'Blood from a stone for our children'
MLA speaks out against school funding cuts for junior kindergarten
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, March 14, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley went to bat for Yellowknife's school boards that are distraught at funding cuts by the GNWT in order to implement territory-wide free junior kindergarten.
"It's not right to give new responsibilities without new funding," Bromley said in his member's statement.
"The minister should provide new funding for junior kindergarten to all communities. This relatively small investment will help ensure the success of this new program and avoid eroding the quality of education we offer our kids."
Yellowknife Catholic School board trustees made bold statements of displeasure at the February board meeting during which a motion was made to advocate against the passing of the education department's budget.
No active protests took place, but trustees worked behind the scenes educating parents on the funding cuts and convincing the MLAs to speak out.
"(Education Minister Jackson Lafferty) is forcing Yellowknife school boards to struggle without needed funds as he removes them over the next two years," said Bromley.
"With a weakened system, he will then add the responsibility of 120 wee children for each school board requiring specialized early childhood development programs in junior kindergarten, returning only to the original level of funding. Blood from a stone for our children. Shame!"
The introduction of junior kindergarten will result in an eight per cent funding cut, according to the school board; this is much more significant than the 1.2 per cent cut Lafferty continues to report.
For the GNWT to pay for the implementation of junior kindergarten across the territory, Yellowknife Catholic Schools will experience cuts in funding of $434,000 in 2014/2015 and $264,000 in 2015/2016. Some $484,000 will return to the budget for the 2016/2017 school year to pay for the 110 students Yellowknife Catholic Schools is expecting in junior kindergarten, according to Mike Huvenaars, assistant superintendent of business for the district.
The district is therefore left with an accumulated loss of $214,000, which doesn't account for the increased class size or loss of funding from parents who would have paid for kindergarten through the district's programs at Weledeh and St. Joseph schools.
In the assembly, Bromley continued to ask Lafferty what impact the funding cuts would have on Yellowknife students - but Taylor said he felt the minister didn't give a clear answer.
"There were pretty specific statements made and the minister essentially avoided each of the questions," said Taylor.
Bromley confronted the minister on this during the question period Friday.
"I asked what's the minister's assessment of the impacts of this on the services to the students. No answer," Bromley said.
"He went off in a different direction. I asked what collaboration and support. I didn't hear any collaboration and support."
The budget passed, and meanwhile the Catholic board is sorting out ways to deal with the cuts.
"We're introducing our cuts, we're putting our budget together," said Simon Taylor, chair of Yellowknife Catholic Schools.
The school board's budget has not been completed and won't be finalized until June, but Taylor was able to speculate that the cuts are going to affect the students.
"We've been trying to introduce the cuts in ways that won't affect the students, but at this point it's going to affect them," said Taylor.
At Yellowknife Education District No. 1, officials are also struggling to form their budgets for the next few years.
"Our finance committee is in the midst of this work. They've given instruction to administration to find ways to reduce costs," said John Stephenson, Yk1 chair.
"They will be looking for ways to reduce those costs in areas that have minimal impact on services to students but at some point we won't be able to simply look for cost-saving measures, we will need to impact actual creative teaching positions in the classroom."
At the board meeting Tuesday evening, trustees discussed the bleak outlook on Yk1's financial situation, which Stephenson reiterated.
"We're really trying to minimize this year in hopes that next year things will improve," he said.
"Perhaps the MLAs and the government will revise how they're funding these initiatives, but this year we're striving to not reduce or impact our students."
