GNWT refuses to release jr kindergarten review
School board chairperson, former MLA call for release of document
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Friday, January 15, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The territorial government is refusing to release an external review of its junior kindergarten program, a document a former MLA and a school board chairman says should be released sooner than later.
The report was completed after Premier Bob McLeod in October 2014 announced a halt to further expansion of the program designed to provide early education to four-year-old children in communities across the territory.
Junior kindergarten was set to expand to regional centres and then the city before that plan was put on pause as it came under scrutiny from city MLAs because the GNWT funded the program from existing school district budgets.
The review was expected to be finished in July last year, in time to be handed to MLAs in the 17th legislative assembly before the election. But the report wasn't finished.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment confirmed it had the report in the fall but it was not released.
In December, the newspaper filed an access to information request to obtain the report. The department refused to release it, citing a section of access to information legislation which allows it to withhold information containing advice, proposals recommendations, analysis or policy options developed for the government.
The denial comes shortly after McLeod was re-elected to the premier's office on a vow of increasing government transparency.
Former Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro, one of the MLAs raising questions about the program over the last several years, lamented that the 17th assembly didn't get the report on time. She said it's time for the report to be released.
"It's time," she said. "Sooner, rather than later so that (MLAs) can consider it and the government can figure out what should be done with junior kindergarten."
Education department spokesperson Jacqueline McKinnon wrote in an e-mail that all the department can say is that the report was completed and will be shared with the 18th assembly "to help inform their decision" about the future of the program. It's not clear if the report will be made public.
In October, Bisaro asked then-education minister Jackson Lafferty if the report would be. Lafferty said that would be up to the next, now current, government.
"So if they decide it is going to be public information, by all means the 18th assembly government will decide," Lafferty said at the time.
The review was mentioned as part of the briefings given to newly elected MLAs last year, said Frame Lake MLA Kevin O'Reilly. He wasn't able to say much more about it Tuesday. It's an issue he plans to look into though, he said.
Simon Taylor, chairperson of Yellowknife Catholic School board of trustees, said on Monday the district has yet to hear anything further from the department. Asked whether the report should have been released, he gave a hesitant yes.
"It's not like it's national security," Taylor said.
John Stephenson, chairperson of the Yellowknife Education District No. 1 board of trustees, said the district supports the program but wants the funding issue to be addressed. It provided input to the consultant hired by the government to carry out the review. Since then, he said they've heard nothing about the report.
"We've asked a number of times 'Where is it?' We have no information from the department or the minister of the status of the junior kindergarten review," he said.
School districts are now entering the time they develop budgets for the next school year, which means if changes are coming they want to know sooner than later.
"We need to know if junior kindergarten is going to be introduced in Yellowknife and when," Stephenson said.
