HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2004
STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Ronald Chisholm
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON (Chairman): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's Standing Committee on Human Resources. My name is Russell MacKinnon, I am the chairman for today's meeting. On the agenda today we have the Halifax Regional School Board with us. We have Carolyn McFarlane, Chairman of the Board; we have Carole Olsen, Superintendent; Richard Morris, Executive Director of Finance; Jeff Campbell, Board Member - I don't see Jeff here, he's probably busing in; and Don Buck, Senior Staff Advisor. Before we start, I will ask individual members if they would introduce themselves, starting on my immediate left here.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Viewing from the sidelines is Marilyn More, another legislative colleague. The general rule is we will start off allowing for opening remarks for anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, maximum, and then we will open up for a round of questions from individual members. Ms. McFarlane.
MS. CAROLYN MCFARLANE: Mr. Chairman, committee members, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Carolyn McFarlane and I'm the Chairman of the Halifax Regional School Board. I want to begin by thanking the Standing Committee on Human Resources for allowing the Halifax Regional School Board the opportunity to present to you this morning. With me today is our Superintendent, Carole Olsen, who in a few minutes will provide you with the details of our presentation. Joining Ms. Olsen is Richard Morris, our Executive Director of Financial Services, and Don Buck, Senior Staff Advisor, who will be assisting in the presentation and will also be available to respond to any questions members of the committee may have.
1
The Halifax Regional School Board is pleased that the Department of Education has followed through on their commitment to undertake a review of the funding formula for school boards. We believe this review is long overdue and we are confident the outcome will be an open, transparent and equitable funding formula that is understandable to everyone. This is what we are asking for and we believe this can be accomplished if the funding formula review the province is about to undertake provides the opportunity for ordinary Nova Scotians as well as all education partners to share their input. I want to assure the committee that we know that equity does not necessarily mean equal because all schools and all school boards are not the same but, as Carole will point out in her presentation, there are differences among boards right across the province that need to be recognized in a clearly defined manner.
In closing, I want to thank you again for the opportunity to present to the Standing Committee on Human Resources this morning and I would now like to turn things over to Carole. Thank you.
MS. CAROLE OLSEN: Good morning. Mr. Chairman, committee members, ladies and gentlemen. I want to begin by reiterating Carolyn's words of thanks to this committee for inviting us to meet with you this morning to discuss issues related to public education funding in Nova Scotia. There has been much discussion of late regarding public education funding, especially here in the Halifax Regional Municipality. I believe there is absolutely no debate that education is the foundation for a healthy, vibrant community and solid economic growth.
Government funding to create and maintain a quality public education system is vital to meeting the needs of diverse school communities in achieving these policy outcomes. With the provincial government set to provide over $753.5 million in grants to school boards in 2004-05, the Legislature should have assurance that these funds are distributed provincially in a fair, open and accountable manner.
Many years ago, the government adopted a set of principles for public education funding in this province. I believe these principles are as relevant today as they were when they were first adopted. These key principles are equity, accountability and adequacy. The key focus of this presentation is on the principle of equity.
As Carolyn has already mentioned regarding equity, she has asked the question, does equity mean each school board gets the same amount of funding per student? Absolutely not. Equity does not mean equal. Equity does mean that each child in Nova Scotia is provided with an equal opportunity to achieve the learning outcomes of the public school program. Providing an equal opportunity can require different levels of resources for each child.
To demonstrate equity, there must be a clear link between the resources required to provide the public school program and the manner in which the Department of Education provides funding to school boards for this purpose. This is not a simple task but one I believe which must be undertaken.
What are the resources required to deliver the public school program? We don't have the time to go into great detail on the types and extent of resources required by school boards, but you can see the major categories on this slide. I believe that we know as much about what's required to provide education as the hospitals in the health care sectors know what's required to provide health care service - hospital beds, nurses, doctors, et cetera.
This slide outlines the resources that all students need within this province for education. If you look at those resources there, you can see that the vast majority of the resources are people - teachers, support workers, psychologists, counsellors, guidance counsellors - the vast majority are people. It is people who make a quality education system.
Aside from the required resources, there are also other factors within education communities that must be considered when assessing resources necessary to give all children that equal education opportunity. Again, the slide indicates some of the major factors. You can see there that these factors will vary across the boards right across this province. The enrolment decline differs from Cape Breton to Halifax. The number of ESL students, French first and second language students - these factors will differ board to board.
To highlight a few, we know that small, rural schools require additional resources to provide the same opportunities as large schools. We know that extensive resources and supports are required for high needs special education students. Some boards have more students in this category than others. Each board does not have the same number of students requiring ESL support or students living in poverty or inner-city environments.
In summary, not all boards are the same. Each has unique characteristics and student populations that require different levels of resources to provide that equal educational opportunity. The challenge is to address each of these factors in a funding formula so that the distribution of provincial funding is open, transparent and accountable. When this is accomplished, the per student funding to each board will be different, but equitable. Everyone will be able to see clearly that these factors have been recognized. When the provincial funding formula is open, transparent and accountable, then, and only then, I believe we can all determine whether the funding is adequate to meet the needs of all students regardless of where they live in the province.
Having talked about the fundamentals of funding public education, we turn now to what is currently happening with education funding. We know that many other provinces have detailed funding models that link the resources, that I've previously listed, necessary for school boards to provide their mandated programs to the funding formulas that distribute
the funding to the boards and in the package that we distributed to you last week, we provided you with a copy of the Manitoba funding document as an example. This is only one example. This 27-page document clearly outlines the funding provided under the resource categories that were previously noted. Many other provinces are similar to Manitoba and these funding formula arrangements allow equity and adequacy to be assessed in an accountability framework.
