HALIFAX, THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2014

 

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

 

4:20 P.M.

 

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Margaret Miller

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The Committee of the Whole on Supply will come to order.

 

The honourable Deputy Government House Leader.

 

MR. TERRY FARRELL: Madam Chairman, would you please resume the estimates for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development?

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Chester-St. Margaret's.

 

HON. DENISE PETERSON-RAFUSE: Madam Chairman, before I start I want to say that I'm glad to see the minister here today and I hope that she's feeling better because I know how grueling the Budget Estimates are and can take a toll on how you are feeling.

 

I'm going to continue, Madam Chairman, from where I was the other day, and that was actually reading this article that I will table when I am finished with it, about Reading Recovery and the points I was bringing forth that there is great controversy over the success of Reading Recovery. The controversy, also the opposite opinion of the good of Reading Recovery, comes from many around the world. This one is from 30 international reading researchers. I would say that having 30 international reading researches express their concern is something that needs to be paid attention to.

 

In this article it says:

 

"There is little evidence to show that Reading Recovery has proved successful with the lowest performing students. Reading Recovery targets the lowest 10-20 percent of first graders who have the prerequisite skills for Reading Recovery. While research distributed by the developers of Reading Recovery indicates a positive effect of the program, analyses by independent researchers have found serious problems with these conclusions. Studies conducted by researchers associated with Reading Recovery typically exclude 25-40% of the poorest performing students from the data analysis. In contrast, the studies funded by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the Department of Education never purposely exclude a child. The data on efficacy is based on all those who are enrolled and available for follow-up. This is known as an 'intent to treat' approach, which is standard for any evaluative research. Reading Recovery's 'in-house research' does not follow an "intent to treat" approach."

 

Madam Chairman, what they are saying here is that the research that has been done by the actual owners of Reading Recovery are not using all the students in their statistical analyses, so there is a fault in the results for them to say that success rate that they give. So:

 

"Reading Recovery's 'in-house research' does not follow an 'intent to treat' approach. In fact, for the poorest readers, empirical syntheses of 'in-house' and independent studies indicate that Reading Recovery is not effective."

 

Madam Chairman, they also talk about:

 

". . .the gains for the poorest readers instructed with Reading Recovery were almost zero. There is also evidence that students who do complete the Reading Recovery sequence in first grade lose much of their gains, even in the 65 - 75 % of better students who finish the program."

 

So what they're also saying in their research by these 30 international researchers is that there is a high percentage of students who lose any value they gained from Reading Recovery - and remember, once again it's Grade 1 - so there's quite a high percentage who lose what they've learned so it doesn't seem to be a program that is sustainable in their educational needs for reading.

 

"A recent study by a group from New Zealand (Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 2001) shows that students in Reading Recovery may experience problems with self-esteem when they do not perform well. One of the authors, Chapman, stated in an interview with a New Zealand newspaper (The Press, November 1, 1999) 'Students actually declined in self-esteem throughout the course of the program and continued to show no acceleration or improvement in the period following the programme.'"

 

A second point that these 30 international researchers are making is that, "Reading Recovery is not a cost effective solution. Even if it were maximally effective, Reading Recovery is not cost effective . . ." It says here that it has been independently examined on two occasions and both studies found there were shortcomings in terms of the cost factor. That is something else that was a concern.

 

The fact is that this program, the Reading Recovery program, is one that not only isn't successful, there are failures and the cost. Another part, what they're saying here in the article is that where it's very expensive is that fact that it can equate to $8,000 per student. That cost is looking at the cost also of the training and the training of the teachers that provide that service to those Grade 1 level students. There's another very important point.

 

"At least two studies have compared Reading Recovery in a one-to-one grouping with a modified version of 'Reading Recovery' administered to a small group. . . There was no advantage of one-to-one instruction over small group instruction. There are other first grade programs that are demonstrably efficacious, impact more students because they do not require 1:1 tutoring, are easier to implement, and do a better job than Reading Recovery of improving student reading skills. . ."

 

This is another study, Madam Chairman; I won't go through these different studies. I'll move on to the third point that this article makes. It talks about that they ". . . do not use standard assessment measures. Most evaluations are restricted to the Reading Recovery developers' own, nonstandard measures." I think that's a very important point.

 

I do know that it is a program that has been distributed throughout North America and that there are many people who believe that it's a good program. I think part of that is because they had nothing at the time to compare it with.

 

Like any program, there is money to be made by the developer of the program. It's a non-profit organization, but let's not get the main situation incorrect that they're making money off of this program and they have invested a lot in terms of public relations and marketing of the program. It is difficult when you try to take something away from people because they feel that security of that program and parents will believe. I'm not saying that some students did not have good results, but the research is showing that it is not the standard of a program that everybody believes it to be. Once again, as I said, this was done by 30 different international researchers.

 

Finally, Madam Chairman:

 

"Reading Recovery does not change by capitalizing on research. Reading Recovery developers have been and continue to be resistant to integrating the findings of independent, scientifically based reading research into their program and making it more cost effective. The failure to attend to research in modifying the program is its major downfall."

 

So just to highlight what this international study is talking about - and there is more information and I will table it so the minister will have an opportunity to read through it herself - is the fact that there are some very serious issues with Reading Recovery; one being that it is focused on just one targeted group of Grade 1 students. The other problem is that it leaves those other students out, and most often a school provides that program and they don't provide other programs. It's very costly; it's not an in-house or created by ourselves program through our education system that from the grassroots level.

 

The fact is that any of the research that is coming from Reading Recovery developers themselves are not using all the appropriate statistical information and that's exactly what they're saying here, that it's slanted towards the program by the developers because they make money from this program and it costs a lot and it's showing here that the cost per student is quite expensive.

 

I have several questions around this. I would just like to ask the minister, I know the other day she had mentioned that part of her decision making to bring back Reading Recovery was based on the outcry of parents and teachers when it was being changed and made into another type of program that would have more opportunities for more students. I'm just wondering, besides the talking to parents or hearing from those that were concerned - because it's natural that those who don't experience something taken away from them don't voice their opinions - I'm just wondering, did the minister make the decision based on the conversation with teachers and students, but no statistical research whatsoever or analysis done on an international or even a national basis or a provincial basis?

 

MS. CASEY: Thank you to the member for beginning the conversation again about Reading Recovery. I'm troubled a bit by what I'm hearing. We recognize that everyone has an opinion and you can find a body of research that will support your opinion. Our decision is based on actual results that we have seen in our schools in Nova Scotia and in particular what educators in our province are telling us would be the value of Reading Recovery.

 

I'm also a little disturbed by comments that the member made about the cost of the program. I don't think we make our decisions about whether we teach kids to read or not about how much it costs. We make those decisions based on what does that do for the child who is learning to read. You can't put a price tag on teaching a child how to read. I'm certainly not swayed by a comment that says, it costs too much so we can't do it.

 

I think everyone believes that the cost may have contributed to the decision that was made in the past to discontinue the use of Reading Recovery, but that's not what this minister is all about. This minister is about what is in the best interest of kids. I have said that many times and probably people will hear me say it many more times.

 

But we know that Reading Recovery is an evidence-based, researched-based, tried and true program that works for kids. It may not work for all kids, but it certainly works for a lot of kids. If we can have a program that will address and respond to the needs of any of our kids, we should not dismiss it because it costs too much.

 

I went back to something that the member said, I guess two days ago now, and it had to do with who we - and she's raised it again today - who did we talk to. Well we talked to the people who know that it's making a difference. We talked to the teachers, the educators who are delivering the program and seeing the results. We talked to the parents who are - it brings tears to your eyes when you hear their testimonies of what a difference that intensive intervention made with the future of their child. We also read the body of research, which supports that, and we recognize that when Reading Recovery was taken away from our program in Nova Scotia, we indicated then we now know that kids would pay a price for that and they are, and we've seen that. We know that the Grade 3 results that are out now can be directly linked to two things: they can be directly linked to the removal of Reading Recovery, which was, as I said, an intensive intervention for Grade 1 kids, and we can connect to the fact that $65 million was pulled out of public education, over of the last three years.

 

The kids, Madam Chairman, who are paying the price for that, when they wrote their Grade 3 assessment in the Fall, are the kids who have been struggling without an intensive intervention program to help them read. So I take my direction from educators. I take it from parents who have witnessed, and I take it from students who have experienced.

 

I would like, Madam Chairman, if I could, to share some information here because obviously the member is struggling with understanding the value of Reading Recovery. She has found some evidence that supports her position, and that's fine, but I want to know, and I want Nova Scotians to know, that our decisions are not made by a researcher who is somewhere outside of the classroom but rather the educators and the teachers who are in the classrooms.

 

I would add, before share some of this with you, that it's a bit ironic that when the previous minister and the previous government said no to Reading Recovery, guess who they used to provide support in their literacy strategy? The Reading Recovery teachers' who were trained and who were in our schools, so obviously those teachers were doing something right, but they were not allowed to use the language Reading Recovery but people were sure anxious for them to use the skills and the strategy that they had learned through Reading Recovery to continue to help kids. I would suggest that there may have been, in some classrooms, with the doors closed, some teachers who were very silently using Reading Recovery because they knew it worked.

Madam Chairman, if I could just read this for the benefit of the listeners, for the benefit of the member and for the benefit of the people here. This is local, this is Nova Scotia and that's what we're talking about:

 

"Nova Scotia Grade 1 students who are the lowest in reading and writing will soon face even more difficulty because Reading Recovery, the intervention that has helped more than 176,000 students across Canada learn to be literate, is among the programs being eliminated under budget cuts proposed by [former minister] Ramona Jennex . . ."

 

When you listen and learn about our literacy strategy you'll recognize that no one has ever said that Reading Recovery is the only program or the only answer, but it certainly is a part of a strategy and we will make sure that it remains a part of the strategy.

 

"For those children having difficulty getting underway with literacy, 1:1 intensive teaching is not negotiable. Reading Recovery is a highly effective early intervention that allows the lowest achieving grade one students to reach grade level standard after a series of 30-minute individual lessons lasting 12-20 weeks."

 

We talk about the Grade 3 assessment which I had mentioned, we know through an analysis done at the department that students in Grade 3 who had the opportunity to be involved with Reading Recovery have scored very well on the Grade 3 assessment and we are now seeing, in the students who were assessed in September, the cohort that did not have that benefit - have not scored as well, so you can draw a correlation there. This means students in Reading Recovery are able to benefit from regular classroom instruction and avoid unnecessary and costly placement in special education classes or in resource programs.

 

Reading Recovery then allows special education or resource teachers to focus on those students who require long-term support. Part of the strategy that we are introducing is a P to 3 strategy in literacy. One of the components of that is Reading Recovery. But we also recognize, as I've said and the statistics are showing, the test results are in that kids who are in Grade 3 have not scored at the grade level and the results are not good.

 

Our strategy is to do one-on-one intensive teaching instruction with those kids between now and the end of the school year. It's not fair that those kids are moving on into an upper elementary grade without reading at grade level. It's not their fault. But we will do whatever we can to try to close that gap, so there will be intensive one-on-one with those students in Grade 3 this year who have been identified as not scoring well on their Grade 3 assessment. We will also monitor those kids when they get into Grade 4. Hopefully we can close the gap, but we will not abandon them. We will look after them.

 

Our strategy also looks at those kids who have gone through Grades 1 and 2 without any support from an intensive early intervention program. We recognize that we have a lot of kids who need support, but as I said, we are not turning our back on them. We're going to do what we can to try to close the gap and make up for what they lost over the last three years.

 

The influence of Reading Recovery professional development reaches far beyond the intervention. Districts that recognize its value have utilized the skills and expertise of trained Reading Recovery teachers for classroom instruction and literacy coaching. As I said, when the previous government said, no, you can't use Reading Recovery, you can do something else - who did they go to, to do the something else? They went to the Reading Recovery-trained teachers. Now that sends a pretty strong message. On the one hand you say you don't value the program, and on the other hand you say, but we're going to take advantage of the expertise and the knowledge that the teachers have because they're doing something right.

 

An analysis of research conducted by the U.S. Department of Education says that of all the programs studied, Reading Recovery received the highest ratings in general reading achievement and only Reading Recovery received high ratings across all other areas.

 

Nova Scotia has led the way in Canada's Reading Recovery implementation by providing quality instruction to the most vulnerable students. Since data was first collected in 1995, more than 200,000 students have had the opportunity of becoming literate in Canada. 23,000 of those were in Nova Scotia. So if we can't invest money to make sure that those 23,000 kids have a future, then we have our priorities in the wrong place, because those 23,000 kids who don't learn to read when they're in elementary school will be a cost to the system somewhere along the way. They will not have any self-esteem. They will not be able to be successful. We will have failed them. 23,000 students who were saved because of Reading Recovery is nothing to push aside.

 

Although it's trademarked, not-for-profit status, Reading Recovery allows schools to invest in teacher expertise. I'm going back to that. The teachers are well trained, and they can use those instructional strategies wherever they want, but they know how to help kids learn and how to help kids read. We can't let our children and our future down.

 

I've read some articles and many of them say that when you are in a time of economic downturn and few dollars to invest, the last place that you would ever cut funding is from education because you either pay now or you pay later. So when economists are telling you that, when the evidence is showing that, that is exactly where you invest your money and that's exactly what we're preparing to do. We can't let our children and our future down. Reading Recovery is making an important difference, one that cannot be compromised. Every child deserves the right to be a successful reader and the children of Nova Scotia deserve the best.

 

Madam Chairman, I said that we were listening to what educators had to say and we were listening to what parents had to say and we were reading testimonies from kids who had gone through Reading Recovery and gone on into junior and senior high school, and they gave so much credit to what the intervention when they were in Grade 1.

 

The sad part of all of this is that we were listening, but the government wasn't. The government of the day was making a decision and ignoring what parents, educators and students were telling them about the value of Reading Recovery. I want to share with the House today some of the - I guess they were - pleas to the Premier and to the minister of the day regarding Reading Recovery. I can tell you, we know the outcome of all of that. This was all for naught because not only did the Premier and the former minister ignore it, they even said to boards who wanted to pay for it, nope, too bad, can't pay for it. If they had their own money in their own board budget and they wanted to pay the cost because they knew the value, nope, weren't allowed to do it.

 

These pleas and these cries fell on deaf ears, but I want us to listen to some of those. This was sent to the Premier in February 2011, so it could have been a change in the budget of 2011; it could have been a change in the budget of 2012; it could have been a change in the budget of 2013. It fell on deaf ears.

 

"I am writing as a professional working in the human services field to express deep concern with the recent announcement by the Department of Education to cut the Reading Recovery Program.

