SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A meeting of school board chairpersons in Inuvik discussed a new development in the board reform saga that sparked protests in Yellowknife earlier this year.

On Nov. 17 and 18, Jackson Lafferty, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, told the chairpersons for each of the NWT's seven school districts the GNWT is considering a new collaborative way for school boards to work together and has shelved the board merger idea.

"There were no bells ringing for board reform, that certainly was not on the table," said Mary Vane, chairperson for Yellowknife Catholic Schools.

Dan Daniels, the deputy minister of education, told Yellowknifer on Thursday, the school boards were asked to write an inventory of the ways they work with other boards, government departments, and third parties.

Yellowknife Education District No. 1 discussed the "collaboration" idea at its board meeting on Tuesday.

Duff Spence, Yk1 chairperson, said though the details of board collaboration seemed vague, his district intends to comply with the request to write the inventory.

Daniels said the goal is to determine how government departments can share resources.

"How can we work more closely together to make sure those services are seamless, so that we don't run into any kind of policy gaps – so the policies in education are in line with the policies from health and social services," said Daniels.

Daniels said the government is trying to streamline the way boards work together to make operations more efficient. Also, the idea is to create consistent policy for how other boards in other government departments interact.

Daniels said the government is presently in the information gathering stage.

Vane said the impression she got was that the government wanted to encourage the boards to work together on issues like programming changes.