What are we doing in Nova Scotia? For the past five years the majority of the funding has been distributed in a category called baseline funding. It's a block amount of money and that accounts for 72.7 per cent of all of the money that's distributed to school boards. There's a block grant. The other main category is called formula funding and is based on formulas that were developed in 1999 and that's based on several categories and student enrolments.
We've also provided you with a copy of the profile sheet received by the Halifax Regional School Board in 2003-04. We haven't got our final profile sheets for 2004-05 yet because the Legislature hasn't passed the final budget so that those profile sheets can be forwarded to us. This illustrates the only information received by the board to explain the funding provided by the government. As you can see, there's no clear link between the resources necessary for the programs, to provide this public school program, and the manner in which the Department of Education provides funding to the boards for this purpose.
To give you one clear example, the Halifax Regional School Board transports about 22,000 students to and from school each day on 220 buses. As well, the board provides about 1,000 students with bus passes to get to and from school on Metro Transit. Now, these are people who qualify under the Education Act for transportation. There is no formula that recognizes and funds this basic requirement of our education system. This is simply not an open, transparent and understandable manner to allocate funds provided by the Legislature for public education. The absence of clear links between the resource requirements and the manner in which the funding is provided means that you and we are unable to answer the questions about equity, accountability and adequacy. We should not allow ourselves to lag behind other provinces in being openly accountable for the allocation of public education funding.
So where do we go from here? We're delighted the Province of Nova Scotia has announced the review of the funding formula, and we believe that the Province of Nova Scotia needs to review the current funding arrangements with a view to developing and implementing a formula that addresses equity, adequacy and accountability. We believe an open, transparent, equitable formula will meet the educational needs of all students and provide assurance to the Legislature that the funds it provides are spent equitably.
[9:15 a.m.]
We are pleased to see the just recent announcement from the Department of Education that the former Deputy Minister of Finance, Bill Hogg, has been engaged to lead a formula review process for the province. We are very pleased with this announcement and have confidence that Mr. Hogg will be successful in addressing the very issues that we have brought to your attention this morning and we are looking forward, very much, to working with him as he undertakes this very essential task. We hope that during the review Mr. Hogg will have the opportunity to speak with various partners in education, as well as parents and students from across the province to get their input.
We thank you again for this opportunity to speak with you today, and we would be pleased to respond to any questions.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Olsen and Ms. McFarlane. Any members with questions? Mr. Estabrooks.
MR. WILLIAM ESTABROOKS: Thank you, Ms. Olsen, Ms. McFarlane, and staff, for being here. I want to be clear with you from the outset, Carole, that the members around this table are not into the beat-up-Halifax mode. But I want to make clear to the members opposite - once I find the contact lens that popped out of my eye - and I think it's important to distinguish, this is not about peninsular Halifax/downtown Dartmouth. It's of real consequence - I read comments in the Cape Breton Post from the superintendent of the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, where he points out 120 buses and a large geographic area - that you highlight again for members present the enormity of our board, geographically. I don't want to go down this road too far, Ms. McFarlane, but there is a disparity between - and we still say this here in this school board - the old cities, and the county. One of the really important factors here is transportation; 220 buses carry that number of students. What percentage of our student population in the HRSB travels by school bus?
MS. OLSEN: It's 22,000 out of 56,000 students, so it's just under half.
MR. ESTABROOKS: It must be a reporter's delight to go to a school board meeting. (Laughter) Because you never quite know who is going to be the loosest of the loose cannons. I don't want to refer to anyone specifically, and I was hoping one member in particular was going to be here - and I don't see him yet - but I want Ms. McFarlane to respond, in this case, to this comment. Now this is going to be tricky, with the ability to see out of one eye and a contact lens in my good one. I apologize for this. Maureen, could you read that comment there that Jeff Campbell makes?
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: "'They don't have the political will to do what's right,' he said. 'It's easier for the province to underfund two regional school boards . . . as long as the majority of the school boards and the voters remain happy.'"
MS. MCFARLANE: Do you want me to support that? That is not my comment.
MR. ESTABROOKS: I know that.
MS. MCFARLANE: I want to make that loud and clear.
MR. ESTABROOKS: I know you are the one, as the chairman, have the responsibility to respond to some of these types of things. That's like putting a lit match to a gasoline can. Could you comment?
MS. MCFARLANE: What we are asking for, and I want to go back to that very clearly, we are looking for equitable, transparent, accountable funding. We don't know at the end of the day whether that means more or less money for Halifax. We have no idea, but we want it so that when people look at the funding formula it's not a two-page document, it's a fairly lengthy document that supports different levels of need in each school board equitably across the system. I really can't comment on Jeff's comment, and he was going to be here this morning so maybe you could raise that issue with him later. This is what the board wants as a unit, because we really feel funding needs to be looked at in-depth by the government.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Thank you, if you could excuse me for a moment, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: I guess following up perhaps a little bit along the same line. Getting right to what I consider to be the heart of the issue here, I raised it yesterday in estimates with the minister and of course when I talked about Halifax Regional School Board and AVRSB, he quickly did the dance and took it to Chignecto-Central as also being the school board that was presenting itself as having a fairly substantial deficiency in funding for this year.
Mr. Estabrooks alluded to transportation, but I've looked at the figures by subtracting some transportation and property services which I think are two of the most, I guess, wide-ranging costs that the boards in fact do have. If you take a look at what then becomes support to delivering the program in the schools of HRM and AVRSB and all across the province, but I take a look here today since you're here - if we eliminate transportation and property services, you are currently receiving over $1,000 less per pupil than the Strait board which is on the higher end of the scale.
I would like for you to tell the committee here today, and we're talking about equity here, what kind of consequences is that having for your school board to deliver the public school program that's mandated by the province? I know there have to be deficiencies here and I'd like to hear some of those clearly articulated today where you are falling short on delivering what should be your mandate year after year.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Olsen.