 

As a mother of a child currently benefiting from the Reading Recovery Program and a former student of the program myself, I have deep concerns for the repercussions of this proposed cut. I can?t (sic) help but think this will cost more money for the education system than the program itself. The cost that children pay for being illiterate is not something that can be calculated in a dollar amount."

 

That's a pretty strong message coming from a mother and a former student of Reading Recovery to the Premier. What happened? Let's look at another one:

 

"Personally, I have not had direct association with the program as our two daughters are avid readers on their own, but there are many children who need the extra help at an early level. I have been, however, a 'Reading for Kids' volunteer and Library helper for the past six years . . . and for the past year have been co-organizer for the 'Reading for Kids' program. I have seen firsthand what the Reading Recovery Program has done for those students who have difficulties at an early level . . . Without programs like the Reading Recovery Program, you are setting these children up to fail - THAT IS NOT FAIR TO THEM! Please reconsider your position on removing this program."

 

That was not a parent, not a former student, but somebody who is interacting with kids and sees the smiles on their faces and the confidence that they have when they can read. Then this one, Madam Chairman:

 

"According to the International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey . . . individuals with lower levels of literacy have lower rates of employment, lower earnings, and one can safely assume, an overall lower quality of life . . . A program with results like this seems unprecedented within the education system. Literacy being the cornerstone of education and for life-long learning . . . a cost-savings for the province in the long run . . . seems a worthwhile investment. I implore the government to reconsider . . ."

 

So do we invest in those children so we don't have them as adults in that situation?

 

Here's another message from a lady about her daughter:

 

"My daughter has been in this program since the first of the school year, and I don't know where she would be without this program . . . Since entering the program she has gone from a level one book, to now reading a level twelve or thirteen book. That may not mean anything to you, but it means the world to me."

 

Another:

 

". . . what you have saved without the reading recovery program you spent double on my son's healthcare. . ." because he did not have the program. "My youngest son has the same problem with reading only now there was a proven, effective program which is called the Reading Recovery program . . . Why? WHY? (sic) would you consider axing this program?"

 

Here's one from a retired teacher:

 

"I am a recently retired Grade 1 teacher. I have seen many programs come and go, but reading recovery stands alone, as the very best way to instruct young children who are struggling with reading and writing. It is grounded in many, many years of superior research and equally supierior (sic) results."

 

So we're hearing from a broad section of people who have had, in their own way, some connection, or someone in their family had connection, to the Reading Recovery program.

 

This one I will read, it says: "Dear Mr. Dexter . . . As a person who voted NDP in the last provincial election I am appalled that your government would consider axing the Reading Recovery program." Here is another one: "This program is vital to our children, our grandchildren and our family members . . . Please, I ask you all to help stop this education cut to a very needy program."

 

Another one to the Premier:

 

"After hearing that your government is planning on cutting Reading Recovery in our schools I had to email. I am in disbelief and appalled . . . We have three children, two of which have had to take Reading Recovery for various disabilities. Both of those children needed help desperately and where my Husband (sic) and I aren't teachers, we looked to the school. Reading Recovery was recommended for both of our children and both finished the program . . . If hearing from the mother of two disadvantaged children can make a difference . . . Our children and the future of our Country need to be able to be able to achieve the best out of themselves. Please don't cut the programs . . ."

 

So it wasn't as if people in government didn't know that this was an important program, that it was valued by all people both in school and out of school, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Some of these stories will tug at your heartstrings. This is about a little boy. Jayden has ADHD and his parents are saying, "Thanks to the Reading Recovery Program, Jayden is taking his medication and now in Grade 2, he is one of the best readers in the class." Now if that doesn't make a parent proud - when they know the challenges that their child is having with ADHD or some other challenge, to know that they can read.

 

Here's another one; this is to the minister from a grandmother:

 

"I am concerned that the Reading Recovery program has been discontinued, it is so essential that students are able to read at their appropriate age/grade level . . . Speaking from personal experience my 11 year old grandson has problems with reading and has been helped tremendously by the Reading Recovery program . . ."

 

Another one to the minister:

 

"The Power family of . . . Cole Harbour . . . are especially passionate about this subject. It is rumored that the Reading Recovery Program is being cut by the school board. Ms (sic) Power has twins that have required this resource since early grades. Her children graduate this year from high school with honours and have been successful because of programs such as this . . ."

 

We have another one to the minister:

 

"Without programs like these many children will fallen through the cracks . . . So please think long and hard before you decide to cut the program . . . Take it from a parent who was a high school dropout back in the 80s because the programs weren't there for us. Today I am a parent of two children who both got the extra help they needed, and both graduated in June of 2010"

 

Another to the minister:

 

"I understand the program is to be cut province wide and I find this is shocking on a number of levels. On a daily basis at my place of employment, I deal with adult Nova Scotians who are functionally illiterate. Many of these people have incomes well below the poverty line and must receive other government monies, such as: working income tax benefit . . . Surely over the course of their lives, the cost of this segment of society having basic reading issues is more costly to our province than teaching and helping them to read . . .

 

One more here to the former minister: "Reading Recovery changed Logan's life and as parents our lives as well . . . Please help save the Reading Recovery Program in our schools!!!"

 

There were pretty strong messages to both the then-Premier and the then-minister and we know that, obviously, a decision was made. We believe it was made for money reasons because there are all kinds of evidence to suggest that it was a good program but for three years kids have paid the price and we are now trying to play catch-up and help those kids and close the gap.

 

It was not just teachers and parents and graduates of the Reading Recovery program who were speaking out, there were a lot of people speaking out, a lot of people who understood education and a lot of people who cared about kids, and they went public. This article, "Board lobbies for new proposal to save Reading Recovery" - now remember I mentioned that even if a board wanted to pay for the cost for Reading Recovery, they were told no, no rational for that expect that somebody had made a decision, no, and paid no attention to the evidence that was coming from teachers and parents:

 

"Earlier last month, the Department of Education had told this newspaper," and this is on the South Shore, "that Reading Recovery would not be allowed to continue, despite the wishes of the board and the fact it fit within a new provincial framework for early literacy support programs." The chairman of the board at the time went to the department and asked "and we go an absolute no," he said about his meeting with the minister.

 

The Chronicle Herald ran an article in June 2011 called "We can't afford cuts that destroy education programs," and I will just share one part of that, "With this added pressure on the classroom, there is a concern about children who do not have a diagnosed learning disability, yet still struggle." And we know that when kids are diagnosed we know early intervention, early identification is what helps but sometimes kids don't have that identified disability, but they can't learn to read. They're falling through the cracks. Reading Recovery is a program designed to help such kids.

 

Research shows that dollars spent on early education save more dollars later. We're hearing that in a lot of these independent - these people didn't get together and decide they were going to send this message to the Premier or to the minister, they didn't decide to go to The Chronicle Herald and tell their story, but all of the stories are consistent. They're all sending the same message.

 

This headline in South Shore Now: "Reading Recovery is dead, says province". "The South Shore Regional School Board . . . has the money, the staff and the desire to save its Reading Recovery program. What it doesn't have is the blessing of the Department of Education." Question that was posed to the department: "Would a board be allowed to continue running the program on its own if it wants to?" The response back, "The decision is no, that's not going to be the case."

 

It goes on, ". . . the piece we know we can't give up for the sake of students is this intense, structured, one-on-one for the students who need it." That's what Reading Recovery provided for the province and that's what the province announced it would be cutting.

 

The board, at that time, when they asked if they could pay, ". . . the board is prepared to pay the nominal $2,800 . . . fee to run the trademarked program, and it has the staff qualified to deliver it. 'What we really want is to continue . . .' "

 

Do you know what the answer was to that? No. You have trained teachers, you have the money to pay for it, you know it works, but someone in a high place said no. Now if you really cared about kids - I know the question of, well, is it money? Well, they took the money out of the equation. They said, no, it's not money, we'll pay for it ourselves - and they still were not allowed to deliver that program.

 

I know that our teachers are represented by the Nova Scotia Teachers Union. I know the Teachers Union is an advocate for teachers, and I know that the NSTU president Alexis Allen - when she was president at the time - was here in this Legislature with us. She was speaking out against the cuts that the NDP Government was making to education. When you have one or two teachers, I guess the government could dismiss it and say, well, it's just a couple of fanatics and don't bother with them, but this is a group that advocates on behalf of teachers. This is their provincial president who stood up for kids in this province against her government.

 

In the article in The Teacher of May 2011 - and I will share some of this - "The NSTU has started an aggressive campaign protesting the cuts to public education, which are having a direct impact on Nova Scotia classrooms [and] schools . . ."

 

I stood in this House as a member of the Opposition, and so did other members of Opposition Parties - both Parties - and we tried to get the government and the minister of the day to understand that you can't take $65 million out of public schools, you can't take away a program that works, and not expect to have some negative impact on the kids. That was completely ignored. The Teachers Union was making that same ask - completely ignored. The kids that we're working with in Grade 3 this year are the ones that paid the price, because there was a negative impact to that.

 

Here's the past president of the NSTU, Alexis Allen: "The Minister of Education repeatedly stated . . .

 

AN HON. MEMBER: Past president.

 

MS. CASEY: Past president, I think I said that initially, "The Minister of Education repeatedly stated that the cuts to public education would put 'children and learning first' and have minimal impact. . . . A loss of 228 positions cannot be called minimal impacts. . ." The former president of NSTU went on to say, "the reduction. . . will be felt by the students, and have an impact on the classroom." Okay, another quote, "The 'back to balance' strategy the government asked of school boards is decimating the system and the future of our students is severely jeopardized."

 

Those are comments from the then-president of the NSTU who on behalf of the teachers she was representing knew what the outcome of these cuts would be. Did anybody listen to that? No.

 

Madam Chairman, it went on because at a provincial executive meeting of the NSTU on April 28, 2011, there was a resolution passed and it took a lot for the teachers to pass this resolution against their own minister. The resolution said, "That the Nova Scotia Teachers Union rescind the invitation to the Minister of Education to speak at Annual Council." They had been asking her, they had been talking to her, they had been pleading with her and she had not listened. The message I would take from that is she was not welcome and when you pass a resolution and put it in print, that's a pretty strong message, and she was not invited to speak.

 

Here is another article, "I can only think that the people who come up with these cost-cutting schemes are not. . . parents or grandparents of children who struggle with reading. They have never had the opportunity to see the light in a child's eye, when, for the first time, that child understands the mystery behind unlocking the printed word." It's a pretty strong message.

 

This was in Metro Voices, another perspective,

 

"Jennex eliminated at least one clearly educational-if-not-classroom program - Reading Recovery - she claimed is not efficient enough to justify its $7 million price tag. It was efficient enough - essential - for my youngest son. As a five-year-old, Michel had no interest in mastering the mysteries of the alphabet, much less figuring out how to put letters together to form words. . . He was going to be an actor. Logic was not his strong suit."

 

How much time do I have, Madam Chairman, before we switch over.

 

AN HON. MEMBER: It's already switched over.

 

MS. CASEY: Oh okay, so you're waiting.

 

AN HON. MEMBER: I'm waiting.

 

ANOTHER HON. MEMBER: You're already into his time.

 

MS. CASEY: Sorry about that. How much time?

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: 118 minutes.

 

MS. CASEY: Okay. "By the end of primary this little five year old . . . just as school became more challenging, it was a recipe for frustration, failure." Entering Reading Recovery was the best thing that could ever happen to him. It put him on the right path.

 

My message, I think, is pretty clear.

 

AN HON. MEMBER: No, really.

 

ANOTHER HON. MEMBER: No way.

 

MS. CASEY: Well I would hope it's pretty clear. It was a message, Madam Chairman, it was a message that was loud and clear three years ago, two years ago, one year ago and that is exactly why, when I began this, I said we listened to the parents; we listened to the educators; we knew it was researched based; we knew we had evidence here in Nova Scotia that it was a good program, and we had evidence that students were learning to read through that program and for that reason it is one of the main parts of our literacy strategy for this next budget year, thank you.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I would ask that the honourable minister please table those documents that you were reading. Thank you.

 

The honourable member for Argyle-Barrington.

 

HON. CHRISTOPHER D'ENTREMONT: It's my pleasure to stand for a few moments while we're on the topic of Reading Recovery to - this is more of a personal issue. As I spoke about it in Estimates, about three years ago when the Reading Recovery program was canceled by the NDP Government of the day, I spoke to bring you a parent's view of Reading Recovery. As I said back at that time, my son Alec, who is now 11, went through the program. He is a student at the CSAP, continues to have issues and problems with reading, but he's trying really, really, really, really hard. I know that his time with the Reading Recovery program was one that was very good to him and he did learn a whole bunch in order to get him to the point he is today.

 

Madam Chairman, because he is with the CSAP, he has started, within the last couple of years, to learn English and that has created a whole bunch of other issues where he basically has to start from scratch with the things that he learned through the Reading Recovery program in the first place, and actually they have served him very, very well.

 

We've said before that maybe when government falters, we'll underline it, and when government does something right, we'll applaud it. As a parent, as a member of the opposition, I want to thank the minister for bringing Reading Recovery back because it is needed by our children.

 

I hope that the rollout will not take too long, that the full program will be up and running in lightning speed. I know there are some challenges. I feel bad for the teachers who were already trained in the program, who then had to learn another program, and now are back to Reading Recovery. That does create a bit of a challenge for them to get back up to speed.

 

My question really to the minister, before I give my time back to the member for Pictou Centre, is just basically how long will it take to get the program back up and running? Again, I thank the minister for her diligence in this, in bringing the Reading Recovery program back to Nova Scotia.

 

MS. CASEY: Thank you for those - I guess a testimony from someone who has experienced it. I know that this young fellow's mom is a teacher and I know that she would be looking for every strategy possible to help him succeed, and if Reading Recovery was one of those programs to allow that to happen, then it's really heartwarming to be able to stand here and say yes, we are going to reinstate it. It will happen. There will be some students who will be in September of this coming year because we have some of those people who are already trained. It is a kind of recertifying but we will have Reading Recovery delivered, in some of our schools, to some of our students, in September of 2014.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: It is certainly nice to get back up on my feet here and ask the minister a few more questions, but prior to that I think it's only right that I say a few words on Reading Recovery. Madam Chairman, I think the key thing in a lot of things, especially education, is that you listen to people. You listen to people who are in the trenches doing the work. You listen to people who are involved in programs. You listen to parents.

 

Again, throughout my career there were a lot of good programs in our schools, and Reading Recovery was a very good program. As the minister mentioned earlier it is evidence-based, researched-based but I'm going to take the evidence and the research and throw it on the floor for a few minutes because all you have to do is talk to the proud parents of the children who improved immensely through the help of this particular program.

