out of every three students were doing what was considered well, or very well, in the math component. Is that correct? So, if one out of every three students is doing poorly
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or not up - and I hate to use the word standard, that's standard by whose decision? - what sort of initiatives have you implemented when you discover that math - and we will use math as the example - for those students to play catch-up? Is there a dialogue that goes on with the schools to alert them to the fact, and what strategies are implemented to correct it, because even if there's one out of three -you know, we all want 100 per cent and I know that would be the goal of the Department of Education as well?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier, the purpose in doing assessments is to help us better support the students in our classrooms to get early detection of areas where they may have weaknesses and to look at programming and strategies that will help address those areas of concern. So with respect to what we do with those, we use that as a guide to say how are our students doing, and we want all of our students to do well, and no statistics are ever enough for you to say, fine, we can stop. We can never stop improving. We're encouraged by positive results but we also recognize that we want those results to be positive for everyone. So it certainly does, on an ongoing basis, guide your planning, your direction, and your supports for those students.
As a result of the early assessments that we were doing in literacy, for example, we recognized that there were some areas where students needed more supports and, in fact, at the end of our Grade 6 assessment, we put an additional $2.9 million into mentors, resources, teachers and supports at the junior high level to try to address the concerns that have been identified in the results of the assessment. We also learned from that that assessments at various intervals as students move through public schools was important, and literacy we assess at Grade 3, Grade 6, Grade 9 and then Grade 12, and that has caused our results in reading and literacy at the Grade 12 level to improve.
We know that our math scores on last year's math results were not good, they were not good enough for me. So we had to look at what have we done in literacy to bring about an improvement and can we apply the same model in math. Thus, the intervals of assessment, Grade 3, Grade 6, Grade 9 and Grade 12, and the addition of mentors in the classrooms to work with teachers to make sure that they had all of the strategies that they needed in order to work with students.
So that model of assessment, using it as planning for the future, is a model that we believe works. I share your expectation and your wish that all students will improve and all students will do well. It's a lofty goal but that's one we have.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member's time has expired.
The honourable member for Kings West.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, my critic opposite owes me, I think, about three or four minutes at some point here, going over. I was pleased to hear the minister's response
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to that question. I think, about five or six minutes before the point of interruption in estimates, I was just going to reflect for a moment, and I may have time for a question on the Imagine our Schools process. From my own experience, and I only attended two of the sessions while information was being gathered, and I know a couple of my colleagues did get to a couple of sessions as well, and I guess the process seemed to clearly demonstrate that perhaps good prior information, communication, as the minister knows, is so essential, a lot of people didn't really know its intent. They took, even that whole phrase of Imagine Our Schools, as actually taking a look at a vision for education in HRSB. What are we going to do differently? How are we going to improve results? So, I thought the poor attendance and the input gathered certainly made it difficult for the process.
I don't know whether the minister has made any recommendations to HRSB and other boards, but I'm of the opinion that we have a great deal of expertise in our province who have had national and international experience and who could have taken on this job, perhaps for less than the $240,000 that was paid to Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and the Imagine Our Schools team, who would have perhaps had a greater sense of HRM and HRSB and the communities within the larger community.
So when we take a look at what's really needed inside of a team, you really need to know the nature of the school communities. You need to have somebody who has a great understanding of the geography of HRM because that seemed to be one of the impediments that I felt in terms of some of the recommendations that I looked at. I had some real concerns about how it was orchestrated, how it was carried out and, therefore, I felt that perhaps some of the recommendations didn't seem to be as in touch with some of the real needs that our communities are talking about.
So, that would be one of my initial comments about Imagine Our Schools. Perhaps we have all learned something here, perhaps the school board, the Department of Education, and, in fact, I felt, and I give a lot of credit to the school board member - I always want to say member, but I guess school board in this case, Howard Windsor - for not only making himself available to hear, to get people's input after the report came out, but actually putting on extended hours and listening to many, many briefs. Once people realized that this could be all about closing our school, what a revelation, and here we are at the end of Imagine Our Schools, we've paid $0.25 million. Many people misunderstood the process and, therefore, gathering real information was indeed limited.