MS. OLSEN: Perhaps I can start, and I don't know if the other members of our team would like to add comments. First and foremost from our presentation, I think that it's probably not fair to say that the Strait is getting $1,000 more than Halifax is getting. What we don't know, and that's why we're here, is what are the factors that are requiring the Strait to have $1,000 more and Halifax to have $1,000 less. We believe very firmly that if we had a detailed funding formula we would be recognized for English as a second language, for the students who come to our country, and we're very fortunate to have them, but English is not their first language. Research would demonstrate that children whose first language is not the language of instruction in school, whether that be English or French, need up to seven years additional support, not in a segregated classroom necessarily, but seven years of additional support in the language, in order for them to be able to function in a classroom like a native-born speaker. We're not recognized for that.
MS. MCFARLANE: We have about 700 students who fit that.
MS. OLSEN: Who would require additional support. We have the IWK, as you know within our jurisdiction and we're delighted that they're here as well, but we also know that many parents who have students with very special needs and need the support of the IWK tend to move into our community so they can be closer to that resource, but we don't know the difference between the number of special needs youngsters that the Strait may have and those that we have. We believe that we have proportionately more youngsters than other boards - an equitable funding formula would demonstrate that.
We are having difficulty with special ed, we're having difficulty with ESL, we also believe that youngsters from lower socio-economic communities need additional resources to be successful in schools. All communities across Nova Scotia have pockets of communities with students from lower socio-economic communities. We do have the capability. Other provinces, for example, use Statistics Canada data to be able to distribute funds that would allow us to meet those kinds of needs.
Those are some of the needs that I see. I don't know if Carolyn or Richard want to comment on that, as well.
MS. MCFARLANE: I agree with what Carole was saying, we have some basic needs out there that aren't necessarily being met. We need to make sure that none of our children
fall through the cracks and each child is challenged to reach their full potential. I'm not sure that we're capable of doing all of that for all children because we don't have the necessary educational dollars to do it.
MR. GLAVINE: One supplementary for now, and I know there are a lot of people wanting to ask questions. I thought you would tell me, perhaps, a little bit more graphically, because I know that when I went to the line with the education program assistants - and you have increased the number of full-time percentage now that will be EPAs in the Halifax system - but when I see only a little over 300 full-time EPAs serving 56,000 students, I would say you have enormous deficiency in that particular area.
The minister made no comment yesterday when I informed him that there were 100 classrooms with 35-plus students, and based on 2002-03 stats, there were 18 with 40-plus. I see real deficiencies on two of the most central areas that have to be addressed. I think you need to scream louder in the minister's and the government's ear. They have had five years to work on this formula.
I know what's happening in the AVRSB, the first day on the job, my child is only getting a half day of school this year because there is insufficient funding for his EPA. I think we need to hear from parents, perhaps, on this issue, not just school board people, because I've only had a quick glimpse and I see enormous difficulties with the current level of funding.
MS. OLSEN: If I can just respond. I think you've identified two of the major areas, one is special education and both the resources to support special education with speech pathologists, psychologists and all of the specialized resources, as well as the resources for the EPAs and also the number of classroom teachers that we are able to employ with the funding that we get.
I think the point of my presentation to begin with was that we need to be able to be open and transparent - on a student-by-student basis, and a square footage-by-square footage basis, if that's what it's going to be in the age of square feet for schools and transportation - how we're being funded, to then have the next question, is it adequate? But right now we can't even make the comparisons because of the way the funding formula is structured.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Taylor.
MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: I would like to thank our presenters for coming in this morning. I know they probably could have made a much more detailed presentation if they had been allocated more time, and I respect and appreciate the fact you stayed within the time frame.
During your presentation you spoke of essential program resources for all students; as well, you spoke of other factors determining the amount of funding required. Then you made a very, I guess what I would call disturbing statement, that there's no clear link between the resources necessary for school boards to provide the public school program and the manner in which the Department of Education provides funding to the school boards for this purpose. I would think that responsibility would be a shared responsibility. Am I wrong or am I correct?
[9:30 a.m.]
MS. OLSEN: I believe, in terms of an accountability framework, that the department should be able to have a funding formula that is open, transparent and accountable in terms of how the funding is built up for the boards, factor by factor, whichever factors are included. Then in terms of the shared responsibility, I think school boards need to then be able to reflect back to the Legislature, to the department and to the public how we are allocating those dollars that are provided to us from the Department of Education in a very clear, open and accountable manner.
For example, if we're getting a certain number of dollars to meet special education needs and we're not spending them in that category, then I think we have to be accountable for that. But I think the department needs to have a more detailed funding formula than is currently in place.
MR. TAYLOR: I do tend to agree, but, Mr. Chairman, you may recall that some time back the Auditor General cited examples of poorly defined long-term goals and priorities. For example, the board's first budget priority was quality learning for all students. I just wonder how management interprets that priority. Again, the Auditor General, when he audited the board a few years ago, described the plan as a strategic plan but he noted that it lacked too much detail to be termed a business plan, i.e. it didn't have the characteristics of a business plan - specifically it lacked specific priorities. That was some time ago, I just wonder if a business plan is in place now? I expect that it would be.
MS. OLSEN: A business plan is in place now. The board has adopted six goals within its business plan. The first goal in the business plan is to improve student achievement. As part of our accountability measures and support to schools for improving student achievement, what our board did this year, to provide baseline data for improving student achievement, we assessed every Grade 2 child and every Grade 9 child in literacy one-on-one; we assessed every Grade 3 child and every Grade 9 child in mathematics one-on-one. We fed that data back to the parents, teachers, principals and we've published it for the board. We undertook a survey of every parent, teacher and student within our system to find out where we needed to improve and we've published that data.
We have undertaken a detailed description of our communities using Statistics Canada data and given that information back to the schools. We have a planning for improvement exercise in place that will help the schools and the teachers use that data to improve student achievement. We will be repeating that kind of exercise for next year to show how we've measured against our baseline this year.