 

So as I was sitting on the sidelines the last three or four years, I was really very, very disappointed that this Reading Recovery program was eliminated, and I must say I'm very happy that it's back. It should be back. It has helped so many children in our school system. During that particular time, I took the time to talk to a lot of teachers involved in this program and they were extremely disappointed. I know some of the disciples of intervention programs and so on, they would like to take the $18.6 million and put it all right in that area. I know that's not a practical solution because of all the demands that we have in the education system.

 

In simple words, there is an expression - so much pain for such little gain. Well I guess with regard to Reading Recovery, it's so much gain with no evidence of any pain. Again, I'm quite delighted that it's going to be back in the school system. It certainly couldn't come soon enough.

 

I'm going to start off with a few questions to the minister dealing with the budget bulletin - a one-page budget bulletin that was in the budget book - and just want to ask a few questions pertaining to that particular page. Perhaps I'll start off with the first one. It's dealing with the Tuition Support Agreement with regard to special needs. I would like the minister to take the opportunity to talk about the student support agreement and describe the significance of it.

 

MS. CASEY: Thank you to the member for the question. Just for the information of the folks in the House, the Tuition Support Program is a program designed for students who, for whatever reason, are not able to progress in the public school system. The program has been around for probably 10 years, I would say.

 

What it is, there is an agreement with three private schools in the province: Churchill Academy, Bridgeway Academy and Landmark East. Those private schools are designed to provide support for students with special needs or special challenges. Some parents enrol their students in those schools for all of their education. Others have their children go there for a short period of time; when they do that, that's what we call tuition support.

 

That means that if Johnny is in Grade 3 and he needs some additional support and he's not able to be successful in the public school and he's been on an IPP in the public school and all of the resources that could be provided for him are just not making headway, then they can enter into a Tuition Support Program, which means that the dollars that would go to the board as part of their allocation per student would go to help pay the tuition in one of those designated schools.

 

Just for the information of folks here, at Bridgeway the tuition is about $12,850. So if you look at the funding that would normally go to the school board, it's $7,600, but parents can apply for a supplement based on income and so the supplement can go up to a maximum of almost $4,000. So if the student gets the eligible funding and if they qualify for the supplement, they're getting pretty close to the tuition that that private school is charging.

 

We have a number of students who do move in and out of those private schools. In fact we have close to 200 - about 198 students are in one of those three private designated schools. They may stay for one year, they may stay for three years; it depends on what progress they make. But what we do, what we are looking at, and what we have been looking at, is a fourth year which is a transition year for them to transition back into public school. That's where the teachers at the private school and the teachers in the public school sit down and look at the programing and the progress of that particular student so that when they come back into the public school it's an easy transition.

 

We have a lot of students who benefit from that program. I can remember standing in this legislature a number of years ago as a minister saying that until we could provide a program that was as good as or better than these kids could get in the designated school, then we would continue to support the Tuition Support Program. It fluctuates and the length of time that they are there fluctuates.

 

What also happens is sometimes there are tuition agreements, which is an agreement between the school board and, I guess, with the family, but there is an agreement that students can have access to some of that specialized training. As I said, the funding that the department provides is up to four years and the last of those four years is a transition year, which is to phase the student back. It was always intended to be a short-term solution; it was never intended that students would go there and never come back to public school.

 

Just like we were saying with Reading Recovery - you know, maybe it's short term intervention that closes the gap and the kid is ready to hit the ground and go on. For some kids that happens in a year at one of the designated schools; sometimes it takes longer. But it was never intended to be a long-term solution. Some parents choose to make it a long-term solution, but our support continues for those students who can benefit from that.

 

If you've been to any of those schools, whether it's Churchill, Bridgeway or Landmark East, you know that the class sizes are very small, there is a lot of that one-on-one, there may be a teacher with six kids, and for some that's exactly the intervention and the intensity that these kids need.

We have continued our support for that. We are putting in $200,000 - that's new money this year, to the member - and that brings us a total of $858,000 that we're investing to support those kids who need that additional intensive one-on-one.

 

MR. DUNN: I'm going to get the minister to comment perhaps on the virtual schools for a few seconds. We've been providing a variety of courses in the virtual schools and my question is, how many schools in Nova Scotia will be assisted through this $1.2 million, and can you identify them at this particular point in time?

 

MS. CASEY: The virtual schools are one of those programs that are continuing to grow. We have a number of students in some very rural schools who don't have the course selection that we would like them to have simply because the size of the school doesn't allow that to happen. What we're looking at is 77 schools currently in the province; students in those 77 schools have access to the virtual schools' programming. That continues to grow. We have 88 high schools so our goal would be - can we keep moving forward and ensure that regardless of what high school you're in, you have an opportunity to pick up courses through the virtual school?

 

Last year there were 961 students who took advantage of that. There were 51 courses that they could choose from. Now that is huge. I think I have mentioned here before, a small school like Advocate Harbour, for a student in Advocate Harbour to have a course selection of 51 courses is unbelievable, so we continue to support that. We continue to take advantage of that and we have a budget of $1.8 million for the virtual schools. All boards have virtual schools within them and all high schools are eligible. There may be schools that are - in that 77 and part of the 83, or whatever it was, but they have an opportunity to participate in that program.

 

We believe it is a good investment. There are 12 teachers who work to deliver those programs and the kids that we have in our high schools now are so engaged in technology that it is very easy for them to communicate, to respond and to learn through that medium. We will continue to support that. We will continue to fund it and that $1.8 million is something that we have put in the budget this year for that.

 

MR. DUNN: Again staying with the Budget Bulletin, the next question is dealing with cap class size. I'll ask the minister if she would tell the assembly, with regard to the cap, exactly what classes are capped now, what classes are going to be capped later, and if later, when? I'll follow that up with another question on class sizes.

 

MS. CASEY: I think the member would know, as a teacher, that the number of kids in a classroom does make a difference. The complexities within a classroom make a difference and we are finding that more and more, those classrooms are becoming more complex so numbers do make a difference. There was, in this province, a cap of P-3 with a cap of 25. We recognize - and you've heard me say it many times - that the earlier you can intervene and provide supports for kids, the greater the possibility of positive outcome.

 

Our commitment is to cap the classes from Primary to Grade 2 at 20. That is the first phase and that is what we're doing this year. We are going to move it on beyond Grade 2, to 25 for Grades 3 to 6. We are taking a measured approach. It is a costly program. It does require more teachers, but we believe it's investing the dollars in the right place and that's at the lower elementary grades. We recognize that there are some schools where once you get to 20 and you have 22 kids, what do you do?

 

So we're calling it a soft cap, and that means, in consultation with the administration at the school and the teachers and the school board, there may be permission granted for a Primary to Grade 2 class to have 22 kids instead of 20, but the goal is 20. You're not going to create two classes of 11. Those are some of the logistics of the whole equation, but the target is 20 students per class, Primary to Grade 2, a soft cap.

 

MR. DUNN: The minister sort of answered my second question following up that. I will ask this though before I leave that little bullet. With reference to the Grades 3 to 6 cap at 25, do you have any idea when that may be initiated - the following year or two years' time?

 

MS. CASEY: We are able - within the $7.2 million that we're using for class cap - to cap the Grade 3 at 25 to 1 for this coming year. So when you go into September, it will be capped at Grades Primary, 1 and 2, capped at 20; and Grade 3 capped at 25. We know that beyond that in Grades 4, 5 and 6, we have some classes that have more than that. But that will be our goal, to work towards capping Grades 3 to 6 at 25.

 

MR. DUNN: It would be very difficult to argue against capping those sizes because it certainly makes a very, very big difference in how the classroom environment occurs on a regular day. I can remember as a junior high teacher that every student over 25 seemed to me like another row of students; it made such a difference in the environment and the organization of the classroom. Again, I'm glad to hear about the capped size being initiated.

 

I'm going to switch gears here and leave the bulletin. The next several questions will be on educational assistants. The questions that I will be asking are from experience working in the school system from talking to numerous teachers, administrators, teachers and educational assistants throughout the different schools in easily a couple of different school boards. They're probably the lowest-paid employees in the school system, but very, very valuable. Many parents, teachers and students would agree that individualized support is the reason why hundreds of our students flourish. Perhaps my first question to the minister would be, basically, what are the required minimum qualifications to become an educational assistant?

 

MS. CASEY: I will certainly get that information for the member so I know that we're clear on the criteria, but I believe they would have gone through an early childhood development program. We know that the importance of EAs or TAs - they're called a lot of things, but what they really are is somebody who goes into the classroom and supports a student who has some kind of a special need, whether it's a behavioral need, a physical need or an emotional need. The qualifications and the criteria that these adults must meet has to very related to the work that they do. Not everyone can be an EA. Not everybody can show the compassion but also show the direction and the leadership and the firmness that sometimes they need when they're dealing with children that have challenges.

 

I just want to say to the member that we have ratios that we use to provide supports to students in our schools. These are outside the classroom. These are not your normal classroom teachers; they are resource teachers, speech-language pathologists, school psychologists, teacher assistants and guidance councillors.

 

A number of years ago, there was a gap analysis done to see if in fact we were meeting those ratios and, if we weren't, where we're weren't. It's good to know that the ratio that's set for EAs is 1 per 500 students, and when the analysis was done, we were meeting that ratio. So the question is there will be somebody that says, well, we don't have enough EAs. What we need to do if we find ourselves in that situation is to go back and revisit the ratio, because maybe 1 to 500 is not enough.

 

But when you set a target and you reach it, then that's not to say that you just sit back and say everything is fine. We continue to hear and we want to hear from parents or from teachers who believe that perhaps there should be more EAs in the classroom. We know that there were a number of EAs that were cut during the last three or four years so school boards are building back up to that ratio, but the last time the analysis was done, we were at a 1-to-500 ratio for EAs.

 

MR. DUNN: With the ratio of 1 to 500 students, again, that can vary from school to school depending on where the school is and the students in the school. Again, I find it a tough ratio to put a blanket policy over all schools, 1 per 500.

 

I guess my next question is, why are we not giving more support and training for EAs to be able to effectively engage with our children that certainly are in our schools and that have high needs?

 

MS. CASEY: I don't want to leave the member with inaccurate information, so I will correct something. The ratio for EAs is 1 to 100, but also for the most challenging students - which is about two per cent, 1.76 per cent, about two per cent - the ratio is 1 to 10. So normal ratio is 1 to 100; with exceptional cases, the ratio is 1 to 10. That funding is part of the special education funding which goes out to school boards. $146 million is what is in the budget this year to cover things like teacher assistants. As I said, we will monitor that, but that's a much better ratio than I gave in my first answer.

 

MR. DUNN: Again, EAs can have the greatest impact in solving schools' most time-consuming and perhaps financial woes. I witnessed EAs perform many duties in a school setting - the most important of all supporting teachers and understanding their students. Well-trained EAs can deliver provisions and organize small group work to foster real high-impact learning and results. My question to the minister is, why don't we arrange tailor-made in-services to assist EAs in the critical jobs they are expected to handle on a daily basis?

 

MS. CASEY: The EAs are employees of the board and we provide the funding to the board to pay their salaries. We also work with boards on professional development because, as the member has stated, the skill set that an EA has in dealing with some challenges in the classroom is not something that - you can learn a lot through your course work, but when you get into the situation and theory has to become practice, sometimes it's different.

 

I think we do need to support our EAs. We encourage boards to do that. Professional development, regardless of whom in the education system or in any profession, is important and so we'll certainly follow-up with the member to get to things, get the criteria, which we believe is by board, and also we can look at the professional development plans that boards have for their EAs.

 

MR. DUNN: In following that up, EAs should be supported with the right framework and management system so they can learn, develop it and make a difference in our schools. Many critics have argued that simply throwing money at school boards won't change the underlying problems that affect schools and students.

 

The minister related to me the other day that that flow of money, perhaps the $18.6 million, is going to change the way it flows through the school boards; it's going to be targeted. I was pleased to hear that because if you target it and make people accountable, then the dollars should get to the areas where we need the assistance.

 

Again, one question I did have for the minister - she did answer that, Madam Chairman, as far as the way the dollars used to flow to the way they are going to flow now from the department towards the various school boards.

 

The correct resources, time to train and proper focus for EAs could have far-reaching positive results. An obvious positive change for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is to focus on the relationship between budget and provision.

 

Madam Chairman, a question I have is, why doesn't the department make sure that each school board defines how schools spend each nickel of the dollars per student? It seems like, over the years, that money would go from the department to the schools and perhaps the accountability wasn't there for a lot of those dollars and they didn't reach the areas where we needed the greatest help in the trenches and front line workers.

 

MS. CASEY: If I could just make a comment about the professional development and the qualifications and criteria for teacher assistants, the department has developed a guideline which is distributed and used by all boards, so we are trying to provide some direction to boards as to how they make use of the EAs that they have in their schools.

 

I want to speak to the targeted money, and I did speak to that in my opening comments when I talked about providing dollars to school boards for a program that we believe every student in the provide should have access to. When I talk about targeted money, that is exactly what we're saying. We're saying if a ratio of 1 to 100 is what we need for EAs and O₂ programs are what we need for kids in high school, or IB programs, or opportunities we need for our highest achievers in high school.

 

If we want every student and every board to have an opportunity, they may not take advantage of it, but if we want them to have the opportunity, then we need to make sure that the board knows that is how they spend their money. We know - and there are two sides to every story - but I have heard some displeasure with the most recent announcement that more money would be targeted to boards this year. That came from a board member.

 

What it does is take away their flexibility, but boards have been criticised for taking money from one program and putting it into another and maybe kids don't get to take advantage of the intent of the funding. If we target it, it has to go for the program for which it is designed. I'll give you an example in this budget: we have a ratio for guidance councillors of 1 to 500. Remember I mentioned there were a set of ratios and we were trying to meet them, well, three boards have not met that ratio yet so the money we are investing to those three boards is to top up their guidance councillor complement so that they do meet the target, they do meet the ratio.

 

I believe it is an attempt to make sure the dollars we spend are impacting directly on kids in the classroom and the programs they have. The money for EAs, which is part of the special ed envelope of money, is targeted but there is also that expectation that the boards meet the ratios that have been set for all of their support people in that special ed program and that is your guidance counsellor, your EAs, your psychologist, your speech language. Those are the people who provide supports outside the classroom. We want to make sure the money is there to provide those supports.

 

MR. DUNN: I have a follow-up question to that with money that is targeted. The question deals with the problems school boards are having with the cost pressure costs, for example: fuel, electricity, buses and we could go on with several other examples. This has been a problem with boards every year; the cost of fuel is going up, the cost of running buses is more expensive and to maintain the buildings becomes more expensive.

 

I have found over the last number of years that basically a lot of areas were getting down to skeleton crews as far as your tradespeople, as far as looking after our schools, and they were just, perhaps, addressing the critical things in our schools because of lack of funding. Again, the question is dealing with the amount of money going into that area.

