SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - If it were up to his mother, four-year-old Carter Legge would be enjoying his first year in kindergarten.

Jennie Bruce has been trying to get her son enrolled at Range Lake North school in Yellowknife since the spring but Yellowknife Education District Yk1 told her that he's not old enough to be accepted.

Four-year-old Carter Legge assembles Lego blocks during an afternoon at Northern Tikes preschool, Sept. 24. If he were 26 minutes older his mother could enrol him in kindergarten, as she would prefer. - Ben Morgan / NNSL photo

"Carter is smart enough and he's got the social skills to be in school but they wouldn't let me enrol him because of his age," Bruce said.

Her son was born on Jan. 1, 2004 at 12:26 a.m. meaning Legge misses the cutoff for enrollment in kindergarten by only 26 minutes. He is still attending Yellowknife Tikes preschool. Bruce wants to keep challenging him by advancing his education.

"We have to follow the legislation laid out for us by ECE (Education, Culture, and Employment)," said Yk1 superintendent Metro Huculak.

The GNWT guideline stipulates that students must be five-years-old on or before Dec. 31 of the academic year. It's a policy that governs all schools in the NWT.

"It's a difficult situation but those are the rules that we have to follow," Huculak said.

Christina Monroe, executive director at Northern Tikes preschool, said Carter is just as capable as any of the other kids he knows who went off to kindergarten this year."

"He's just as smart as they are - it's just that he's got this birthday that falls on the cusp of an arbitrary deadline which means he has to stay behind while all his friends move on," Monroe explained.

"There are kids who are ready and there are kids who aren't. Carter is ready to go to school," she said.

Huculak said he empathizes, he even agrees with Bruce that some children are ready for school at earlier ages "but if we make exceptions for one child where does it end? There has to be a cutoff somewhere," he said.

But in the 10 years Monroe has worked at Northern Tikes preschool she said she's seen children enter kindergarten who were even younger than Legge.

"Yes, we've seen it, and we've also had children stay a year longer even when they were ready - every child is different," she said.

Frustrated by the system, Bruce contacted Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins for help in the spring.

Hawkins said he also empathizes with her situation.

He said he raised the issue with the legislative assembly in June on her behalf.

"But changing legislation takes time. I don't think the system will move fast enough to help this woman," he said. "But in the end the rules are the rules and we don't want our school boards breaking them."

Regardless, Bruce is fuelled with the hope that exceptions have been made in the past. She is now waiting for a report from the GNWT that will tabulate the enrolment ages of school children across the territory. She's confident she will find exceptions in the data that show younger-aged students were allowed into the system.

"I know there must be some kids in the system who got in early, that's what I'm hoping to find," said Bruce.

"My fear is that Carter is going to get bored if he's not challenged in school and that's where he needs to be."