So I was pleased that at the end, very thoughtful responses were considered by the board, by the board staff, and it became very public that the minister and the Department of Education would also have another hand in the final process. I thought that a lot of this should have been presented to the public right from the very beginning of a process that, well, perhaps at the end of the day, it did show how much people care about their community school within the larger school. I'm hoping that some of the information gathered won't fall on deaf ears, won't be put in cabinets or left on shelves for dust to collect, because I think
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there is some real guidance for the minister and the department about school closure and its decision-making process in the future.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The moment of interruption has arrived.
[6:00 p.m. The committee recessed.]
[6:30 p.m. The committee reconvened.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We will call the Committee of the Whole House on Supply back to order.
The honourable member for Kings West.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, when we broke at the point of interruption in proceedings, I had made a comment on the Imagine Our Schools process and I would like to hear from the minister, I know, who at this point only had to look a little bit from a distance, perhaps a little bit objectively, at the process, and I'm wondering what she and the department, at least on a very, very quick look and view, how they gauged this process and a place that an external body coming in has a look at making recommendations for the future.
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest as the member opposite talked about the process and I do want to repeat that it is a request of the department that boards go through a process where they look at the needs within their particular communities and they are able to identify what the needs of those facilities are. Boards attack that in different ways - they may use some of their own staff, they may look at some local expertise, or, in this case, the decision was made to go outside. I will repeat that is a decision of the board and it is a cost to the board. There's always some advantage to having an outside perspective; there is also, however, great value in having someone who understands the communities, who understands the province, and who can look as objectively as possible at the schools that are being reviewed and the demographics that are being considered.
We recognize that the process is required to allow opportunity for community input, for consultation and all of the information that's obtained through that does come in to the board for recommendation, but that is only one part of the process. I think the fact that we want to make sure that we fully understand the impact of those decisions and the communities that will be affected, that the next level of scrutiny is where we have our own school capital construction committee and we have our own department staff who can take the recommendation and answer this question, what impact does this have? So, to agree with the member opposite, there's certainly some value in using the expertise that we have, and we certainly have it in our province - that was not the decision here, but it is only one part of the process.
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MR. GLAVINE: In many ways of course, the Imagine Our Schools document, staff reaction, as well as school board reaction, probably will undertake some new directions with a new school board even before the ministry and the department have to react to it. I just wanted to at least make a comment about the process - hear the minister, how she viewed that process in relation to how she and her department would view that for another day, and I appreciate that comment.
I want to go back to class size because in the government's Learning For Life initiative, the outline, the strong commitment, it was a priority of government to really work on class sizes. I know the department was caught a little bit this year by the fact that the Primary entry date changed from September 30th to December 31st. It's obviously an initiative that we put forward on several occasions and I was glad that the minister and the department felt that it was time for Nova Scotia to move that forward. I know the change does bring some challenges, some new economic realities into play.
I would like to hear from the minister about how deep her commitment, and the government's commitment, is to class size reduction. It is still one of the elements that's always in play, I think, to delivering the strongest programs in our schools. In fact, very often I hear the comment that we have every bit as good a teacher, as highly qualified a teacher in public education as there is in private schools, but in private schools you're going to find very few classes that will have over 15 students.
So, class size really does make a difference and I want to hear from the minister on her commitment, her government's commitment, to a process that will move beyond this year perhaps. We all know that planning for any class size reduction, as we have found this year, impacts and takes time to initiate. If you could respond to that, please, Madam Minister.
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member opposite. I believe that, as a former educator, he will understand the significant impact that a change of class size or the intake of students, the impact that does have on facilities, administration and on staffing. I believe he understands that impact well and so can perhaps appreciate the combination of the change of entry date, which we believe will translate into about eighty new positions across the province, additional spaces required for those extra students, and then, to add on top of that, a change with the capping at Grade 4 to a cap of 25.
However, that's not to say that there's not some merit to small class size. Most importantly, perhaps, a commitment by this government to cap class sizes at 25 to the end of Grade 4, when we consider the impact the early entry date would have on facilities and staffing and administration, and trying to keep the commitment to cap class sizes so we wouldn't have classes that were going 30 and above, we made the decision we would honour the commitment to cap and we would keep the cap at 28 for Grade 4.