 

MS. CASEY: When we were putting the budget together, one of the things we do often, throughout that process, is to talk to board staff so they can get a chance to identify what their needs are, what their cost pressures are and we know that about 80 per cent of the money that goes to a school board goes for wages so there is not a lot of money left over.

 

We also know that the way we've developed the budget this year - knowing what the cost pressures are, knowing what the wage pressures are, knowing what the targeted money is - we believe there is flexibility there for boards to cover their costs for electricity and maintenance and those kinds of things. But something we have done this year, which I believe will help boards with the very question that the member has raised, and that is in our capital, our TCA, our tangible capital assets money.

 

In that budget last year there was a line of about $6 million. What that is used for is not for a new school and not for an addition and alternation, but it's for a new roof or new windows or something that is what we call a maintenance capital. We have increased that budget to $15 million because we know that boards are struggling sometimes to find the money to do the new roof. We believe that we are helping them out in that way; they have an opportunity to draw on that money and that does a couple of things. Deferred maintenance is never good and if the roof is leaking, and you don't do something about it, then you have a bigger problem as you go forward.

 

We are encouraging boards to take advantage of that $15 million, to use it for those capital repairs that they may not otherwise be able to afford out of the funding that they get, but it's not enough to qualify for a new school or alterations or additions.

 

We have looked at what the cost pressures are and in developing these budgets in consultation with the boards, the CFOs and the superintendents, I think they will find that they have enough money to cover their cost pressures. I will tell you, that wasn't the case in the last few years and that is why we had boards that were having to cut and slash and do things that they didn't really want to do, but they needed to pay the light bill.

 

MR. DUNN: I've had the opportunity to visit a lot of the schools during the last few years and more so recently over the last number of months. Certainly many of them need a lot of repairs and $15 million certainly will be welcome. I would love to see the number double and triple that, but again there is a great need for dollars to be spent in that area.

 

I'm going to just read a statement and I'm going to get the minister to react to it: We need a single, coherent, flexible and provincially used system, which can be tailored to each student's needs and is internally managed. In other words, it's a waste of resources for each school to create their own system, which often only generates the predicted outcomes.

 

MS. CASEY: I believe you might be talking about shared services, services that are shared between and amongst schools or between and amongst school boards. I couldn't agree with you more. We recognize - and I will use this as an example - we have the same software used by every board in the province to do their payroll, and we have payroll departments in every board using the same software. The teacher in Bridgewater has no idea whether that pay is generated in Bridgewater or in Amherst or in Sydney because they are all using the same software. So would it not make sense to look at bringing those services together with a team that is probably going to be fewer than the teams that we have now to deliver the same service?

 

I think it's an important point. I think it is something that we do need to acknowledge and we do need to look at that. We know that shared services, provincially, is something that is being talked about. Are there savings and where are they and is it a good investment of our money? Are there complications if you change what we're doing now? Those kinds of things - but I think it's worth looking at because, as I said, we probably have eight little payroll departments that are generating our pay. We will follow up on that.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: We have reached the moment of interruption. The committee will now recess.

 

[5:54 p.m. The committee recessed.]

 

[6:32 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Committee of the Whole on Supply will now resume deliberations.

 

The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: I believe when we stopped a few moments ago we were dealing with educational assistants and so we will keep on that particular theme. I think they play such an important role in our school system. We need to find ways to simplify procedures and not add or over complicate them. Teachers and EAs carry a heavy burden of responsibility each day. The minister mentioned, not too long ago, that the classroom environment certainly has changed over the last number of years.

 

One of our biggest problems is bureaucracy, the mountain of paperwork that absorbs so much time. Dozens of daily emails, letters, and forms to fill out take away the valuable resource of interpersonal activity. I believe we need to standardize paperless systems, both in schools and between services, so all information is quickly accessible. I know that is happening, but I think I would like to see it improve. It is not rocket science to create ways of working to save time and energy. The progression of inclusion owes much to the EAs' commitment, despite working with a large number of students.

 

A quick question for the minister, Mr. Chairman, does the minister agree that all EAs should be allowed to do their jobs, unimpeded by bureaucracy, resources, and lack of training?

 

MS. CASEY: I know that we have just heard, and I think anyone who has been in the public school system understands and agrees, that EAs are valuable. Students need them, classroom teachers need them, and parents need them. Their time needs to be spent with the child or with the children in the class. There is always a component of monitoring and evaluating and supervision but I think that the more time we have on task and the more time we have with our students, the more productive we'll be.

 

I would just like to say that sometimes we need to work smarter, not harder. Sometimes that does put in place something that will take away some of that time-consuming data collection and record keeping that take away from the individual EA's time with the student.

 

MR. DUNN: Quickly, two or three questions perhaps together. How many students can an educational assistant supervise? I don't know if there is an exact number, but if there is an approximate number as far as the number of students that they can supervise. Can an educational assistant be allowed to be supervising in a classroom by themselves and without a teacher? Perhaps I'll stop there and get a comment from the minister.

 

MS. CASEY: We talked a little bit earlier about the ratio of 1 to 100 for EAs per student. We also talked about 1 to 10 for that lowest, most complex child in the classroom. I guess it's hard to answer the question of what is the ideal number and what is the ideal ratio because it does depend a lot on the complexities.

 

But the teacher is ultimately responsible for the students in her class during the whole day, so the goal and the role of the EA is to be working in the classroom. They may take a child out for short periods of time, but generally speaking the EA is assigned to a student in the full class and is there to provide the support for that student under the supervision of the teacher.

 

MR. DUNN: Another question I have dealing with educational assistants is, do their salaries vary from board to board? That's one question, and I think because of time constraints I'll go on to a second question. It's dealing with educational assistants. Often many of them have to wait until late August before they know if they have a position in a particular school. I know it depends on the influx of students coming into the schools and that in itself will determine how many educational assistants are needed, but again it's very stressful for many educational assistants in the Spring when school is stopping, wondering if they're going to have a position in the Fall, where the position is going to be.

 

I'm wondering if there is any way that we can perhaps improve that where they might be able to find out a little sooner to what they could possibly be doing in September when the schools open up - if they have a position, where the position is going to be and so on. Again, going back to the question dealing with salaries, I'm just curious to see if - I assume it's the same across the various boards in the province.

 

MS. CASEY: To answer the question about salaries, the contracts that the EAs have are with the local board so it may vary from one board to another. The short answer is not all EAs are paid the same. It depends on what has been negotiated in the contract that they have with their particular employer. That, of course, could be seven different boards, so there is no consistency there.

 

The other question is about when they get their assignment. We have tried - and I know boards ask regularly - to get their funding and to get their profile sheets early because they want to begin that process of how many staff they can hire and then assigning that, allocating those. We know that the number of EAs varies because it is based on need. When students are coming in there may be students who move over the summer and there may be students who arrive in the school in September and present themselves on the first day. They may meet the criteria; it may be a student who does need that EA support, so in that case it has to be done in September.

 

However, I think it would be of benefit to families, to EAs, and to teachers to have that completed, ideally, before students and teachers and EAs leave in June because they do wonder and they are left in limbo. I guess it would be something we could strive for. If we could get the money to boards early, if they can identify the needs that are going to be in the schools and they can do their assignments of EAs to students, the sooner that can happen the better but there will always be those situations that are unforeseen and require assignments late, early in the school year, like in September.

 

MR. DUNN: With regard to educational assistants in our school system, and we talk about money being targeted for certain areas, I think that's an area where I would like to see dollars targeted because it always appears to me that if there is money that has to be cut from the educational system, they start looking in areas where - and I think that's one of the areas that sometimes, at least the educational assistants feel, they may be the first to be eliminated. Again, we're looking at the front-line workers.

 

Mr. Chairman, some parents will say that the Education Department has a commitment to providing all students with appropriate educational programing, and I'm sure we all agree with that, so that's not something that we differ on. Unfortunately, many other parents insist that inclusion is causing many students to experience a watered-down program with regard to their academic pursuits.

 

My question to the minister is, what is your opinion regarding inclusion? Should we stay with the current model and philosophy or should we challenge educators to create something different to address these concerns?

 

MS. CASEY: We know that we have a policy of inclusion in this province and public education is free for any student up to the age of 21, regardless of their behavioural, emotional, social, or physical needs. So we have that policy and I think we all believe in inclusion. The question that is asked is, what is the best model to use so that all students in the class and all students in the school are in an environment where they can learn best?

There would be many parents of students who require special supports who would agree that 100 per cent of the students 100 per cent of the time is not the best model for the student, for their child. There are others who would argue that but the challenge for us in the school system is to make sure that we look at the program needs and the physical needs and the emotional needs of those students and try to meet them. In some cases those needs are best met outside the walls of a classroom. They may be a small group with a teacher in another part of the school but it's never to say that they don't belong in the classroom. We have to look at the environment that we can create where they can best learn. As I said, I think that the model that we are currently using has lots of room to improve.

 

MR. DUNN: With regard to educational assistants and the type of work that they do in our school system is very valuable - valuable for the students, valuable for the teachers in the classroom setting, and of course the parents of these children. The roles EAs play in the classroom are varied, but they are vital. Ultimately EAs allow teachers to teach more effectively, and a reduction in the number of EAs would definitely impact our children with special educational and health needs, on teachers, and the performance of the school.

 

I can remember being an administrator at a junior/senior high school and we would perhaps early in the school year - as early as the month of September - we would find ourselves in great need of resources and additional educational assistants due to a number of circumstances. We literally had to go to central office or our local board office and put on the boxing gloves and fight for part of an EA or a full EA. The answers, of course, that we would get - they're just not available; the allotment is out and you'll have to do with what you have.

 

I would say that a lot of schools had this sort of problem and had to survive without the additional assistants. I think it's safe in saying that if you were to walk into most schools, they would like to have more educational assistants helping their students. It may not be practical or affordable to do that, but again there are a lot of circumstances.

 

So the question for the minister is, is there any way that we can avoid some of these situations at the beginning of the year? In most cases, we know what students are coming up through. I will speak on some particular examples sometime this evening that really cause problems for our schools in trying to address this.

 

MS. CASEY: The answer to the question is not a simple answer and part of that is because we talked about the complexities in a classroom. We know that the needs of the children - parents send us the best they have and we accept them into our schools, but the needs vary. The needs that exist in any particular classroom vary.

 

We also know that one of the things that we've tried to do to help relieve some of that was by capping the class sizes so you don't have 25 students in a Primary class with a lot of children with complex needs. The maximum you would have would be 20. So capping the class size will hopefully address some of that challenge of how a teacher gets to work with all of the kids in the class.

The member makes a good point about knowing in advance. Students who are in a school community and who have required supports and who are moving through the grades, they are known to the school. The pre-planning prior to students ever leaving in June is where that problem could be addressed. I mentioned earlier, it's the students who arrive in September who are unknown and require special assistance or TAs who are the surprises. But when you know the student and you know the history of the student and you know the support that student needs, some of that planning could happen before September. It could happen before students leave in June.

 

MR. DUNN: Again, still dealing with educational assistants, it appears in the number of schools that I've been in that there are still an insufficient number of educational assistants. I can think of - and I'll probably speak to that when I'm dealing with special education - but there are certainly not enough EAs available in that particular school to address the issues and concerns of the students involved.

 

Many teachers will say that the bottom line is there is just not enough money in the budget for supporting the needs of many students. Again, I'm pleased to hear that a lot of the funding is going to be targeted in the future so that some of these concerns will be addressed. The budget needed to change. The flow of dollars had to change because the flow of dollars from the department to each school board . . .

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Time is up.

 

The honourable member for Sydney-Whitney Pier.

 

MR. GORDIE GOSSE: I'm going to go to the Early Years. I notice the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development was already spending $1.1 million previously in the Department of Education and they transferred in $53.125 million from the Department of Community Services, so that would be a small increase in the budget to $56.125 million. I'm just wondering, could you please break that down for me, the spending in the Early Years, and let me know where that money is going within the child care facilities?

 

MS. CASEY: I do have the breakdown. I can give that to you now. This totals the $56.125 million - you've done your math. If I can do the breakdown here, there are 19 FTEs, which gives you $1.457 million. There is the Supported Child Care Grant, which is $5.1 million. There is the Early Childhood Enhancement Grant, which is $18.4 million. There are the Child Development Centre grants - and this is for part-time day facilities - $273,000. There is the Nova Scotia Child Care Association grant of $60,000. There is the family home care, which is $1.18 million. Recruitment and retention, and this is incentives to get students and staff - I guess it's part of the recruitment strategy - is $500,000.

 

The early childhood education training initiatives - and these are grants that support provincial initiatives aimed at enhancing training - that is $925,000. There are the child care subsidy programs - these are income-based, income-tested programs - $16.9 million. Healthy Beginnings - these are home visits, public health and meeting with young families and new parents - $3.5 million. There is the Early Childhood Education Grant funding, which is $354,000; and there is the operating expenditures, which includes professional services for $59,000. You add that all up, I think it comes to $56.125 million.

 

MR. GOSSE: The minister has already done her math homework too. My other question is, most of the women who work in the daycare centres and child care centres are very professional women. They're probably on the lowest pay scale of any profession in the Province of Nova Scotia. Any of this new money that's going to child care centres and daycare centres, is any of this new money earmarked for wages, an increase in wages for those professional workers in the child care centres?

 

MS. CASEY: I did mention in my comments yesterday that unfortunately we are the lowest paid in Canada. That's something that we should not be proud of, but it's a starting point, I guess, and members would understand where we are and how we got there.

 

What we have attempted to do this year is to put our new money into the early intervention programs because you can't address all the problems in one budget year, but we can look at what is most important, what is going to make the best and the biggest impact on kids. So the new money that we put in for the early intervention centres is to try to reduce the wait-list there.

 

The short answer is, it is not going to wages. I guess the answer we can give is that it is going to support kids who are on the wait-list who need to have intervention before they ever get to public school.

 

MR. GOSSE: I thank the minister for that answer. I will now focus back on the other portfolio, Education and Early Childhood Development. I wonder if the minister could list the number of P3 schools in the Province of Nova Scotia.

 

MS. CASEY: We have 39 P3 schools in the province. We know that those were built a number of years ago and we also know that some of them are reaching a point where there needs to be notification that the lease is up. I can read to the member, if you would like.

 

MR. GOSSE: Oh no, that's fine. You can send me a copy.

 

MS. CASEY: I will give you a copy of where they are, who the developer is, when notice needs to be served, and when the expiry date is. We can provide that to the member.

 

MR. GOSSE: I'd like to thank the honourable minister for that. Knowing what you are saying, that the notice has to be given, does that notice have to be given four years out?