MR. TAYLOR: I'm wondering if the document or the correspondence that the guest is referring to could be tabled. Would that be . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: You mean the business plan?
MR. TAYLOR: Yes, if that would be a reasonable request.
MS. OLSEN: I don't know that we have it with us, but we will certainly see that you receive it.
MR. TAYLOR: Okay, that would be appreciated. One more question?
MS. OLSEN: It's a public document. It goes to the department, goes to the city.
MR. TAYLOR: Oh, I expect it would. In the Auditor General's last audit of the board, he advised the board to improve communication between itself and the board's administration. He indicated there was possibly a deficiency of information that was going to the board, partly due to a poor financial system which showed budget items, but no actuals. An example was used that the budget last year for maintenance was $3.1 million and it actually cost $4.1 million, and yet again this year the board approved a budget for $3.1 million. I just wonder if it's fair to ask what steps the board has taken to improve what the Auditor General sees as a shortfall in communication.
MS. OLSEN: I will begin and I will ask Mr. Morris to pick up on that. In fact, the Auditor General did come back to our board to follow up on that audit to which you are referring and it's my understanding that the Auditor General's Report will be available, in June, to the Legislature. So we're quite confident that the results you will see in the next Auditor General's Report will be substantially improved from the last one, but in terms of one of the issues related to the maintenance, we have implemented Megamations, which is a software program that will track the maintenance work orders and how that's tracked and the resources that are used against that. So I think there have been some very specific improvements in that particular area, but I will ask Mr. Morris to speak to the more general areas of the Auditor General's Report.
MR. RICHARD MORRIS: We have responded to all the recommendations from that 2000 audit of the Auditor General and, as Carole indicated, they were just here over the last few months - and I guess not to pre-empt their report in June, but they were satisfied that we
had responded to all of the recommendations with respect to improving the financial management systems and improving our financial reporting practices both internally and with the board members as well, so I think we have made significant improvements over the last few years and have fully responded to those recommendations.
MS. OLSEN: Before you get the Auditor General's Report, we did provide a report to the Auditor General, that's public information, back in December or January when he came to describe the audit process and we will make that available to the committee as well, because in that report we detailed the improvements that we had made and we provided that as some information for him as he undertook his second audit.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you have one more question?
MR. TAYLOR: Maybe I could just conclude by saying, Mr. Chairman, that I certainly would agree that there probably - no, in fact there is no clear link, I guess, between the resources necessary by the board and the manner in which the department provides the funding, but I think that it is a shared responsibility that not only the Department of Education, but the school board step up to the plate as well and try to provide the necessary input to close that gap that exists.
Recently my colleagues, at least on the Tory side of the House, had an opportunity to meet with the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board and, of course, they are struggling as well to deal with a shortfall. One of the things that they are doing is very actively pursuing, in fact, a facility review in terms of whether or not all the square footage is being used as effectively and efficiently as it can be, and some of their findings are quite the revelation, so to speak, and I'm just wondering, in conclusion, if this is something that is ongoing with this particular board, the Halifax Regional School Board, or something that you are considering?
MS. MCFARLANE: We have had a number of schools under review, if I may, in the past couple of years. If you look at the stats from the Department of Education, we have the lowest number of square feet per student across the province by a fair chunk. I think we're about 2.-something per cent.
MS. OLSEN: That was the non-school square footage. We have about 2.4 square feet per student that is not being used for educational purposes.
MR. TAYLOR: How many teachers are outside the classroom in the family of schools that are actually not teaching children in the classroom?
MS. MCFARLANE: You mean the specialist teachers?
MR. TAYLOR: No, teachers that wouldn't be in the classroom but have other duties within the Halifax Regional School Board.
MS. MCFARLANE: As a part of administration?
MR. TAYLOR: It could be administration, yes. (Interruption) I'm asking a question, Mr. Estabrooks, but I'll make that determination when I get the answer.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Perhaps we could wrap this up and maybe I think, in summary, what Mr. Taylor may be asking is what percentage of your total teaching staff is administration?
MS. OLSEN: The budget figure for administration for our board is 2.4 per cent of our total budget.
MR. CHAIRMAN: He may be looking for more detail but we'll come back. We will now allow the member for Dartmouth East who has joined us.
Ms. Massey.
MS. JOAN MASSEY: Thank you for coming in today, first of all. I can't believe my ears. I'm sitting here - I don't even know if I can sit through the rest of this meeting, my blood level has gone up. It was bad enough yesterday having to ask questions to the Minister of Education and he proceeded to berate various MLAs because they were actually talking about their boards or their schools, and then to sit here today and have a colleague - if you want to call it that - basically play the bully with the Halifax Regional School Board, trying to lay the blame . . .
MR. TAYLOR: On a point of order.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I think the honourable member knows . . .
MS. MASSEY: I will take that back, sorry, I apologize, wrong word.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think the honourable member knows that those comments are unparliamentary.
MS. MASSEY: True enough, thank you. Anyway, it is hard to sit here and try to have somebody lay the blame on the school board which is doing their best to provide education to students in this province. Definitely, there has not been open, transparent, or equitable funding to this board or to any other board in the province, not for a very long time. There was at one point a funding review group in place which now apparently is going to be replaced by Mr. Hogg, because apparently, from my point of view, the funding review group,
the last time that they were together, they did say we needed over $100 million put into this province to protect our children.
It is hard, I know, for the board to come here and you're under the auspices, let's say, of the province. Your money comes from the province and I know it's hard for you to come and say, the province is doing this right or the province is doing this wrong. I know you are trying to be diplomatic, but I don't have to be as diplomatic, I guess. I definitely can say that the province is underfunding education in the province, not just with this board. There definitely is no clear link between the resources that are necessary for this board and what the province is providing them.