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I've said here earlier and I will say again, it is our intention to monitor that cap size at Grade 4 at 28 and to look at the impact that has on those other concerns about the facilities, the administration and the ability to accommodate extra teachers and students in the schools.
The commitment to do the capping of Primary to Grade 4 was part of Learning for Life II. Also, the platform commitment was to extend the cap to Grades 5 and 6. So it is the plan of this government to honour the commitments to cap to the end of Grade 6, and we will move through that as resources are available and as schools are able to accommodate that change.
So, Mr. Chairman, we are proposing in this budget that we will cap at 28 for Grade 4s in this province.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr. Chairman, through you, I know that that's a change in plan. I hope, as you review and monitor this, you will take a second look, in time. We, in fact, had proposed picking up one month of children for each of three years. That may have been possibly a better way to go, but the decision now is made and we work with it and move through that process.
In relation to class size, one of the areas that we are hearing a lot about from teachers' unions - this has been brought out now in Quebec and Ontario in just recent months - the real need now for smaller class size is the number of high-needs children who are in our classes. In fact, in British Columbia, there is now a law which says that if you have thirty students in your class, in order to have any more than three high-needs students, a teacher must give permission. But what it is really talking about and clearly demonstrating is that the impact on a high-quality learning environment is definitely impacted and impinged upon by these children - not that they shouldn't be there, but their needs, in fact, do require additional resources.
One of the ways of dealing with that challenge is that they are continuing to try and move down class sizes, and everybody is thinking that it is now both, it should be directed by Departments of Education to accomplish, as well as at a time of less students entering school - and this has been going on for quite a number of years, but this is where we probably get to real investment in education, which some of the critics around P to 12 allotment for education this year are saying it makes it very difficult to accomplish some of those desirable educational goals.
So I'm wondering, when we take a look at class sizes in HRM, for example, 2004-05, which are generally the latest ones that we can get from the documents, there were 262 junior high classrooms with 26 to 30, and 67 classes with 31 to 35. We know that junior high is being identified as the years with considerable dropout, the years in which many behavioural
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problems are identified, and it was an area that Judge Merlin Nunn was very concerned about in the Nunn report, that we had to do more at the junior high level.
[6:45 p.m.]
So, once again, I am asking the minister about a long-term picture - what are some possible ways of dealing with these kinds of numbers and a plan to reduce class size - and I would promote and our Party would promote - at the junior high level, especially in light of the Nunn report?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, my colleague raises an excellent point about the composition of the class. Again, as an educator, he would well understand that the composition of a class is probably as challenging at times as the number of students in the class. As a teacher you sometimes had those classes that you wanted to keep forever because the composition was such that it was a very positive experience.
However, when we did the capping of the class size, we took that into consideration and, for example, when you have combined classes, a Primary-Grade 1, or a Grade 1-2 or a Grade 2-3, we recognize that that was an additional challenge for the teacher and for the students in getting access to their teacher, so to speak, so those classes are capped at twenty. So with the full implementation of this initiative, there should be no class sizes up to the end of Grade 3 that are beyond twenty-five, and there should be no combined classes up to the end of Grade 3 that are more than twenty. That's the intent of the initiative.
The question about how far we go with this - we know that this government has a made a commitment to cap to the end of Grade 6. We are working towards that, and we've also had discussion on the floor of this House about capping or looking at class sizes at junior high. So what we would like to do is work up the grades - look at how effective it is and make sure that what we have in place is working, review that, monitor that and, if the outcome of that is positive, look at extending that beyond Grade 6, but our commitment right now is to get to the end of Grade 6.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Madam Minister. An area that, with a change in direction this year, our Party will certainly be taking a close look at and will bring it back to the floor of the Legislature, if we need to, in the months ahead.