 

An example of the two schools in my area that are P3 schools, one being Sherwood Park elementary, one being Sherwood Park junior high, Grades 7, 8 and 9, and the other being Harbourside Elementary - one was built in 1999 and one was built in 2000. So the notice for Sherwood Park would have to be given out in 2015 and the notice for Harbourside in 2016?

 

MS. CASEY: That's correct, the notice has to be given and then four years after that is the expiry date of the contract.

 

MR. GOSSE: I thank the minister for that. I did attend a meeting at the Harbourside Elementary School. To my dismay, there were only five members of the public who showed up. I wonder if they were to close the school, they would probably get 500 people.

 

It was very interesting. It was Jim Burton, I think, and Paul Oldford who were the guys who put on that, along with Stewart Matheson from the school board.

 

My next question along the P3 school issue is, if the P3 school contract is up and they are told that their contract is not going to be reviewed, will the department still follow through on the review process of school closures with those schools whose contract is not going to be renewed?

 

MS. CASEY: Just so I clearly understand the question, if it is determined that the lease is not going to be renewed, does the board need to take the community through a school review? Yes.

 

MR. GOSSE: So the minister said the school review process will still be going through, even though the contract is not going to be renewed with the P3 school.

 

MS. CASEY: To the member, you know when a school board takes a community through the review process, if the school is not going to be opened, then where the students go is something that has to be discussed and reviewed and presented to the community. So it would not be as simple as saying we're not going to renew the contract and your kids are going A, B and C. The community would have to be part of that with the school board.

 

MR. GOSSE: My next question would be that within the review process that is going on now within the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board and the report that is being done in that department, when will that report be coming forward to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development? I'm trying to think of the gentleman's name that was doing it for the province. I know the local people who were there - he worked for government for years. Through you, Mr. Chairman, the government appointee who was doing the school review processes for the whole province - Bob Fowler - when do we think that report will be coming back?

 

MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, the report was two phases: one was the discussion paper and the other was the public consultation. That report has come back. It has 19 different recommendations in it. We are looking at those because some of those will require legislation and we believe we can have that legislation ready for this sitting of the House, so there will be a release of the report's recommendations: those that can be addressed through legislation, those that can be addressed in the short term, and those that can be addressed in the long term.

 

I am not telling any secrets out of the House here but one of the real problems that was identified by Mr. Fowler was the need to rebuild the sense of trust and communication within schools, communities, boards, municipalities. Those are kind of long-term things you can't legislate but there will be some things that we hope we can legislate this session.

 

MR. GOSSE: Will the report be tabled during this session?

 

MS. CASEY: Mr. Chairman, we will table the report.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Chester-St. Margaret's.

 

HON. DENISE PETERSON-RAFUSE: Mr. Chairman, can you tell me how much I have left, so I can calculate it?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time goes to 7:51 p.m.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. What I want to be clear on are a couple of points. I know that we go back and forth with different opinions but there is one that I want to be very clear on. I heard the minister say again today, and she has repeated it many times and the same with other members of the Liberal Government, and that is with respect to the $65 million cut that they said the NDP did over their mandate.

 

I presented information in this House the other day that showed that in an article that there was an interview with the minister and it said right in that article that the reality was around a $13 million reduction. I know how the information is being sort of twisted and turned to make it look like cost pressures. As I mentioned the other day, that is not the way you do budgeting in departments. I did ask for an itemized list of those budget items that they are saying would equal $65 million, as they are stating. I hope the minister does come through and provide that to me because I haven't received it yet.

 

I'll reiterate, Mr. Chairman, what I'm looking for is the one-by-one items that would have been taken out of the Education and Early Childhood Development budget, direct items, line by line, with an explanation, no different than if you did a financial audit, that you would look intimately at each and every one of those items, rather than having something that has a flurry of just a title and you are not sure what's in there.

 

I wanted to be on the public record that I am asking for that itemized list to be able to review. I would be very grateful to receive that.

 

We had spoken about, during our mandate, that one of the big challenges was the reduction of enrolment in the school system of about 30,000 students and the way that the Hogg formula was meant to be was to provide each of the school boards a certain amount of dollars for each student. During our mandate we actually increased that amount in terms of the dollar amounts, but we have to also deal with the reality of the fact that we have fewer students in the school system. It was quite a challenge for our former minister to take upon herself and I know the minister will respect the fact that if there are very difficult decisions to be made - because it's only human nature - it is difficult to create and make change.

 

As elected officials, when we go door to door, we will often hear that people want government and representatives that will take a lead in making change but it often means - as long as the change doesn't affect me. I think that is just part of human nature in that people have a fear of change. That is what I had been speaking about in terms of our discussion back and forth on Reading Recovery. I know that it is a challenge to take a program that people have been utilizing and where there has been some success, but it was a very difficult decision for our previous minister, Ramona Jennex, to be able to go forward and say to the public, the fact is that those who are receiving it and those who felt it was a good program was wonderful, but we also had many students in Grades 2 and 3 and even in Grade 1 for whom there was no program, and only a certain number of students were able to access that program.

 

I mentioned when I started to speak in Budget Estimates, as a parent, my son went through that and it was very difficult to get him in the program. I did get him in Reading Recovery but I had to fight really hard and I often wondered over the years what it would have been like if he was a child who had parents who didn't have the ability to fight for them and who would be fighting for that child to ensure that he or she would get into the program. With my son, he was just on the tip of the iceberg. He wasn't really struggling to the level that they could identify that he had to be put on top of the list. We felt as parents that if he didn't get that little extra help to bring him up, he would fail in his English and his reading through his school life. We fought a hard, long battle for him to get the support in Reading Recovery.

 

I am one of those parents who have experienced Reading Recovery and how difficult it was for us to access the program for him. I will stand here and say that for him, because he was on the higher percentage of ability, it did help him go forward and he is now a lover of reading, which at that point he wasn't. I'm not standing in this House and saying that Reading Recovery was not successful for some individuals but the issue that was being faced was one where a decision needed to be made in terms of those other students and students like my son who were at the higher level, who really needed that extra push, and if they didn't they probably would have fallen back in their reading abilities.

 

I appreciate the fact that the minister brings forward letters from parents and individuals who felt the program was a success. I know that I'm sure that if we were standing here 20 or 25 years ago, part of the argument might have been about phonics. When I was younger, like my son, I had challenges in terms of reading and my parents invested in the phonics program. I know that Reading Recovery was the aftermath of that. A lot of parents supported phonics, and still do in some regard in the school system.

 

What I'm trying to make the minister understand is the fact that there was a decision that needed to be made. The decision was never made around budget considerations as she has portrayed in the House here. It was not about how much the program cost. Although I have pointed to the fact that the research has shown that it is a costly program, I think that it's important in your leadership role to be able to look at, okay, costs would be part of the factor - are we getting the investment for our children that we should out of any type of program that we are presenting in the school system? Madam Chairman, that's a very important consideration and that was the consideration of our minister at the time. We knew there were a lot of children not getting the support in the school system, so it was our goal to look at what could be created new and what could be done in-house.

 

I know the minister mentioned, well, you use the same teachers and resources that had training through Reading Recovery. I'm sure that the training was useful. However, we were looking at a different way of taking that training and not focusing just on Reading Recovery because once again, it was a program that was just so limited. For those that it was successful, that's wonderful, but the question mark for Nova Scotians, teachers and parents is what about all those other students? I'm sure it's quite a number of students who have fallen through the cracks over the years because they couldn't access Reading Recovery.

 

I do believe the minister now - when I look at the Reading Recovery budget, it seems to be much less than it was four or five years ago; I think there's a difference of $3 million or $4 million. I'm assuming that's because the minister has recognized the fact that Reading Recovery wasn't everything for everybody and that she sees that there need to be other types of programs. I believe that she has said in the House that Reading Recovery will be an option but it's not going to be the total option.

 

So I believe that's the route that our former minister went and felt that we could do that job internally. We have professionals in the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, we have experts there, so it's very important that we utilize the resources that we do have in-house and be able to get more of a grassroots level.

 

In fact, any new kind of program takes several years to take off, but we have heard good responses from parents and from teachers who have said that Succeeding in Reading has been working and has been working for them. Maybe there is a little bit of element of Reading Recovery in there, as the minister mentioned. But at the end of the day, if this supports our children in their education, that's the key element.

 

We can argue as much as we want back and forth who's right and who's wrong, but I believe it is important for people to understand, when you're in the minister's position, the difficult decisions that you have to make and you have to take leadership. I do believe that this minister has a lot of experience and I believe she will take leadership. At the same time, our former minister took leadership and had hard decisions to make. She also made some very positive changes in terms of the math curriculum, school class expansion and increasing guidance counsellors. There is a lot of good that was done.

 

That's why it's really difficult to hear the government, and when they were in Opposition, tout this number of $65 million. It just came out of the blue and it was used over and over to create a perception in the public's mind. Unfortunately, that seems to be the political way to try to position yourself for an election. What happens is those that we're here to work for and support lose out and become more critical about us as politicians, and that's the sad part. It's too bad that we can't offer up the exact information and be able to stand by that and provide the documentation to show that. So if the documentation is there to show that and it's very clear, that's a different matter than just to repeat a number. Therefore, that brings me to the fact - I know that the minister also mentioned about the international studies, and that's all fine, but it was important for her to hear from parents, teachers, and people who are local.

 

What I'll do is I'll just - I'm not going to read through all this. What I'm going to do is table this. But this is actually a little bit of an article that was written in March 2011 by Mr. Paul Bennett. It focuses on the difficulty of the government changing and phasing out Reading Recovery and the outcry about that. At the same time it gives a little bit of information on the background of Reading Recovery, but at the same time it also talks about the challenges of Reading Recovery.

 

This is just a little part that I'll read to put this all into perspective. Mr. Bennett says, "Reading Recovery does have a fiercely loyal following, but independent educational research has shown that it is not good value for money. Not only does it serve only a few students (and those are Grade 1 students) per year in a school, but for the same or less cost a school could offer a variety of more empirically validated, effective interventions for groups of children at several grade levels."

 

That was the challenge and that's the vision that our former minister saw. She saw that we had a large number of students in the province that were losing out because of the fact that Reading Recovery was just so limited to who received that. Sure, those parents who received that for their child and it was successful are going to fight for it because it was something positive in their lives, but we didn't hear any letters being read from those parents for whom their child wasn't able to get into Reading Recovery. I'm sure there are many, if we went out and around the province and spoke to parents about trying to get their child into a reading program, such as myself. I'm sure there's that side of this whole story too.

 

The article continues, "With Reading Recovery, what do school boards get for their money? The best validated research says not enough in terms of improved reading skills to warrant the expense, compared to other early reading programs and interventions. One leading authority, Dr. Melissa Farrall, reviewed the literature and conclude [sic] that it fell short on five different counts. She cited research studies identifying high program withdrawal rates, challenging the company's success rate indices, and analyzing the negligible effects on demand for special education language services. 'Independent research,' she stated bluntly, 'does not validate Reading Recovery's claims of success.'"

 

That's what I mentioned earlier, Madam Chairman. It's the fact that there is a lot of basis and information out there that is saying that the numbers that were being used by the company - we have to remember there is profit to be made, there's marketing to be done, and there are public relations to be done. I'm still not saying that it was not a good program for a certain percentage, but I would say that out of the percentage that actually had the program available to them and could access it, it wasn't 100 per cent success rate. Therefore, we have to look at those other students. I'll table this.

 

I know that Mr. Bennett actually is a Nova Scotian and that's one point that the minister made - that I was talking about international studies and not something local, but that is local. I also understand that Mr. Bennett is part of the team in the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development that is actually job searching for a new Education and Early Childhood Development Deputy Minister. I would say that if he is involved in looking for a deputy minister that we must have trust in his knowledge and his ability. I know that he is well-known throughout the province and has been vocal on many educational issues.

 

For Mr. Bennett to write this article - and it's a good article because he gives both sides of the story, like we've been standing here in the House talking about, but he does give both sides. It is not just one sided all for Reading Recovery but he balances his article by stating that there are a lot of other researchers and professional educators who have a very different opinion of Reading Recovery. So I will leave that Reading Recovery alone. I think that we have discussed it fully in the House.

 

What I'd like to move on to right now, Madam Chairman, is to talk about the school review process. I'm talking about that once again as a parent, also coming from a rural community, being the MLA for Chester-St. Margaret's and going through the process last year with a small school in Gold River-Western Shore that was closed through the small school closure and the challenges that the community faces in that process.

 

We know it is very emotional. Being part of the NDP, I am very glad that we initiated the study around that because it was a process that was not working, that many different governments struggled with over the years. Once again, it is very challenging to take something away from an individual and from a community, especially our small rural schools that many of us have memories of as we grew up and we had that one-to-one teaching and we had the ability to go to a school or situations in our life allowed us to go to schools that were small and we got a great deal of attention.

 

Things do change, I know that times change and things have to change with it but sometimes the old way of doing things can be a very good way. It also can be an even better way when it's mixed with a bit of modern society. I think with the school closure process that it was very challenging for communities and for us as politicians, parents, and so forth.

 

When you look at the Ivany report, Mr. Ivany and the commission talk about the critical situation about rural Nova Scotia. There is a very strong argument about the small schools being an integral part of a community, not only from a teaching basis but also a community basis, the community use of that little school; from an economic stimulus basis; and also a retention basis, because there are families that will move to smaller communities just to give their child the opportunity to go to a small rural school.

 

One of the difficulties that I encountered, and I think that for the public it is hard, they don't understand or have the knowledge base because it is so confusing how the hierarchy works between the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, and the school boards themselves. Many of the decisions lie with the school boards because the funding is given by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, by the government to the school board.

 

I believe that one major failure that has been played out with this small school closure was the fact that the minister, when she was the former Minister of Education with the Progressive Conservatives, legislation was brought in to give more power to the school boards to make the final decision. I think that has really created quite a crisis in the small school closure process because it took away any ability or power of the minister of the day to step in and say this is just not working, if the school board itself felt one way about closing the school because they felt they were being pressured by their budget or if you have what I saw, a school board that actually had one philosophy and that was more on the big schools. I know the minister spoke about that earlier today that there is a difference of philosophy between whether a large school is good or the smaller school.

 

It's just like Reading Recovery; there are very differing opinions on it. If you were in a community where your school board and those leaders in the school board felt very strongly for the super schools, you lost out and you had no real say. The community consultation process was not really a process at all. I was directly involved in trying to save this little school and I saw how it was more farcical as a process just to allow parents to come out publicly but the decisions were made beforehand, there is no doubt about it in my mind. I think it was a real struggle for us as government because we really wanted the communities to have the say in that process.

 

I do know there is a cost factor to maintain the small schools. You are looking at the struggle with the reduction in the number of students who are there but you have to also be realistic in terms of - one of the biggest gaps I found in that process was the fact that it was primarily a decision made by the school board in the realm of the teaching world, the educational world. I do respect the fact that is their job. The part of the process missing was looking at it in more of a holistic manner and to analyze what this means to the community and the economic base of the community.