This board, in particular, is still one of the lowest-funded per pupil, and when I sit and look at a copy of a newspaper clipping from The Daily News that Deputy Minister Dennis Cochrane is saying that most schools in Halifax have more than 400 students, so that means that they have a lower cost per pupil, that is ridiculous, you can't make a statement like that. Every child has different needs, just as every board has different needs. This board, in particular, does have special unique challenges. They have ESL students, they have the IWK as you mentioned. We have, I believe, a higher number of special needs students. We have older buildings. We have higher average salary costs, and I could go on and on.
[9:45 a.m.]
We're looking for our children to be treated the way they should be in this province, and sure we can say Education is the second highest budget item for the province and we can listen to the Minister of Education say, if we had the money we'd do this and if we had the money we'd do that. I think this is a smoke screen, Mr. Hogg coming in, and I think it's just another way to continue to underfund the boards across this province and not really do anything but make it look like maybe you're doing something, when we had a perfectly good funding review group in place that was addressing the needs across the province and it was ignored by governments.
I'm going to ask just a couple of questions. When we talk about the unique challenges, one of the documents that I think you provided to me when we met a couple of months ago, and I can't remember the name of it, I asked the Minister of Education yesterday if he knew - I can't remember my exact question, but in that document it looked to me as if it was saying that there are 750 students waiting to access some sort of special needs in the system, and I know we do have a lot of special needs students. Does the board know on a day-by-day process, how many students are out there waiting to get into reading recovery or any kind of a resource that they need to meet their needs?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Olsen.
MS. MCFARLANE: I think I would turn that over to Carole if I may because I know that there are a number who are waiting for, be it sight testing or reading recovery programs or whatever. We try to do our very best with the resources we have, but I personally could not answer that question and I'm not sure that Ms. Olsen would have those figures at her fingertips. We could perhaps find them, because I know there are a number.
MS. OLSEN: We could send the figures for the waiting lists over to you. What we tend to do is spread the resources more thinly than we may otherwise like to. A student may get some speech and language assistance, maybe once a week or once every two weeks, in order to spread that resource more widely across the students who need it, rather than concentrate and provide the ideal amount of service that we otherwise might like to provide.
We don't have reading recovery fully implemented across our board at this point in time, we have it implemented in approximately one-third of the schools with a view to implementing it in the funding - depending - for the rest of the schools this Fall.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.
MS. MASSEY: I'll just wrap up there, I think. If we have time later, I might come back to something else. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. MacDonald.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Thank you for coming today. I guess a cynic would link the Minister of Education's announcement of the funding review on May 1st, with your planned appearance here today and the Nova Scotia School Boards Association next week. If nothing else, perhaps that particular initiative has been advanced somewhat.
Although, I have to say, you know, this clearly isn't a new concern. I remember meeting with Stella Campbell, the former chairman of your board and Jim Houston, back in 1999 when I was my Party's Education Critic, in the first year of the Hamm Government. I know that you as a board have been attempting to push the department to adopt a more nuanced funding formula for education for five years and really, it's too bad it has come to this. I congratulate my colleague, it's really nice to have a voice at the table of a parent and an education activist to express some of the frustrations. I think that people who have kids in the school system and who expect our education system to provide a good quality education, those views need to be expressed.
We have the funding review process underway, and my concern at this point, as the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage's commercial says, "Right here, right now" - I'm concerned about this year. I'm concerned about the community I represent and the families and children in that community. I have three of the four designated inner-city schools in my constituency, I have a large number of African-Nova Scotian learners in my
constituency, I'm listening to the dispute between City Hall and the Hamm Government around assessments, and around education funding, and I'm very aware of motions that have been moved by members of council. I've followed the supplementary education debate at City Hall quite closely.
My perception is that the families and kids in my community and throughout the board may be facing a situation where your board has to make some serious decisions for this budget year, before we have the funding formula. I'd like to know, is that the case, are you facing some serious budgetary challenges that will have implications for kids that you provide educational services to? I think we need to get that out. This is an opportunity to get that out on the table now and to start the debate about how we are going to address that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. McFarlane.
MS. MCFARLANE: Yes, thank you very much. You're referring to the supplementary funding and the fact that it does help support $22 million worth of programs across HRM, and each of the former boards of Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford County each receive a different level of funding based on the tax rate in those three areas. If we are cut 10 per cent - which is the maximum that can be cut in Halifax and Dartmouth - the entire County of Bedford can be wiped out. We will be facing major cuts, and those programs that we have in supplementary funding are supplementary programs. They are enhanced programs and we will not be able to put those back in with the global budget, because those are unique to the area in which they are.
Yes, we will be looking at some very major cuts to programs. We have some ideas, we've asked staff to go in and look at what a 10 per cent cut would be like. Doing the current budget - which is what they started by approving, without the cost of living cost drivers - we would still be looking at some cuts in our budgets for the supplementary funding figures. We are sort of waiting with bated breath to see whether they will cut us, what the mandatory tax rate is, I think that's what it's hinging on right now, listening to the debate around the council table.
But we would be looking at cutting programs; perhaps it's core French in Grade 3, because Halifax is the only area that that happens in, it might be cutting EPAs, and definitely classroom teachers would have to go, reducing class sizes in high-needs areas, such as the inner-city areas. We may be looking at some of our special classes, the French, the music, the arts, that sort of thing. It won't be pretty if it happens. We were looking at going from a five-day cycle to a six-day cycle. Which means that you get fewer minutes of specialist subjects over six days than you would over the five days that we currently have in Halifax and Dartmouth.
When it gets to the former County of Bedford, we might be looking at cutting library assistants. That's a decision that will have to come. Depending on where the money is spent
in the former County of Bedford, some of that is held at the board level, and some of it is held at the school levels. They could wipe the entire thing out. We don't know. We're at the pleasure of council.