To switch here now and take a look at French immersion and the core immersion - as we know, the goal in Nova Scotia was to double the percentage of students who are bilingual in Nova Scotia from 24 per cent to 50 per cent by 2013. There are more students taking immersion, but less taking the core French. Potential problems are that French is not mandatory, of course, in Nova Scotia. There's a lack of qualified teachers necessary to meet French immersion and core immersion objectives. School boards can determine departmental
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goals by not funding specific programs or by not being able to fund classes after federal funding has ceased for their specific classes.
Four of five pilot projects, providing core French only, are currently underway in Cape Breton. The purpose of the program is to prepare students for core French, a strict French-only program.
Before I get to three or four specific questions here, I would like to hear the minister comment on a tremendous shift in direction that our neighbour province, New Brunswick, has taken. I'm wondering if the minister is reviewing a decision like that, or is the minister and her department very clear in the direction that French education is taking in this province?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, yes, I certainly have been watching with interest at what is happening with our friends in New Brunswick. It has caused me to look at what we're currently doing in our province and the response and the support that we have for the programs that we currently have in place and, for the benefit of the House, early and late immersion is the way we introduce French; we also have the core French which is a requirement, Grades 4 to 9; and then, of course, at the high school level French can be one of the language electives that students need to graduate.
It is interesting when you track the enrolment in French immersion in our province, and early immersion is showing a significant increase in the numbers. We currently, in both early and late immersion, have close to 15,000 students who are taking French immersion, and that translates into about 10 per cent of our student population.
So I think the message I'm getting from that and from those statistics is that the delivery model that we have now is meeting the needs and is encouraging and inviting students to participate and to enrol in French immersion. That number of students translates into over 500 immersion classes across the province and about 600-plus teachers delivering that. So it does represent a significant part of our student population, 10 per cent, and the numbers are growing.
So we will continue to monitor what is happening. I meet regularly with the Parents for French and I know that they will give me their thoughts on that and we will listen, but at this point we will continue with our early and late, as we currently have it.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Madam Minister. I'm very pleased to hear that - a recent involvement that I had was just a couple of years ago in AVRSB, when they were looking at dropping French in five elementary schools, and of course we saw the outcry from parents there.
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One of the questions that I am asked, and I really can't answer, is what classifies as functionally bilingual in Nova Scotia? I really find that perhaps a somewhat challenging question. I'm wondering if the Department of Education has determined, when a student leaves Grade 12, what level of French are they able to engage in that would consider them as functionally bilingual? We are still working towards that very laudable goal. If we had 50 per cent of our students, it would be a tremendous achievement, and I think we need to continue to reach for that.
Again, we all know some of the research around early, in fact, second language learning and having a second language through our school years - but what is it that really constitutes a functional bilingual student?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, at this point in time, when a student completes the immersion program, they get a certificate of completion, but we do not, at this point, have an exit exam. We recognize that with the mobility that exists and the benefit a second language can have to our students as they go into university or into the workforce, or as they travel, it is certainly something that I believe should be part of our assessment program. We would have to look at the standard for that linguistic ability and measure against that.
We may be looking at a completion certificate and a proficiency certificate. All students may not be expected to achieve the same level, but there needs to be some designation, I believe, as to the level of proficiency that they do have. So we'll certainly take that under advisement. It's something that our department has looked at, but I think it's becoming evermore an issue, so that our students can move into another environment with that standard of linguistic ability.
MR. GLAVINE: In that regard, in order to achieve that very high goal - maybe a little lofty, but at the same time I commend the department for working for that level of percentage of bilingual students in the province - I'm wondering, however, what is the statistical picture of students moving from elementary, junior high and on to senior high? Perhaps we need to be doing a lot more around - not just offering the course, but actually marketing, promoting, showing the value of having French, either through immersion or core French, as they continue to move through the grades and taking courses as long as possible through the high school years.
Sometimes we offer a course, but maybe we don't do enough around letting students know how advantageous it is, and even, you know, socially, to have that second language. Often we do have a different view of languages than Europeans - our European cousins I was going to say - because learning three or four or five languages seems to be very common, very ordinary for them. So I'm a strong component of having French through the grades, in our public education system, but are we doing enough on the promotion side?
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MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, you know, our statistics do show that we have 15,000 students who are involved in immersion, but our statistics also show that we lose students at the end of Grade 9. They're going into high school and they have a number of options, a number of courses from which they can chose. French is one of the language courses they can take but it's not a requirement at high school to graduate, to have a high school French program.