 

I know that is not the worry of the school board but that is where it is really problematic because some of these small schools are real community drivers for their economic base. People move in because their child can go to a small school. In some of those smaller communities it is the only place for the community members to come together, whether in the evenings or on weekends. A lot of volunteerism takes place around those small schools so they are a real strong fabric of the community.

 

It's really a shame that process - there are communities that will never recover from the school closure process. They will never recover from the fact that a school board, with the leadership having one way of thinking, made the decision, a fait accompli, never gave an opportunity for the communities. Communities are different and I saw that. I saw some communities that were able to rally together and they would have individuals in their community that had the capacity, the ability, and the knowledge base to put very strong presentations together and then there were other communities where the community makeup wouldn't have that available to them as readily as other communities.

 

That was very sad because they started behind the eight ball in the first place in trying to keep their school open. It was very challenging for them to be able to know what steps to take. We learn that when we come in and we become MLAs. I know the members of the government are learning; I'm learning every day. We are involved in that day in and day out so our knowledge base has increased and this is the world we live in.

 

But when we look out the window, most people do not care at all that we are standing here talking about it. They don't understand because they are trying to get through their daily life with all the struggles they have. You can't blame them for not caring when you're worrying about whether your child is going to be able to go to their small school or your child's going to be bused 45 minutes to an hour away and your little girl or little boy is only 7 or 8 years old and that's the first time they are going to be bused that distance. You're also looking at what the cost of living is and all the struggles that you have.

 

We can't expect people to understand all the great details that are involved in these decisions. That's where we come in as representatives to represent them and make sure that they have the right information, and that's the difficult part - to be able to provide the correct information. It is important for all government members to make sure that they work really hard, that the information is very forthright and that the information is factual.

 

I think that, unfortunately, that decision in the legislation of that time by the former Minister of Education, while being in the Progressive Conservative Party, was one that was detrimental to this whole process. I am glad that we are able to go forward with that review process, in terms of a report. I think that it probably - and I hope that it integrates with the Ivany report because I think that's really one of the core issues of the small school closures that was missing, was looking at it in terms of an economic base and not solely an educational base, but also looking at it as a community base.

 

So that's another issue, as a parent who had a child in the school system, was the ability to access the schools after-hours. I do know that former Minister Jennex realized that too. She had created a program for the schools to be able to apply for, because it gets quite costly to be able to continue to keep the doors open past the school hours. I hope that is working and if it needs to be tweaked, that the minister will look at that.

 

We have many, many schools throughout all of Nova Scotia that are not deemed as community schools. I'm very fortunate that in my constituency with Forest Heights, we have a school that was deemed as a community school. I'll give credit to the Progressive Conservatives - I don't know if the minister of today was the minister at that time - but I'm very pleased that school was chosen as a community school because I've seen how it works and it works wonderfully. It's also one of the schools that has a Schools Plus program, and I know that that is a program that was brought in by the former government and that we expanded it.

 

I think it's important for all of us to know that just because a program was initiated by another political Party, you just don't come in as a government and say, we're going to get rid of it because that program was a PC program or that was a Liberal program. I think it's important to recognize that it's not a real fair way to treat the people of Nova Scotia. What we have to do with those types of programs like Schools Plus, and which we did, is respect that it was a good program and we could have more of them in the school system and we could even expand that particular program.

 

Kudos to Schools Plus. I know some of the people who work in Schools Plus and they're also bringing in more of the restorative approach. That is a critical element. I do know that I'm a big supporter of restorative approaches not only in the school system, but throughout government. We just had a presentation from the Human Rights Commission the other day; they're the first Human Rights Commission in all of Canada that is adopting the restorative approach and we should all be proud of that. I know that there are many people out there who are working away in the school system to be able to bring in more of that restorative approach. I hope there is, at some point in the budget, more support for more structured restorative approaches in our school system because I believe that the ramifications for us as a society are only beneficial.

 

One of the other issues that I want to mention as a representative of the people of Nova Scotia and as a parent is - there is a lot of discussion from our new government in movement towards the amalgamation of the health care system, but I don't hear any discussion about any amalgamation of school boards or what approach we need to take with school boards. I do know that that is a serious issue. I do know we have many school boards. I'm not saying they should be amalgamated; I'm just putting out there that I'm wondering if the minister is going to be looking at that.

As a parent, I know all the years that my son went through the school system that one of the things that was frustrating was the fact that it seemed like as the years went by, the school boards themselves built such a hierarchy in the management and that there would be so many positions - a consultant for this and a consultant for the consultant and another consultant for the consultant that has another consultant, that's what it seemed like. I know it's difficult, once again, to come in and say those things should be taken away, you're going to get a lot of push back because it is change and people are used to it.

 

But as a parent, and as a Nova Scotian, I really believe the school boards, the whole structure, there needs to be a review or an analysis of that. I know that the new government has brought forth many reviews since they've come in to be able to gather information on their own behalf rather than take former information. I think that's part of the struggle with the political system because when we get a new government in, it's almost like we go a bit backwards because any new government wants to gather their own information. I guess that's a part of the political process that we're not going to be able to change.

 

Since the government has been announcing many reviews, I do hope that there will be some look at a review or study - and I think it will take a while to do that, not a quick study - of the school board system: is there a better system that we can offer in the province? I know that sometimes we believe that making one big board seems to be better, but I really don't know. I remember my days of going to school in Chester. We had a very small school board that was primarily made up of volunteers, and the focus was on our school and the students in the school and the teachers in the school because they didn't have the pressures of looking after a dozen different schools and being like an octopus of trying to balance that.

 

There might be something to be said about those smaller old-fashioned types of school boards. I certainly don't have the answer to that. I don't think anybody really has the answer and I know that it's a very challenging discussion to even bring up. It's sensitive. In terms of those who work in the school board system, people don't really want it to be discussed. But I do know that over my years as a parent and being involved as a volunteer in the school system that it has been a question for many years, and I think that question mark is still there.

 

I know that it is challenging for the school boards and the minister in terms of the funding process. I know the minister mentioned about the Hogg formula and that she's looking at some changes. What I understand about those changes is there will be some specialized funding for specific projects. I think that's a good move in terms of - I don't know how it's all going to come together - but a good move in the fact that I think that's where some of the gaps are in the Hogg formula, because it was a formula that was designed many years ago when our numbers of students were at a high ratio in the schools. At that time there was probably no thought that we would lose 30,000 students in a four-, five-, or 10-year period. Therefore, that formula probably worked at some point but we do know in today's world that it is not working and what it means is an imbalance and inconsistency in our school system.

I think it will be challenging also. The question will come up to the minister about Cape Breton and the funding formula under the Hogg formula and what dollars are given to the Cape Breton area versus other schools. I know that is going to be a challenge, as you try to look at any formula that may work in our system here in Nova Scotia.

 

We certainly do know how critical education is and the needs of being more concise in where the dollars are spent. Just because we bring up the conversation about budget and dollars around schools, it does not mean that anybody wants to take dollars out that will affect the students. There is a point of reality to look at what programs are working, what programs aren't working. I know math has been a tremendous challenge for any government that has come in, to work around the issues of our students graduating Grade 12 with solid marks in math and their ability.

 

That also brings me to another fact that I believe needs to be considered and I know it is another sensitive one. There are many in the school system and we have many excellent teachers. There is absolutely no question that we have excellent teachers in the school system but it is like any profession, there are some that you are not going to rate as high. What I've experienced as a parent is those that may not be ones you would rate highly are ingrained in that system and there doesn't seem to be an out door, an exit that you as a parent or even other colleagues of that particular teacher would like to see them go out. That's just something I'm throwing out. I think that if we're going to challenge the school system and challenge the school boards that there needs to be a discussion around that.

 

I know this one for a fact, one of the universities even has made comments about a particular program in a particular school that they've had a line of students come from that school in order to apply for a program at their university and many of them - there were 10 in particular that they could list off - they knew exactly where those students were coming from because of their level of ability in math. Those 10 students needed to take pre-math programs at their university in order to proceed into a university degree. That tells me there is certainly a problem there.

 

Because I have the opportunity to - and I know if I have questions the minister would have answers because she's very well versed in her portfolio. There is no question about that. She's knowledgeable and she knows many things about education. One of the items the minister mentioned about the budget was that there was $900,000 put aside now for increasing guidance counsellors because there were some school boards that were not even meeting the ratios for guidance counsellors.

 

I'm glad to hear that and I know that is something that the former NDP Government had commited to. We had actually committed to $14 million over three years. It included guidance counsellors along with mental health clinicians and youth health centre coordinators. I do hope that's another area that the minister and the department will look at; $900,000 is a start to ensure that those school boards come up to par with the other school boards, but I think it is really important that we go beyond coming up to par.

 

We really do need the guidance counsellors in the school system. As you know we are dealing with many new societal realities that we didn't deal with even five or 10 years ago in terms of technology and the Internet and bullying. The role that a guidance counsellor plays in the school system is very valuable and so I do encourage that that will be part of the minister's commitment as we go forward with the many issues that I know the minister has to deal with.

 

I know that, as I mentioned the new technology, there are challenges around new technology but there are also many opportunities and so I do hope, also, that the minister does have some plans for e-learning and coding and programming and we'll be watching to see where that goes. I know that there is some more expansion on the virtual classrooms and I think that we have to be visionary. I know that there was a start in the department to look at that type of programming.

 

That is an area that we will be watching and hoping, as we want the province to become leaders in the technology world. I also understand there is a program, the first Lego robotics competition, which is growing each and every year so it will be interesting and delightful to hear more about that as we go forward in the future.

 

I know another issue that we don't often think of in terms of our schooling system is with respect to the busing system in the province. Now because we have a lot more technology than we did before, Madam Chairman, I think it is very important and I would also encourage the minister to start to look at our mapping and our bus service being done on a more technological basis. That type of system is available in our society and I think it is an important one because the busing can have a big effect on the children going to school and their parents and where they get picked up and so forth, so that's another area.

 

I'm a grateful that I do have an opportunity. I know that this is a time to ask questions. I've been just throwing them out there so that maybe, as we go forward in the future - the minister had said from day one when she became minister, she came to me and she said that she had no problem whatsoever for myself or my colleague from the Progressive Conservatives who represents the Critic of Education and Early Childhood Development to sit down and talk to her.

 

I know that her door is open, which means that a lot of the questions that I may have around the budget or some of these other items that I brought up, she will be available so if I don't get the questions directly asked to the minister here, I will have that opportunity and I know that she has given me that opportunity, which I would like to thank her for.

 

I do want to go back to - just a key - I have gone over quite a few things, as I mentioned, that have been a concern for me, for my constituents, and to other Nova Scotians but I do want to go back to the big question and that is the question about putting the supposedly $65 million that I have refuted that I know has not been taken out directly, and as I said before I look forward to getting the documentation that would actually prove that on a factual basis as a financial audit. I look forward to receiving that.

 

I think for many Nova Scotians - and I wouldn't be doing my job, Madam Chairman, if I didn't inquire again about the $65 million, as that is the number that has been committed to by this government - the impression and the perception that was given out during the election was that those dollars were going back probably within the first year of this government's mandate, not over four years. I know that if I went out tomorrow and knocked on doors and asked that question, it would be interesting if we did have - we do polls for all sorts of other things - but it would be quite interesting to maybe commission a poll to ask Nova Scotians, was that their expectation that $65 million would be immediately put back?

 

I know there were some articles that had actually said that - there were statements made by those in government now that were running in the election that it was going to be an immediate return of dollars. I think that expectation is there. I know that many in my constituency, when I speak to them, that's part of their expectation.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Time has lapsed.

 

The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: I would just like to go back to something we talked about earlier in the evening, and it was dealing with the cap size of the various classes. My question would be - a cap size of 20 in the classroom, what would happen if there are 22, 23, or 24 students? Would they go with that class size in the school or would they divide it up into 11 or 12 apiece, or whatever? Where are the limits as far as how far above 20 would the school be allowed to split?

 

MS. CASEY: When we were talking about class cap earlier, it was what I described as a soft cap. That means that there is some flexibility that the board has, but they don't have a licence to increase that to an unreasonable number. We would look at no more than two or three beyond the 20, and then the school would have to look at how they can accommodate those kids within the grade configuration that they have in their school, and what is reasonable. You may have a school that - we have some small schools and we may have a school that has 25 students, Primary to Grade 2, so how do you arrange that so you respect the cap but you don't abuse the cap?

 

There will be opportunities for boards to talk with the department and to have some flexibility themselves. We know that's the goal that we want, but we also know that there are limitations and restrictions in some schools. That's why we describe it as a soft cap, but we will certainly be watching to make sure that it's not abused.

 

MR. DUNN: Just one last question on the soft caps. If by chance a particular school has a class of 23, 24, or 25, the expectation would be that the school board would provide the funding to provide another teacher to split that class into two groups?

 

MS. CASEY: I'll go back to my earlier response. If in consultation and conversation with the board there is no other option, then we would look at putting another adult in that class.

 

MR. DUNN: If I can just finish off with educational assistants - I guess by now you can probably tell I'm a fan of educational assistants in the school system. I think they do a great job and, in fact, it would be hard to perform without them. Teachers today have to meet a diverse set of students' needs, and the interaction into regular classes of an increasing number of students with special needs, behaviour disorders, and learning disabilities of all sorts has definitely expanded the duties of teachers. It has increased the amount of information that they need to carry out these duties effectively. We certainly know that EAs bring the skills and expertise into the classroom that often enable students to move on forward who would not otherwise be able to.

 

Many teachers are lucky to have an EA for one hour throughout the day. Most classes have become very challenging for teachers. I think we need to provide more full-time, qualified teaching assistants and more training for educational assistants.

 

It has been my experience that when a school is going to be assigned educational assistants or in a particular classroom, internally if an EA is going to be placed in a particular classroom, the EA with the most seniority - not skill or knowledge - gets this position. Sometimes this creates a problem within the classroom - a teacher has a certain student needing an EA with certain skills, but because of the seniority part, this doesn't happen. My question for the minister is, why isn't there an assessment based on knowledge and ability for placing an EA in an academic environment?

 

MS. CASEY: I'm sure that the member opposite understands the limitations that face administrators when they are dealing with contractual obligations. When you have seniority written into the contract, it's very difficult to not respect that. We've all talked about - would we like to hire teacher "A" or EA "A"? Yes, we would like to, but seniority says that we can't.

 

MR. DUNN: One quick question - will there be additional funding provided in the near future for educational assistants?

 

MS. CASEY: What we have done is set aside targeted money for special education and within that, we have the funding for our resource teachers, our speech-language pathologists, our psychologists, our guidance counsellors, and our EAs. So it's not targeted specifically to the EA, but it is to the special education budget.