Before I go on could I just recognize, Bernadette Hamilton right behind me who has come in. She's the Vice-Chairman of the Halifax Regional School Board.
MS. OLSEN: I'd like to pick up on what Carolyn has said. Not only would we be facing major, major program reductions to students because all of the supplementary funding dollars are spent in the classrooms, they're not spent for administration, school facilities or busing or anything like that. It's spent in the classroom. It'd be major reductions.
The other problem that we're facing right now is a timing issue because of collective agreements and the teachers' collective agreements. If we don't get both our mandatory funding, which comes from the province, and our supplementary funding together before the end of May, we're going to have to give layoff notices to a huge number of people. Then we'll recall them when we actually know what our funding is, but if we don't know what our funding is, we were planning to take our staffing allocation to the schools on May 18th. We've called a special board meeting to do that so we wouldn't have to have that disruption. The timing to school boards, I think, with the collective agreement provisions is really critical as well.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: What a way to run a railroad, eh? I guess the last thing I want to know, is there any sense in your board that the provincial government have - I wouldn't say deliberately, I suppose that would be unparliamentary, but there's a built-in assumption to the funding formula because of the existence of supplementary funding in this particular area that that then contributes to an underfunding from the province. I hear municipal councillors suggest that - if they don't suggest publicly, they certainly do privately - part of the reason why they're left to pick up the can at the municipal level is because there's this built-in assumption, provincially. Is this a piece of the concern?
MS. OLSEN: It's part of the methodology, I think, of funding. Coming from away - I've only been here for a couple of years - that was certainly one of the first pieces of methodology that I picked up when I came here. I think that speaks to why we're here today. If we could all see that there was an open, transparent and accountable funding formula that related resources to the funding formula and the funding that we do get, then we could dispel that myth. I think that I want to re-emphasize with the committee that Halifax isn't here today to take any money away from any board in this province. Not at all. What we're really saying is that Cape Breton needs a certain level of funding for their busing and for their small schools - they need to get it. But, similarly, we've got needs and we need to have them recognized as well. So I think we're making the argument that every board in this province needs to have all of these factors recognized in the funding formula.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen.
MS. DIANA WHALEN: Again, we're very pleased to have you here today. I think in some respects it sounds the alarm overall that education is underfunded. You know that there's really been - although it says in the budget $23 million more, I think $22 million goes directly to salary adjustments, cost of living, those kinds of changes in collective agreements so it really hasn't meant any expansion, any improvement in the education that we have.
I think your point is well taken - as a resident of Halifax too, I don't like the idea ever of pitting our community against the other communities in Nova Scotia. That's not our aim and I know that it's not yours either. What it points to is we have scant resources and they are not spread in a way that at least appears to be equitable or transparent, certainly. We can't trace it back very well, you say the link isn't there. But I think that that's really what needs to be discussed and on the table, the chronically underfunding of education. It was certainly an issue during the last election. It was discussed on the doorsteps - I'm sure all of us did in our respective communities - talk about the schools which are so central to whether it's an urban community or a rural community. I'm very aware of that and I think that we need to have these kinds of discussions and make them public so that people become aware of the pressures you're under in trying to provide a decent education for our children.
At the same time, I'd like to commend you for better communications. I am a parent, I have a Grade 9 student who got some of that testing this year that you referred to. We did get communication from the school board as well and I found it very effective. I think there's been a greatly increased sense of communication back and forth between parents and schools and the school board in the last few years. I think that may be a result of the impact of Ms. Olsen joining our school board, and I think it's very important.
[10:00 a.m.]
Another point I would like to make before I get into some of my questions is the importance of having a good, strong education system in all of our communities, if we want to push economic development and growth. When we are trying to attract people to live in a community, they look at the schools, that is one of the first things they look at. I don't know if you have had any experience of people looking at our school system and saying, I think I'll stay in Ontario, or I'll stay where I am, but I have heard of it anecdotally, and it concerns me that people would come here, look at the level of education and feel that that isn't a place that they want to go with their families. That is here, in Halifax, and I'm sure it's accentuated as you go into some rural areas that may not have some of the embellishments, the few enhancements, that we are able to provide here.
Really, I don't think we measure - in some ways - up to other provinces because of the lack of funding that you have been given. So I think that there's a clear argument to be made and that we need to keep advancing it, that if we invest in education, it isn't a cost, it's an investment and that it will help us overall. You probably have used that argument and I hope you will continue to because I think it's really important for all of us. Halifax has advantages of being a place within Nova Scotia that has been growing, but we need to do all that we can to make it a better place to live.
As you know, I formerly sat for a time as a city councillor so I've been through some of those discussions on supplementary funding and they are very divisive arguments, and they split the council right down the line between what we do have. We have urban and rural
interests on that council very much too, as I think Mr. Estabrooks began by saying that the HRM, itself, is larger than the Province of Prince Edward Island. So you have a very large area to manage, and we need to make that clear. I would say, again, from the three years that I sat through the budgets at HRM, that the level of accountability has improved greatly from the school board to the city and I think that means there is much better information available and that would also be available to the province, that you're now able to account very well where those monies are spent and what they're providing.
My concern is that at the core level, the standards that we set as our core curriculum, are too low in many ways. To begin core French, you mentioned that that begins in Grade 3 here because . . .
[10:02 a.m. Mr. Brooke Taylor took the Chair.]
MS. OLSEN: Grade 4 in the province.
MS. WHALEN: Grade 4 is the core but in some cases we're able to supplement and start a year earlier here. Well, as somebody who struggles with French, I think Grade 4 is just too late to be starting with periodic classes in French. I've said that and the fact that supplementary funding may be able to start it a little earlier is good, but I wonder if you would agree with me that some of those special subjects are just not being adequately addressed in what we consider the core curriculum?