One of the things that I think - the balance here is do we make it compulsory or do we try to have students value that second language and take it for that reason rather than make it compulsory? We've not taken a stand on that but we recognize that we do need to encourage. We would prefer, I believe, to encourage rather than mandate because if you want them to enjoy and value it, it comes easier if it's their decision and not someone else's. However, we've watched those statistics and we need to do something to encourage more students to continue French as a second language in high schools. So this discussion is certainly important and will help our staff as they continue to review that and determine what is the best way.
We know that Canadian Parents for French are very concerned as well about the number of students who don't continue after Grade 9, and so we'll be glad to work with them to see if there's a strategy, whether it's communication, whether it's showing the value of the second language - hopefully not to the mandatory, but that's always an option.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, that was a question I was going to ask about, the possibility, the place for a mandatory course. So I have my answer there, but what about in terms of expanding the pilot projects around core French - is there any provision inside the budget this year, or where is the long-range plan for those programs heading?
[7:00 p.m.]
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member, we have three boards that are currently offering the intensive French and we certainly encourage them to expand that, and it has to be when they have the population that's ready to respond to that. Extended core is offered in four boards, and so we have pockets in the province where that's happening, and what we're looking at is giving boards the ability to expand on that and to implement it as they are ready and as the needs in their communities are ready.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, to change direction here - in one of the bills that was brought forward in the House since we returned was the bill that would permit part of the Department of Education to join the new Department of Labour and Workforce Development. There's a lot of talk around, you know, yes, community college, but the use of that old term "vocational training" - it doesn't seem to want to go away, and perhaps it has had a lot more value than we realized, at the time, when we started to depart from that.
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I know the Premier, at least during the time he was campaigning for leadership, had talked about looking at expanding vocational schools. We know that O2 has come in, the Options and Opportunities program, which again is getting very, very excellent reviews; however the budget seems to put some limitations on whether or not that program is going to be able to move along in its planned introduction, both through the grades and also in the number of schools that will be offering O2. So two questions there I guess, Madam Minister, in terms of the concept that we have at Memorial, where we have an integrated high school and vocational school, and also are we - not backing off on O2 - are budget limitations not permitting the advance of O2 in the desire that the school boards seem to want to implement?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, to the member. I'm pleased to hear your comments with respect to O2, because it certainly is a program that we believe meets a need and it was a need, a void I guess, that was created when vocational schools were closed in this province. It provides an opportunity for those students who are more interested in the trades, or who are interested in a combination of academics and trades. So by going through the O2 program, they can get a taste of some of the trades and they still graduate with their high school graduation certificate. Many of them get an opportunity to decide yes, this is an area I would like to pursue, or they find out that it's absolutely one they do not - and if that's the decision that they make, based on the information they have, then we believe that we've helped them go down the right path.
So the O2 program does capture that audience and, again, it also, with successful completion, guarantees them a seat at the community college if, in fact, that's the way they want to go. We're very happy with the way that has unfolded, and expanding it again this year - we have in our budget to expand the O2 - that would provide more opportunities for more students.
The program you speak of specifically, skills training - which is probably closer to the old vocational school than perhaps the O2, because the O2 is a parallel program - we have in our budget this year, dollars to begin that skills trade programming, and we've gone out to boards to let them know that we have the curriculum developed and we're ready to go with that, and they're looking at schools where that might be implemented. They come back to us and say yes, we're interested, and we believe we've met the criteria and we want to go ahead with that. We have enough dollars in our budget for 2008-2009 to start up at least one of those in each board, but again that will depend on the request from the board to participate in that, but that again, I said, is more closely aligned with the old vocational kind of training.