 

MR. DUNN: Would the minister agree that the current system is inefficient, that we need to add more psychologists and teaching assistants to several schools that have a higher enrolment of LD students?

 

MS. CASEY: What I would say to that is that EAs are assigned based on need and it is the responsibility of the school and the teachers in the school and central office staff to make sure that they understand the needs and then respond with the appropriate staffing. We would expect that schools that had a larger population of challenged and challenging students that their EA assignments would reflect that. It is based on need and that's where we rely on what the boards do with the dollars that they have. But the task that they have is to look at the needs of the students that exist in that school and how you can allocate your resources of any kind to respond to those needs.

 

MR. DUNN: I'm going to turn over to a few questions on special education. I realize that there was an additional $1.5 million increased funding for special education. The couple of questions that I have starting off are, how did you arrive at this figure of $1.5 million and why wasn't it higher?

 

MS. CASEY: Each year at the end of the school year, boards are asked to submit to the department the profile of the students that they have who require special needs or special attention. Once that is submitted, that's based obviously on the year that is just completing, but that is a guide for us to determine how many complex needs do we have in our schools. When we reviewed that, we looked at trying to address the increasing number of complex needs by adding money to the budget.

 

MR. DUNN: Should dollars needed for special education students come from the Education and Early Childhood Development budget or the Health and Wellness budget or a combination of both?

 

MS. CASEY: The member raises a good point because we know back - I guess it was around 2006 with the Nunn Commission and the report that came out of that, there was a recommendation that we have intergovernmental co-operation. Five major departments that were identified were the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Department of Health, the Department of Community Services, and one other one. So when we're looking at how we provide services, we recognize - and the Minister of Health and Wellness and I talk about this - we are servicing the same families or the same individuals. So let's not have blinders on, let's not duplicate; let's look at how we can combine our resources.

 

One of the best examples in this budget is the mental health clinicians that - we realized when we had the report that came from Dr. Wayne MacKay the need to provide supports in the mental health area. So where is the best place to put that? We believe that the best place for us to put that was to give that to the Department of Health and Wellness so that they can use those dollars, but they will be servicing students within our school system, whether it's through the early years centres or whether it's through Schools Plus. But using silos and having money that's coveted by any one department does no good for the people we should be serving.

 

MR. DUNN: The CCRSB have provided - it is my understanding - additional dollars over the last few years for special education. We all realize that special education funding has to increase and the dollars are certainly spread quite thin. We have about 60 to 70 autistic students in Pictou County. There are usually seven or eight students entering Primary each year with autism. I can imagine the pressure in the classroom setting and the need for additional resources due to this. My question to the minister is, knowing the pressures experienced across the province, will the minister continue to increase the number of dollars allotted to special education in the immediate future?

 

MS. CASEY: Autism in particular is something that is on the increase. We know that the studies tell us that about one in every 88 people is on the spectrum at some point. That number is increasing and those young people are in our schools. We know that there are increasing challenges and increasing demands on our public school system.

 

We also know that most boards - or a history of some boards is that they have taken dollars from somewhere else to supplement their special education funding. So what we need to do is look at that. Based on the information that they send us in June, based on the decisions we make with funding, where is the gap? Is there a gap there and how can we help close that? We believe we started to close that with addressing the complex needs funding, but we are constantly monitoring that because it is an issue, and as those concerns and as those special needs children come to our schools, we have to respond.

 

But I will go back to a comment that we made earlier and that was the whole model of inclusion that we are currently using and I think we need to have a look at how we allocate the resources within our schools so that we can best meet the needs of all students. Is it the model we are using now where students are in the classroom - 100 per cent of the students 100 per cent of the time? I'm not saying that is right or wrong but we know that the needs are continuing to grow, so let's have a look at how we are delivering that.

 

MR. DUNN: I'm sure that this comprehensive review that is taking place will look into many, many areas and I'm hoping that this is going to be one of them, because we certainly have severe pressures and stresses in our schools across the province because the class composition is so different today and it is increasingly becoming more difficult.

 

I mentioned earlier on a previous day about returning graduates coming back, graduating from special education classes and coming back for the next three years in the school system, which again causes a lot of pressure on schools and sometimes makes the classes quite large. We have to find solutions to these concerns, and we did discuss them, so I certainly will not belabour that issue any further tonight because a lot of these students have medical needs, severe behavioural issues, academic needs, and so on. With all this on the teachers' plate, many of them are expected to teach academic courses with outcomes to meet.

 

Madam Chairman, we have 22 schools in Pictou County, I believe, and we have a total of 104 EAs, an average of 4.7 per school. For these 22 schools we have three special education teachers. Just to review that once more: 22 schools in Pictou County, a total of 104 EAs, and three special education teachers for 22 schools. Again, I won't go into the breakdown of the number EAs at the various schools because that is, perhaps, not that important at the moment, but we certainly need more.

 

There is one autistic specialist for all 22 of the Pictou County schools. As I mentioned earlier, the number of children with autism is on the increase - 60 to 70 per school year. Looking at one specialist for 22 schools, with additional students coming in every year, just seems to be insufficient. Will this additional special education funding be targeted to address this particular problem?

 

MS. CASEY: I just want to make a comment about the autism specialist. There is one autism specialist with each school board but that autism specialist is not delivering service directly to students, rather that specialist is working with resource teachers and classroom teachers and others who are delivering service directly to the student. I think we need to understand that there isn't an autism teacher for an autistic child; there is an autism specialist to help educate, support, and work with programing for that autistic child, and we do have one of those autistic specialists in every board.

 

MR. DUNN: I do realize the relationship between autistic specialists and the resource teachers. I guess where I was going with that is I think there is a need for more specialists in our system. There are other problems that can occur in a regular school year, Madam Chairman. As an example a student moves back to Nova Scotia from perhaps the Province of Alberta. In Alberta they were in a school system where they had special assistance through resources and teacher assistants, but they arrive here in Nova Scotia in a school where perhaps there is no staff available to assist and accommodate the transition, so that becomes a problem for that particular school.

 

I can recall a student arriving back in the month of March. The student was in a youth facility for a number of months and would arrive back in the Spring, in March, in a high school class of Grade 10, and again causing great difficulty to find a program to suit this particular individual. As the minister talked earlier about virtual schools, I can see that being part of the solution. So there are all kinds of unique little problems that occur within a particular school in the school system throughout the year.

 

We need to reach the point where it is only a few phone calls to have representatives from three or four groups coming into a school setting, agreeing to be on the same wavelength and working to assist troubled students. In Pictou County we have programs like the Janus and Bridges programs. We have mental health, child welfare, justice, and education personnel trying to do the right thing, but often there is lots of duplication. I wonder if the minister can comment on the fact that sometimes all these groups - they're trying to do a great job and they do meet at times. They like to hold on to their purse strings as far as helping out one or the other groups, but sometimes they don't work as one unit and it would be nice to avoid this duplication.

 

MS. CASEY: I believe I made comments earlier that we know that we have to look at the best use we have of the resources that are available. We need to make sure that we are not at cross-purposes here, that if we have a student who has some identified special need and there is an agency, there is a department that has a program or has staff that can support that family or support that student, then we need to work together on that.

 

I know this is the early years, but when I was at the early years opening earlier this week, there were physicians there, there were family resource people there, there were educators there - there were all of the people who have the expertise to support the families and the children. Our goal, of course, is to make sure that those resources are available and coordinated. Sometimes that's a challenge, but we have coordinators that we assign to those particular - and I'm talking now about Schools Plus - but those particular sites where you have those different services coming in. Whether it's early years or whether it's Schools Plus, you have somebody to coordinate that service because there is one end recipient here and it is the family and the child.

 

MR. DUNN: Teachers, our front-line employees, often say, our voices are not heard. There is a lack of input from people in the trenches. I hope that the review panel would address this issue. Will the minister commit to having the review panel members perhaps spend more time with front-line employees as opposed to school board office personnel, administrators, et cetera?

 

MS. CASEY: We have started to take a look at the public school system and what we can do to improve it - what things do we have that need to be continued, perhaps some things that we need to discontinue.

 

The very best voice we can have for what is going on in the classroom is the teacher. When we struck a panel to do the review, I wanted to make sure that every teacher in this province felt part of the process. You can't have every teacher in this province on the panel but what you can have is an opportunity for them to have a voice and so I did an email to all teachers in the province, a letter by email to them asking them to help shape the education system in this province, going forward. There was an email address that was there for them to send their ideas and their thoughts back to me because they do know the education system and they do have some wonderful ideas about what is good and what can be improved upon.

 

I have said publicly, and I can say it here again, the slate is clear. I want people to give us whatever ideas, questions, or concerns they have because everybody has an opinion and everybody has an idea, but if they don't put it where it can make a difference then it is not going to make a difference. If you have something to say, we are giving you the opportunity to say it.

 

In addition to sending something to the individual teachers, we put together what we call a partners' advisory group. It is a six-member panel but then we have an advisory group and in that group we have the representation and the voices of the people who are our partners and our users in the education system.

 

Just for the member's benefit, I want to read through - there are 15 different groups that we have reached out to, sent a letter to, asked them to come forward and bring the ideas that reflect the needs of their organization or their group: the Association of Nova Scotia Educational Administrators, the Black Educators Association, the Canadian Parents for French, the Council on Mi'kmaq Education, the Inter-University Committee on Teacher Education, the Leaders of Today group, the Nova Scotia Federation of Home and School Associations, the Nova Scotia School Boards Association, the Nova Scotia Secondary School Students' Association, Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative, Nova Scotia Teachers Union, Special Education Programs and Services Committee, the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, and the Youth Advisory Council.

 

We believe we have cast the net wide. We want to make sure that we hear from those who believe we can make a difference. We have given them every opportunity and teachers got the direct contact but I know that the Teachers Union will be coming to do a presentation or a submission and they, too, will reflect what they are hearing about the needs of the teachers in our schools.

 

I believe that the process can bring about change but we need participation from those who are in the schools.

 

MR. DUNN: We need and should be providing more speech-language pathologists, psychologists, guidance counsellors, and librarians in our schools. I know there is going to be an increase in guidance counsellors, but psychologists are often assigned to several schools and they often find themselves with precious little time to actually work with students. This time is occupied with testing, reporting, and meeting with parents and school officials; therefore, it is very difficult at times to meet the needs of all the students that need to be assisted.

 

Some parents are fortunate enough to have packages from the companies that they work with and they can have the cost of the testing taken care of and the testing can be done very quickly. This is not the case for the majority. I would like to ask the minister if she is going to provide any additional education dollars to provide enough speech-language experts, psychologists, guidance counsellors, et cetera, in our school system.

 

MS. CASEY: When I spoke earlier about support services and the numbers of individuals who are there to help the learning process, not classroom teachers but beyond that, speech-language pathologists are one in that group. We have ratios that we use to determine how close we are. We have data from the schools and I just will share with you now that the ratio for speech-language pathologists is 1 to every 1,400 students.

 

Now I've said this before, maybe we need to revisit the ratio, but when we do our gap analysis it tells us how far off we are. I spoke about the guidance counsellors; when we did that gap analysis, we recognized three boards that were not within the ratio, so we have provided dollars for them to bring their guidance counsellors up to the ratio that has been set.

 

We will be doing the same thing with every one of those groups, making sure that boards are meeting the ratio, and then - is that enough? Do we still have wait-lists? Do we have a gap there? Do we have people who are not getting the service? Then we will go back and analyze that. So the decision we make to provide more funding for speech-language pathologists - which was the question - it will be based on the data that we get back from the schools.

 

MR. DUNN: Madam Chairman, in Pictou County we could use two special education departments, one in the east and one in the west. We certainly need more dollars on the front lines and minimum standards for all areas. Some of our educators are suffering prolonged stress, being overwhelmed and finding it very difficult to meet constant demands; therefore, burnout occurs. This affects work, relationships, and health. This type of thing has to be addressed immediately. We have gone too far in our education system ignoring a lot of these issues.

 

I mentioned earlier that it is my opinion that we have reached a time in our education system where we should be placing more guidance counsellors in our elementary schools, and I know the department is doing that. I'd like to see a guidance counsellor in every elementary school. There seem to be more students going into Primary every year with mental issues requiring additional assistance from counsellors who should be in the school. I guess it's pay now or pay later; if we don't address it early, then we're going to pay for it later.

 

This increase in students arriving to school with issues, there are lots of reasons for it - numerous one-parent families with no time to guide and assist their children, and we have all kinds of different situations for students arriving to school and not being able to speak. We certainly need more experts in our school system.

 

Another thing I'd like to see is more music in our elementary schools because you often hear that it certainly helps brain development, music at a younger age, and additional elementary music teachers certainly would be very beneficial to have in our school system.

 

Madam Chairman, I am going to take this opportunity to switch gears now, leave special education and give my colleague to my right, the member for Kings North a chance to ask a couple of questions.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings North.

 

MR. JOHN LOHR: My question for the minister is on Schools Plus. I wonder if the minister would comment on the success of that program. I know it's a pilot program and I'm just wondering about where that program is headed.

 

MS. CASEY: Thank you for the question. As I said earlier, I did reference Schools Plus. It is bringing a variety of resources together to provide support for families and for children. We have a Schools Plus site in each of our eight boards and they are serving about 130 schools. This is the beginning and right now - we have a bit of a philosophy that before you expand something, you want to make sure that it's proven. So rather than open Schools Plus sites or establish Schools Plus sites without monitoring and assessing what we're doing, I think would be folly. Our goal right now is we have one in every board and we will use those to expand. It is our intent to do that.

 

I'm not sure if the member is interested or knows where we have those but with the Valley board, I presume, Champlain Elementary and their eight schools that are served by that site there, and Windsor Elementary, there are 10 schools served by that site - so you have two sites there and you are looking at about 18 schools.

 

The success of that will determine how broad we go with our expansion but it is certainly a very valuable service and it is kind of like one-stop shopping, I guess, so that families don't have to run to several different sources for the support they need.

 

We are looking at four new sites and the member beside you will be happy that New Glasgow is going to be one of those sites that we're looking at to establish Schools Plus. So we are in the process of expanding.

 

MR. LOHR: I'd like to thank the minister for that answer and I know from my meetings with the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board that they were very high on Schools Plus and were interested in having that program in more schools. I know that it has been in place for a few years, and on the Internet, on the website, there is a fairly comprehensive evaluation of the program so I think it has been already shown to be fairly successful. I know the schools in my area are interested in having that program so I'm wondering when it will be ramped up, I guess that is the question.