MS. OLSEN: Certainly, we're not able to meet some of the expectations in some of those specialized subjects. For the healthy lifestyle, with phys ed, we're not able to have our students have physical education once in a five-day cycle. If we're going to be moving as a province to ensuring healthy, active lifestyles for youngsters - I'm not saying that they need to be in a gymnasium every single day with a specialized teacher - we're going to need to improve our ability to deliver that program right across the province, I believe. There are many areas, I think, with both specialized subjects and also some support to struggling students that we are going to need additional support.
MS. WHALEN: Can I ask you, Ms. Olsen, have you compared our core curriculum to other provinces to see just where we stand on that spectrum? In terms of how well we're responding, are we in the middle of the pack, are we at the bottom, which is where we usually are?
MS. OLSEN: It's interesting, we've looked at other provinces, but clearly, our mandate is to make sure that we can deliver the outcomes from our own province's curriculum. One of the interesting comments that has been noted is that probably we have one of the strongest mathematics curriculums in the country. Our challenge now, from a school board's perspective is making sure that we have both the resources and the teachers
with the professional development and their expertise to be able to deliver that program, but we vary subject to subject.
MS. WHALEN: Well, I'm very happy to hear there's something that we stand out, you know, really are outstanding and I remember when you first joined the school board, you went around to all of the schools and you asked, what do we do best, what do we do that you would never want to lose? I think that's it, trying to identify where we might have something that's exemplary, that we want to ensure that we protect. So that is good news for all of us to hear, that there is something that stands out. I think we get a little bit overwhelmed sometimes by the news that we're always at the bottom of the spectrum in so many ways, not just in education, but in so many ways. So I'm glad you brought up a positive.
On the French side, I'm interested in French immersion because, well, number one, my son is attending French immersion, but also because I think that it's an aim of the federal government, that we want to see more bilingualism. You've heard talk recently that they want to introduce perhaps simultaneous translation in the House because we can't understand the motions that are read in the second language. So I think it's important that we do more and it seems to me, and I don't know the whole provincial picture, but I know that we don't offer it widely across the province and I think, compared to other provinces again, we don't have a large percentage that has access to it even.
MS. OLSEN: I don't have the provincial statistic in terms of how many students are taking French immersion, but I do know our statistic. We have approximately 38 per cent of the students in the province registered in the Halifax Regional School Board and I believe we've got 69 per cent of the students who are taking French immersion, taking French immersion with our board and one of the challenges I think with French immersion that the Legislature should understand from a school board's perspective, when we take a class in Primary, we try to provide French immersion out of the same base funding and with the same resources that we provide an English language program.
So the cap that we put on Primary is creating a challenge for us because we've got 25 to one in an English program and 25 to one in French immersion, but as the children progress through French immersion, we get a dropout rate and the children leave the French immersion for good and varied reasons and they go into the English language program. So if three drop out in Grade 1, we've now got 28 kids in Grade 1 and 22 in French immersion and as that dropout continues, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to sustain the French immersion program without providing additional resources to support the program, so that becomes a real challenge.
MS. WHALEN: So the logistics of it are difficult. On ESL, I would just like to touch, I know we're busy today with lots of questions from everybody, but I would like to touch on the ESL question. In the Clayton Park area, I believe an awful lot of the students are in that part of the city, or mainland north let's say, and I'm certainly very well aware of it, it's a part
of our community now and a part that we're very proud of when you visit the schools. I had an occasion just this month to go to Park West School when they did their multicultural day and met students who have been here only since September and so certainly there is a big demand there. I'm wondering, and I'm actually really surprised, it seems to me from the figures you've given us that there are no standards and no funding that goes along with an ESL student arriving in our province.
MS. OLSEN: No, there isn't. The funding formula from the province and our mandatory funding don't recognize ESL students at all. Where we end up finding the funding, which we do, to support the ESL students is through the supplementary funding.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen, I'm going to have to cut you off in the interest of time, but I can put you on the short-snapper list for the next time around.
MS. WHALEN: I understand, no, I know there are many people who want to speak.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. O'Donnell.
MR. CECIL O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, coming from rural Nova Scotia, Shelburne, which isn't too large, I would be curious to know the average size of the Halifax Regional School Board's schools in terms of enrolment and would it be fair to say that the schools in the Halifax Regional School Board are larger on average in terms of enrolment than schools in other boards across the province and, if so, are there educational advantages to having schools this size compared to smaller schools?
MR. MORRIS: I suppose if you took our total enrolment, which is around 56,000 students and we have 137 schools, working that out on an average, it's somewhere around 400 students on average per building to take that simple calculation.
MS. OLSEN: Your other question was can there be efficiencies with a larger school as opposed to a smaller school?
MR. O'DONNELL: Yes.
MS. OLSEN: Certainly, if we were able to package all of our schools in sizes of 400, which we can't, because down in Hubbards we have a school of 56, and down in Sheet Harbour we have a school of 32 to 35, you can get some efficiencies in terms of the administration. You need to either have a supervising principal who's going among several buildings, or you have to have a principal in the school and that requires an administrative allowance. Depending on the number of students in the school and the grade - children don't come neatly packaged in classes, they don't come in 20s of Grade 1, Grade 2 or Grade 3, so sometimes you have to give an extra teacher to a school, to be able to have manageable class sizes with manageable numbers of students within them.
MR. O'DONNELL: Just one other quick question. I understand that enrolments across the province are declining. I'm not sure about the HRM, whether you're declining or holding . . .
MS. OLSEN: We're declining about 500 students a year.
MR. O'DONNELL: Okay, so if enrolments are declining, why are budgetary requirements increasing? Is there a reason for this?
