No buses for junior kindergarten students
School boards postpone issue for further study due to high cost, safety concerns
Kirsten Fenn
Northern News Services
Friday, June 16, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife schools will not provide buses for junior kindergarten students next school year.
Both the city's Catholic and public school boards passed a motion at their monthly board meetings this week to hold off on providing transportation for the new grade level until more research can be done.
The French school board is expected to pass the same motion on Monday.
"We're not in a position, financially, between the three boards to pay for this extra service now," said John Stephenson, board chair for Yellowknife Education District No. 1 (Yk1) Tuesday night.
He pointed to safety concerns and the logistics of implementing the service in time for fall as other factors for the joint decision between the three boards.
The motion passed calls for the creation of a joint committee between the boards to look into bussing for junior kindergarten students with the possibility of implementation in the 2018-19 school year.
Earlier this year, the GNWT announced it would fully fund junior kindergarten, but school boards and MLAs have continuously raised concern that three critical elements were left out of the equation: busses, aboriginal languages and inclusive schooling.
Education, Culture and Employment Minister Alfred Moses said in the legislative assembly it is up to education authorities how to allocate government funds to pay for buses, but quickly changed track and said his department was committed to funding them once it knew student enrolment figures.
At a committee meeting May 25, Moses promised his department would pay for booster seats and seat belts.
That was one option school boards were looking at, according to Stephenson, who explained booster seats could have been added to the existing system and an adult supervisor could have been hired to help young student get on and off the bus.
Another option was to commission a smaller bus just to carry younger students.
"But we needed to know if we were going to do it collectively - three boards - by now in order for the contractor to line up the buses, start to recruit monitors, make the modifications to buses," said Stephenson.
With the education department committing to cover just some of the costs, he explained the school boards couldn't go ahead.
Those changes would have cost them $570,000 annually, according to Tram Do, director of corporate services at Yk1. She said the bussing company also wanted the three school boards to sign a five-year contract.
The current bussing contract is set to expire next year.
Yellowknife Catholic Schools (YCS) board chair Miles Welsh said the education department's slow pace on the bussing issue factored into the boards' collective choice to postpone transportation for junior kindergarten students.
"Our parents need to be aware of what's going on sooner than that," he said.
"Especially without the confirmation of the funding being available, (that) made the delay and the desire to review and work with (the department) moving forward the best option."
YCS superintendent Claudia Parker said her school board wants to be able to put as much money as possible into educational programming.
Parents have been surveyed about the bussing issue and the majority responded they would not need it, she added.
Those who did will be able to find some relief in after-school programming offered through St. Joseph School and Weledeh, which will give students a safe place to stay until parents are off work.
"We also would like to work with the minister and his department to see how this can become feasible for school boards," Yvonne Careen, superintendent of the Commission scolaire francophone Territoires du Nord-Ouest, told Yellowknifer.
The goal is for everyone to be able to financially support bussing for junior kindergarten and resolve any safety concerns "to give full access to all students," Careen said.