There's definitely a need out there. We know that we have a shortage of skilled labourers in this province and we know that that's a result of a couple of things - declining enrolments, fewer students graduating, retirements of those people who have provided that service over a number of years and, unfortunately, some who want to move away. So there's a great need out there; there's a great demand. It's something that we encourage our students
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to at least explore and determine if they want to follow that path and, if they do, there's employment here in Nova Scotia for them.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, it's a topic that I do need to follow up a little bit more, because I'm not sure this year - I've only heard from a couple of school boards about not having the dollars in the budget to expand O2 to the degree that they would like, and one of those boards, HRSB, where I met with the board chairman, or the whole school board, I guess, and the superintendent last week - if we take a look at the fact in Nova Scotia that we have about 42 per cent of our graduating students who go on to post-secondary and only about 16 per cent or 17 per cent go to community college of the 42 per cent who pursue post-secondary, we know that's an area that we have to do something about.
We have to take greater control of our destiny with providing a more significant number of young Nova Scotians with at least an orientation towards trades when they leave school. In fact, we all know how cultivating an interest in a particular vocational trade or a skill that it was really the way in which many went on to learn and to enrol in vocational programs.
So I'm afraid we have lost some of that connection, probably returning to the days when, at the Grade 10 level, you could go and spend a day a week at the vocational school. Perhaps that day is gone, but we need, now, to find some way to connect stronger with the industrial world, a light industry and perhaps even the heavy industry, where it's appropriate. I think we have to create that orientation for our high school students.
We will always have a percentage who will not want or are ever inclined to go to university, but we now know that the labour market is saying to us that 80 to 90 per cent of all jobs in the future will require a post-secondary at community college or at university.
So it's a piece that I feel the province needs to do more with, to have a more aggressive plan. I would like for the minister to comment on that and to say what the plan is to get O2 in as many of our schools as possible, since I don't think we're going to return to the integrated concept like Memorial?
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, I spoke positively and favourably about the O2 program and any reviews that we are getting from around the province support that. Parents understand that it is a great opportunity for their students, and the students themselves appreciate the exposure. One of the things that we have been careful to do is to make sure that students do have a balance as they move up through, so that they still graduate with their Grade 12 high school certificate. We think that is important because we don't want them to find out in two or three years' time that they want to do something that requires that, and there is not very much you can do in this province, not many jobs you can make application for where they aren't asking you for your Grade 12 graduation certificate. So we balanced the academic with the "hands on" in the O2 program.
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We have a goal to have that program available to all high school students in the province. This past year we had that program in 34 schools. Our budget for next year is proposing adding ten new schools to that, a $2.25 million investment, which would add 21 teachers and put that program in 44 of our high schools. So our goal is to get it in all high schools. We are taking it gradually, we are learning as we move through it, but that is our goal.
With respect to the trades - and, again, the skills and training division of my department, which works very closely with the labour market, tries to respond to the demands that are out there, and a number of our apprenticeship programs are designed to do that, where students, even in high school, can get some credit toward an apprenticeship program as they go through the academics and get their Grade 12 certificate.
So we recognize that students need as much information as possible before they make a decision about their future at the end of Grade 12, and we start in Grade 9 with information about careers and, again, help them make an informed decision at the end of Grade 12, and give them that exposure and that information that will lead them to a post-secondary. As has been mentioned, post-secondary is very much a requirement in this generation, and we are hoping that we can prepare students to take a path in post-secondary that's a seamless transition for them.
MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, one of the observations that has been made is that some of our schools started to move from the, I guess the harder, more tactile courses, to filling those rooms with computers, and we all know the relationship and the interrelationship of computers with design, and the part that they play now in many of the skills. I am wondering, as we design the next generation of schools in Nova Scotia, are we going to maintain those types of classrooms where, in fact, students can use wood, use metal, be able to deal with some of those basic carpentry and mechanical types of skills that we still very, very much need? Perhaps even a greater need for, as many of those trades now are much more demanding than perhaps what they were in the past, and some complexities there, so I think that early orientation through junior and senior high is still very much needed. But we have to have the design of our schools that will accommodate that, and I am wondering could the minister comment on will that still play a significant place as we design new schools?
[7:15 p.m.]
MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, it's true that the design of schools reflects the program that is being offered, the curriculum that is being offered, and we have seen changes from the old shops to the computer labs and from the home economics to the family studies and a number of those changes. As the curriculum changes and programs change, so does the design of buildings. I'm hoping that, as our curriculum reflects more of the skills kind of training, we are either able to accommodate that in the design of the building or in a mobile
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lab, for example, that is fully equipped and can provide that learning environment, on-site, for the students.
