Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife ( Jun 09/00) - The Beaufort Delta Education Council met last weekend in Inuvik to plan for the next school year, with much of the focus on preschool and special-needs students.

The council approved next year's operating budget of $431,648 -- to be bolstered with $243,822 from the near-depleted operating surplus. The additional money will be used to supply "extras" not recognized by the GNWT as part of the regular curriculum.

The BDEC has earmarked $40,000 of that money to pay for an education psychologist who will work with special-needs students.

Student support consultant Megan Power said the issue of fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects needs to be addressed, with "close to 50 per cent of students with extreme learning disabilities."

Delegates agreed monies should be pooled from the BDEC, the Gwich'in Tribal Council and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation to provide a standard headstart program for preschoolers.

"We think that the best benefit to spending our money would be with children who are below they age of five," BDEC director James Anderson said.

"In every school we have a room that's only used half a day for kindergarten. It wouldn't cost anything."

BDEC chair Bob Simpson said most special-needs funding has gone into the pool and more money is not expected to come soon.

"It took a teachers' strike to get money in this area and it may take a crisis to get anymore -- I think we have a crisis here now," Simpson said.

Although most communities have lost teachers and support staff, response to fill the vacancies has been great, with principals and DEA going through "hundreds" of applications to fill vacant positions.

Teacher turnover

While Education Minister Jake Ootes did not stay in Inuvik for the council meeting, he took time for an impromptu tour of Samuel Hearne secondary school and chatted with this year's graduates.

He later addressed some of the issues affecting education in the Beaufort Delta, such as teacher turnover. Ootes said over the past five years the teacher turnover rate has been hovering between 18 and 20 per cent. Last year, he said it dropped to 12 per cent and this year's estimate is 14 per cent.

"We have pockets of problems," he said. "In Fort Good Hope for example, many teachers have resigned and the same with Lutsel K'e. So, when you take those pocket problems out of the equation, we're not doing too bad on it."

The GNWT is relying heavily on the Teacher's Education program as a permanent solution to the on-going problem, Ootes said.

"When they graduate, they are more than likely going back to their home community," he said. "They speak the language, they are familiar with the culture, they stay."

In the meantime, he said his department is working on a recruitment and retention strategy called the Teacher Induction program. The program will have four objectives -- pre-introduction to the community through printed material and telephone briefing; a greeting by the community; career development; and teachers mentoring newer teachers.

"It's intimidating when a teacher first walks into the community, especially when you're young," he said. "It's a two-way street. The teacher becomes part of the community and the community becomes part of the teachers," he said.

In many of the communities where there are teacher shortages, housing is also in short supply.

"In Kakisa, for instance, the DEA decided they would build a house for the teacher and they've solved the problem locally."