Former superintendent questions transparency over education bill
Minimum instruction hours would be fewer than purported, says James Anderson
Kirsten Fenn
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A former NWT educator says students will lose more class time next year than previously advertised if politicians pass a bill to reduce the minimum instruction hours students receive annually.
James Anderson, an education consultant and former NWT teacher, questions how transparent education officials are being over proposed reductions to class time during a public hearing on Bill 16: An Act to Amend the Education Act held Friday at the legislative assembly. - Kirsten Fenn/NNSL photo |
James Anderson, a former teacher, principal and superintendent who now works as an education consultant, raised the issue with a committee of MLAs at Friday's public hearing on Bill 16: An Act to Amend the Education Act.
Although Education, Culture and Employment Minister Alfred Moses and some of his deputy ministers were at the public hearing, they left before Anderson or any member of the public delivered presentations. A person from the department stayed to take notes.
The education department is proposing to reduce the legislated minimum instructional hours for Grades 1 to 12 students to 945 hours a year in order to implement a pilot project it signed off on in its collective agreement with the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association.
Students in Grades 1 to 6 are currently required to get at least 997 hours of instruction, while those in Grades 7 to 12 students require at least 1,045.
But Anderson said the legislated minimum includes 45 "non-scheduled hours" for activities such as parent teacher conferences, sports and drama clubs, or cultural activities.
That would set instruction time to 900 hours per year, rather than 945, he explained to the committee.
"I'm really disappointed that this has not been brought forward by any education officials," Anderson said, adding he feels they have not been clear about what the reductions mean.
He worried how this will affect senior students who follow the Alberta curriculum and suggested the NWT match the province's instructional time.
According to a 2016-17 Alberta education guide, Alberta students in Grades 1 to 9 are required to receive at least 950 hours of instructional time a year while that number is 1,000 for students in Grades 10 to 12.
Alberta's education guide states instruction time does not include things like parent-teacher interviews or extracurricular activities.
"I'm not presenting anything here this afternoon that I don't have evidence for," Anderson added, providing the committee with a set of documents to explain himself.
Anderson also provided Yellowknifer with a copy of his e-mail correspondence with the teachers' association that confirms the non-scheduled hours.
"The new minimum 945 hours will be inclusive of the 45 hours of non-instructional contact time," stated Dave Roebuck, labour relations adviser for the association, in the e-mail. "So actual minimum instructional hours will be 900 hours."
But according to Jacqueline McKinnon, spokesperson for the education department, there is no such thing as "non-instruction time."
Rather, the 45 hours are called "unscheduled instructional time," she told Yellowknifer.
She said they include educational activities that may happen in or outside the regular school day and range from on-the-land activities to activities related to sports, drama, music and fine arts, student career awareness, guest presentations and parent-teacher conferences.
"The use of this time, up to a maximum of 45 hours per school year, must be identified and described and submitted to (the department) for review and approval," McKinnon said.
Anderson could not understand why education officials haven't shared this with parents.
"Surely this is pertinent information," he told the committee of MLAs.
It wasn't something officials touched on during Friday's presentations, either.
Following the meeting, teacher's association president Fraser Oliver told Yellowknifer he and all superintendents and school board officials were aware the proposed reductions included 45 hours of what McKinnon called unscheduled instructional time.
"It's nothing that people have hidden. It's out there," Oliver said, adding lots of good things happen in that time. "When you look at a lot of the activities schools are doing ... there can be a lot of learning."