The point is, new construction certainly does reflect programs that are being delivered.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Honourable member for Kings West, your time will expire at 7:21 p.m.
MR. GLAVINE: I guess I'm just going to end off tonight - I haven't gotten into post-secondary yet, but post-secondary kind of connects with teacher education. I won't talk about the Memorial conundrum in terms of attracting so many Nova Scotian students, I'll leave that for tomorrow.
Memorial seems to want to have a presence in Nova Scotia to educate our students, our teacher training, and they have offered a program at CBU, and we know that within a year that program will terminate; however, Memorial is making a strong initiative after not being permitted to move forward with their desired plan for Dalhousie, but now looking at perhaps a stand-alone program here in the province. I want the minister to tell Nova Scotians, and perhaps future teacher candidates for that program, is that possible within the current legislation of Nova Scotia and the teacher training requirements?
Secondly, is it also required by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission to give approval for such a program?
MS. CASEY: I'm sure there will be more questions tomorrow with respect to the teacher ed. review, report, recommendations and response. However, I do want to say that all of the decisions that were made with respect to teacher training in this province were based on maintaining a high standard, a high quality of program - our Nova Scotia students, and any students who are studying here, deserve the best program we can possibly offer.
When we looked at where that's delivered and how that's delivered and what we expect of the institution that is doing the delivery, we were guided by that first and foremost. That's where your MPHEC approval comes in. That's where we have set some conditions that the program must meet the needs of our labour market demand. We do want to have enough control over the training of teachers in our province that we have high-quality teachers coming through an excellent program who will be excellent teachers in our classroom and they will have training, and the teachables will be in the disciplines that we desire and need. We have prefaced all of our decisions on that.
The second thing that we considered when we were looking at what our response would be is to make sure that - we have eleven universities and colleges here in the province and they have an excellent reputation - if there are seats to be funded by this government, to
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make sure that we have the number of teachers we need, it's important those be funded and filled in our Nova Scotia universities.
We know that universities can form articulation agreements with other universities, but we wanted to make sure our universities had an opportunity to deliver that program first and foremost. So the partnerships that existed or were proposed, were ones that we felt might limit our own universities from having that opportunity. So we made the decisions, we made the recommendations, we believe it will strengthen the delivery program that we have and it will provide opportunities for Nova Scotia students who wish to become teachers to get that training in Nova Scotia and, hopefully, they will stay here to teach after they receive their training. Nova Scotia students in Nova Scotia universities is a priority.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The time for the honourable member for Kings West has expired. There is approximately three minutes left in debate.
The honourable member for Waverley-Fall River-Beaver Bank.
MR. PERCY PARIS: Thank you. It has been quite an afternoon and I want to take this opportunity in the closing minutes of the day to leave the minister and the staff that are here with some catchphrases that I think were some common themes we expressed throughout the day.
I know that one of the things I wanted to emphasize was that one size does not necessarily fit all. I threw around the word, accommodations, and I hope we recognize the individual needs of the students and not forget the needs of the teachers in the classroom and at the same time recognize that the individual needs of libraries and school boards are also at essence here as well.
I would also like to express one of the things I talked about briefly which was some funding concerns that I wanted to express around the boards themselves; also, with respect to libraries and that formulas are not always fair when you break them down. I would also like to express my thanks - we have quite a lineup tomorrow of my colleagues that will be speaking and I don't know if I'm going to get the chance again, even though I may be playing the lead role here. I want to thank the staff and I certainly want to thank the minister, particularly Madam Minister, I know this is a very difficult time for you. I want you to know that the entire NDP caucus recognizes that and I want to relay to you on behalf of everyone on this side of House that our deep appreciation and our thoughts are with you. (Applause)
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time allotted for debate in Committee of the Whole House on Supply has now expired.
The honourable deputy Government House Leader.
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MR. CHUCK PORTER: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee now rise and report progress.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
The committee is adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 7:23 p.m.]