 

MS. CASEY: As the member would know, there are many departments that come together and have to coordinate that. It is the Departments of Health and Wellness, Education and Early Childhood Development, Community Services, Justice, and the Child and Youth Strategy and non-government community organizations. What we are doing is looking at working with communities, and when they have the interest and the willingness for those groups to come together for a common cause, that allows us to do the establishment of the centre a whole lot easier.

 

Again, going back to my earlier comments, if there is a model that works and if people see that it is working, the communities and the departments other than Education and Early Childhood Development may be more inclined to come on board and make application for another one.

 

MR. LOHR: I'd like to switch gears and ask a question on behalf of another MLA, and that relates to a July 18, 2013 campaign promise by the previous government when they made a commitment to a $31 million school for Eastern Passage. I'm just wondering, in light of the deficit and where your government is at, is that commitment going to be held?

 

MS. CASEY: I'm pleased to have that question asked because when we formed government there had been commitments made by the previous government for new school construction and one of the things that our Leader, the Premier, said from the very beginning is we will honour the capital commitments that were made by the previous government. We're not going to go into a community and say oh, new government, we're not going to build that. Eastern Passage was one of those schools identified by the previous government, approved by the previous government, so if you would recall a capital plan that includes Eastern Passage in that plan, we are doing it.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: The minister mentioned a Primary to Grade 8 school being constructed in New Glasgow right now, and I have the opportunity to see that school several times a week because I'm just a couple of minutes away from it and hopefully it will have students entering the school this particular year. Ironically enough, I had the pleasure of announcing that school on April 14, 2009, and since that, with the previous government, it was announced three more times so I'll be glad to see the students going in.

 

Just a couple quick questions dealing with school construction for the minister; one is going to be the Trenton Primary to Grade 8 school and the other one the East Pictou school. These are schools that are on the proposed list for the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board. If you look at them, I think the Trenton school, Primary to Grade 8 would be maybe fifth on that particular list and East Pictou would be number six. East Pictou, I think, was an addition and alteration.

 

My first question with regard to the East Pictou school, I want to know if the minister could give me any information with regard to what might be happening with the East Pictou school for the year coming up, 2014-15, if possible.

 

MS. CASEY: I'm not sure what list the member is referring to, but I just want to talk a little bit about the process of how schools do get referred from the school board to the department and the process that unfolds after that happens. Two years ago the government of the day and the minister of the day decided that there had to be a list submitted from each board, on an annual basis. So if Chignecto board - and we'll use that as an example - put in a list that had Trenton and East Pictou and Dr. W.A. MacLeod and whatever on it, that would be for that particular capital plan that they would be looking to have approval for.

 

On the next year they have to submit another list, so it was an annual list. Whether that is right or wrong, that is the process that was introduced. But sometimes people believe that if it has already been submitted, it's sitting there somewhere in the queue. That is not the case. It may be sitting there in the queue for that year and it may be approved and it may not, but the next year the board has to go through the whole process again.

 

Something that we've asked boards to do in addition to that, rather than just submitting the list of schools, is to put them in some order of priority so we know when it comes to the department what is the priority of the board. That really helps with the decision making at the department level because the board and the communities are the ones who know their facilities best and who know which ones should get to the top of the list.

 

In answer to the member's question about East Pictou and Trenton, East Pictou and Trenton may have been submitted by the board, but they are not on a list for any construction. What I would suggest to the member is that a meeting with the school board members might help clarify if those are going to be submitted again when they put their next list in.

 

We have five, six, sometimes more schools that are listed on a list from the boards and there is an evaluation that takes place of those particular projects, and that involves transportation as well as education. So out of that, they are scored and they are ranked based on need and the condition of the school - whether it's a new school or whether it's an addition to the school. That process takes place at the department and with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal, but after the dust all settles on that and the decision for what schools will be added to the capital plan, then you start the cycle all over again the next year.

 

MR. DUNN: Just a couple more comments on those two particular schools. Down in Sutherlands River at the East Pictou Rural High School, the former rural high school, I think it's coming to the point where there may just be Grades 7 and 8 in that particular building. Looking at the Frank H. MacDonald school, which is beside this particular complex, it would make sense to me that sometime in the near future that the Grades 7 and 8 students be moved over to Frank H. MacDonald school where they could close down that complete complex. In order to do that, the Frank H. MacDonald school would have to have alterations done in addition.

 

The Trenton school - there is an elementary school in Trenton, Primary to Grade 4, and there is a middle school presently, Grades 5 to 9. Of course we know the Grade 9s are going over to North Nova Education Centre in September. The two Trenton schools - hopefully we will eventually see one school in Trenton, a Primary to Grade 8, similar to the one that is being constructed in New Glasgow.

 

I can recall my days in the Trenton Middle/High School and when it rained, it was basically like Noah's ark because you had to put your rubber boots on. I don't think it has improved and they have tried so many times to try to find the solution to a lot of these water problems. I don't think they have been successful. I have been in the school recently and it certainly is reaching the point where we seriously have to have a look at it.

 

Before I pass it over to the member for Pictou West for a couple of questions, I want to thank the minister and her staff for answering all the questions I had. It was certainly something that I had looked forward to and I certainly enjoyed it.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou West.

 

MS. KARLA MACFARLANE: I know our time is limited and I'll try to make my questions pretty brief and quick for the minister. Most of my questions will be around the River John Consolidated School that is under threat to close for June 2015. One of my questions though - I spent a lot of time with them, and Mr. Bob Fowler reported on the work of the school board review process committee in late February. I'm pretty sure that there has been no public acknowledgement or activity forthcoming on his recommendations. When will the minister publish the recommendations of the Fowler report, and perhaps question B of that would be, are the recommendations of the report going to be used to formulate a new school review process as originally planned?

 

MS. CASEY: We did have some conversation about that earlier tonight, but I don't mind repeating it for you. As you know, Bob Fowler went out with a discussion paper and then went back around, did public consultation and developed a report. I have received that. There are 19 recommendations in that and staff are going through those because they kind of fall into three categories. They fall into short-term, long-term, and legislative changes.

 

What we're hoping to do is we're working on legislation now that will address some of the recommendations. It's my goal to get that legislation into the House here during this session. I will be tabling the report when that happens. It will all become public at that time.

 

MS. MACFARLANE: I'm sorry I missed those. I was out earlier so I apologize. With regard to the River John school, I'm just wondering what actually is the budget for maintenance in the CCRSB and how many schools does that budget cover?

 

MS. CASEY: I can't give you the exact maintenance budget for Chignecto, but we can try to find that for you. If I could just make a comment about the River John school, because I know that the parents in River John are very anxious, and the community is very anxious. I know that when the board made their motion and floated the concept of a hub school, it was unfortunate that at that point nobody had a definition of "hub school."

 

That came out in the Fowler report, as well. Somebody needs to define what a hub school is, and so that's part of what we're looking at now. Let's define a hub school so that the community knows what they're working toward. I've been encouraged by what I've been hearing in River John, and I know that a hub school, to me, is bringing services together into one site. Some communities do not have what they need to bring services in. They are very isolated; there are no services there. So what a school looks like in River John will not look the same in Wentworth.

 

I will say that River John probably has an advantage, because the community is active and there are services there. I think it would be wonderful if we could bring those services together under one roof. I use the example of Stewiacke. A number of years ago, Stewiacke was looking to build a new school and it had been approved, and I was out in the community looking for a place to build it. The Mayor of Stewiacke suggested - they were building a library too, so I thought - well, nobody called it a hub, but it sounded like here are two pieces of infrastructure that we can put together in one site. So the mayor went back to the library board, and the library board was not interested in coming together under that one roof. It would have saved the town a lot of money, but they weren't ready for that. I think the community of River John is ready.

 

MS. MACFARLANE: I thank the minister for those words, and that last comment that you believe that River John is ready. We've worked so hard in putting together what we think would be a hub model, and we hope that we can act on that and keep that school open. So we're going to keep working hard to do that.

 

One of my other questions was, can you explain why a school under threat of closure would have to go through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to get the numbers they needed in order to even begin to create some sort of plan or hub model, as requested from the school board?

 

MS. CASEY: I'm not aware of any community having to go to FOIPOP that information, but I'd be glad to talk to the member about that later, because that information is public information.

 

MS. MACFARLANE: Thank you. Can the minister answer why some schools with lower enrolment stay open while others with more students do not? Is there a minimum number of students the department has decided on to close a school, or is there a magic number either way to keep it open or not to keep it open?

 

MS. CASEY: The decision about closing schools is a board decision. It's not made by the department. The criteria that the board would use as to which schools go under review or which schools they determine need to be closed is a process that happens at the school board level. I'm not trying to put the question off, but I can't answer the question, because it is the board that makes that decision.

 

MS. MACFARLANE: Can the minister inform me if there are any grants available anywhere to help mid-life schools make repairs? We do know that the budgets for maintenance for these school boards are very low, so we're just wondering if there is any pot of money, whether through the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development or maybe any other departments that the minister may be aware of that we could possibly apply for.

 

MS. CASEY: In the TCA budget that was announced in December, we identified schools for new construction and for A&A - additions and alterations - but we also put in a line for capital maintenance. We put that there because there are many schools that don't need to have a new school, they don't need a complete renovation, but they do need some dollars to address some of the deferred maintenance that's there. Boards will be asked - $15 million is what we put in. It was $6 million last year; we raised that to $15 million. Boards can apply for projects out of the capital maintenance fund, and we're encouraging boards to do that because we recognize that replacing a roof that might cost $200,000 is a good investment; if you don't, you have a bigger bill later on so we are encouraging the boards to do that. Boards are excited about having that opportunity because they have been struggling with where to get the money to do the maintenance for that building.

 

I'm hoping it will work. I'm hoping that there will be a good response to that. That is something new that has been increased this year, so they have an opportunity. Of course, the other opportunity is if the board wants to look at what they call complete alternations - additions and alterations - which are kind of a retrofit of the school. It may not be a huge expansion, but it is something that brings new life back to the school. So those are the two opportunities.

 

MS. MACFARLANE: That is really encouraging to hear that you've increased it from $6 million to $15 million. That was definitely a much-needed area to increase the budget.

 

During the election the Liberal platform stated that they would be creating student support grants that would allow school communities to tailor services and programs at a local level to improve student success, which would probably help address fundraising pressures facing many parents and schools because it always seems like we're constantly raising money for our schools. I'm just wondering if they are available right now, and if they're not, when they will be and what that amount possibly is.

 

MS. CASEY: That is a new initiative. It was a commitment in the platform and it is to address some of those costs that schools have. We have fundraisers, we have parents who are raising money all of the time for a class trip, for bringing an author in for an Author's Day, for some kind of special event to support the learning that's going on in the schools. Many times there is no money to do that, so we have put together the student support grants. It's $5,000 per school plus $1 for every student there, so if you know the enrolment in your school you can do the math.

 

That is at the discretion of the school. It's not controlled by anybody else. For example, if we're looking at Baddeck Academy, which has 265 students, their grant would be $5,265. So the formula is $5,000 plus $1 per student as a student support grant, which we believe will relieve a lot of the pressure on families and parents who are out fundraising and also allow the programs that kids are involved in to be supported with a little bit of extra cash.

 

MS. MACFARLANE: My final question - and just because I'm naive to how this works - I'm just wondering if you could explain to me how the Hogg formula allocates revenue to certain schools and what percentage that is on. And if for some reason we do lose River John Consolidated School, you mentioned the other day that each student is about $9,300 or $9,400; does that complete amount for each student, 80-some students at River John Consolidated School, go to whichever school these students decide to go to?

 

MS. CASEY: Time is running out. Explaining the Hogg formula would take us more than a minute, but I'd be glad to sit down with you and go over that with you.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: Just one last question for the minister - just a reaction to this statement. Do you think parents should be able to send their child to any school that they wish?

 

MS. CASEY: I think the member is talking about open boundaries. I believe that's the term that some of us use. When schools are - I guess, rural schools, open boundaries is not as easy to accomplish as it would be in a more urban centre, partly because of the transportation issue. If I was living in River John and I wanted to go to CEC, do I get there myself or do we provide transportation? So when we have students who are requesting a transfer to a school outside their own catchment area, part of the condition is that they provide their own transportation to that school.

 

The challenge we have with that, in addition to the transportation, is the space allocation. If I'm living in River John and the school is crowded, I don't want other students from another jurisdiction causing me to be in a crowded situation. There are a lot of things that would have to be worked out in that, but it is more possible in some of our urban areas. It's a challenge in our rural areas.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I would remind members of the House to please keep their chatter down a little bit to make it a little easier.

 

The honourable member for Pictou Centre has the floor.

 

MR. DUNN: I'm going to let my colleague, the member for Inverness ask a couple of questions.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Inverness.

 

MR. ALLAN MACMASTER: My question will be on the early years. I know you've opened - I believe it's four centres across the province. I believe you would know Dr. Mustard, who was a champion of this philosophy and this cause. He has a son in Inverness, Jim Mustard, who is trying to get something off the ground in Inverness. The group has a plan. It's integrated with other activities in the community, including with the Cottage Workshop, which provides an outlet for mentally challenged adults to have the dignity of work.

I know they've been approaching government - the previous government and now this government - to gain funding support for their plan in Inverness. Is that something that you've had a chance to be made aware of, and have you any thoughts on the likelihood of any funding support going to them in the future?

 

MS. CASEY: We did open four early learning centres this past week. We recognize that they do have an important role to play in the community. We have asked the other four boards to submit their requests, their application, their proposal. I would encourage the folks that you're speaking of to work through the board, because we will be putting an early years centre in every board. So when the community comes forward through their board to the department with a project with partners - I mean, you're talking about partners - I think it would be something that, when we get it, we will have a look at it. But please know that your board is due for an early years centre.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I would remind the honourable member to please address his comments towards the Chair.

 

The honourable member for Inverness has the floor.

 

MR. MACMASTER: The minister is so kind it's hard not to address them directly to her, but I certainly will address them through you. One other question - what are some of these centres getting in terms of funding and are they receiving an initial amount for capital work and an ongoing operational amount, or perhaps they're just receiving an operational amount?

 

MS. CASEY: As some of you would know, the Margaret and Wallace McCain Foundation is very much in support of early years centres. It has given the province $500,000 initially to get us started with the early years centres. Margaret McCain was here for the official opening this past week. I believe there is continued support from that foundation as we expand.

 

We have spent about $600,000 on the four centres that we are getting up and running, and that is for furniture and materials. We're looking at an operating budget of $125,000 per year per site. That's what we've set our target at. We will see how well that unfolds and how effective and efficient and how appropriate that is, but that's how we're starting.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time allotted for consideration of Supply today has elapsed.

 

The honourable Government House Leader.

 

HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Madam Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise and report progress.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The motion is carried.

 

The committee will now rise and report its business to the House.

 

[The committee adjourned at 8:55 p.m.]