MR. MORRIS: Well, our cost drivers are certainly going up at a greater percentage than the enrolment decline. Our enrolment decline is somewhere in the 0.8 per cent to 1 per cent of decline, whereas our cost drivers are, this year for example, roughly 3.5 per cent. That's one factor. Another factor as well, is that even though we're dropping by 500 or 600 students per year, they're not dropping in neat packages out of one class, for example; there could be several children in one school, several children in another school and again, you can't decline your resource requirements at the same level as enrolment decline because they're not leaving en masse, in one particular school, for example. A class of 25 that declines to 22, still needs a teacher and it's those factors that do not have a direct match of decline and resources, to match the decline in enrolment.
MS. OLSEN: If I could just follow up on that, the department in terms of the funding formula, when they look at the decline in enrolment the department is taking the money back from the school boards 25 to one, which would be 25 students to one teacher, so they're taking away one teacher's salary, although as Richard has said, the decline isn't in one school or in one class. Just so you're aware of how that works on the formula.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. MacKinnon.
MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, that's pretty much the same as what's happening in rural Nova Scotia. I think you've answered the question there.
My first question is with regard to the issue you mentioned about the number of students in the classroom. My understanding of reading the fire marshal's regulations is that in terms of class size, you cannot have a class size for elementary students of more than 20 square feet per student, and for junior high and high school 30 square feet per student. Do you have any classes that exceed the fire marshal's regulations presently?
MS. OLSEN: I'm not sure, I'd have to check.
MR. MACKINNON: Is there anybody on the board who does know because I've asked this question on several occasions of the Halifax Regional School Board in the last three years and I've not received an answer?
MS. OLSEN: I will get an answer for you.
MR. MACKINNON: Thank you. My next question is with regard to the issue - your predecessor appeared before the Public Accounts Committee several years ago and I raised the questions of discussions between himself and the present Deputy Minister of Education, Mr. Cochrane, on the issue of transfer of responsibilities from school boards to the province, vis-à-vis the transportation and facilities. He indicated that he and other CEOs had met with the deputy minister to deliberate on the transfer of those responsibilities. Have there been any discussions with the Halifax school board under your tenure, Ms. Olsen?
[10:15 a.m.]
MS. OLSEN: No.
MR. MACKINNON: So that appears to have been put on the back burner then. You're not aware of any . . .
MS. OLSEN: I'm not aware of any plans to transfer those responsibilities to the province from the school boards.
MR. MACKINNON: That leads me to the next issue of community use of schools. I understand you now have a policy, at least there was a report prepared on December 2, 2003. To your knowledge, is there any requirement that the province has to have legislation to approve this policy, that was prepared by the Halifax Regional School Board for community access to schools policy?
MR. MORRIS: I believe that is referring to a proposed policy that came from the department to boards, asking boards to adopt that policy. I believe it's our understanding that the bill that was just tabled in the Legislature under the Financial Measures (2004) Bill, to provide that free access to youth under the age of 21, I believe is in reference to that policy. So once that bill does pass in the Legislature, I believe a formal policy is coming from the department to boards, and then of course we would be implementing that policy as directed by the legislation.
MR. MACKINNON: My question is, does the province not have the legislative authority to implement such a policy with the approval of the boards? You are not aware of that?
MR. MORRIS: I believe that's what's happening with . . .
MR. MACKINNON: No, I'm not talking about what's being contemplated, I'm talking about what's legislatively possible now. You don't know? Okay, that's fine.
Has there been any discussion about assuming of cost? Because this document speaks a lot to user fees, and the user of the facilities assuming liability insurance and a whole lot of other issues. Obviously there is going to be a cost to school boards in this province, particularly the Halifax Regional School Board, and it speaks to the issue of sport and recreation, which has been one of the lead agents. Has there been any discussion about funding for the school boards to ensure that money doesn't come out of the classroom to speak to this issue?
MS. OLSEN: Senior staff were having a debate yesterday in terms of our budget requirements and I believe yesterday we were saying that we were estimating the cost to us right now would be in the order of $300,000.
MR. MACKINNON: Has the province come forward and said we're prepared to offer you that $300,000?
MR. MORRIS: No, we are not aware that there was any funding provided for that.
MR. MACKINNON: So the answer is no. Two other questions. One, in terms of cost efficiency, I understand in the Financial Measures Act of 1999, there was a directive sent by the Minister of Finance to all on-line departments, one being the Department of Education, which in turn was sent to the Halifax Regional School Board and other boards to go on-line with the SAP program. Has there been any discussion about cost efficiencies? First of all, has the board done that? And two, what cost efficiencies have been derived?
MR. MORRIS: We've been participating with the SAP program along with all the other boards with respect to the financial management systems, and then as we speak, we're implementing a payroll and human resources module of SAP, again with all the boards and the province. To date the experience, hasn't necessarily - the actual software program itself has not necessarily resulted in any cost savings. What it has done is being a world-class software program has allowed the board to manage information much better. We have been able to get much better information on a more timely basis and that, in turn, has allowed better decision making with respect to budgets and the way the board operates.
We have every confidence as well with the implementation of the payroll and human resources module which, again, being a people business, roughly 85 per cent of our budget is salaries and benefits. We're confident this system will provide much better information, more timely information to allow us to make better decisions with respect to our staffing and our payroll and benefits. Any time you implement a major software program like that, it's better operations and better information that allows you to make efficiencies.
MR. MACKINNON: Sure, and also greater autonomy by the province to be able to, at a moment's notice and the push of a button, reduce its cost efficiencies. If enrolment is going down at the school board level and the costs of the operation are going up, then obviously the province would look for ways to reduce those costs and this could be one way.
My next question - my final question - is with regard to the number of students that are going to school. You indicated approximately 56,000? What percentage of those students go to school every day without breakfast or proper nutrition?
MS. OLSEN: We have breakfast programs with community partners that are serving about 3,000 youngsters - 33 breakfast programs. I think the needs are substantially greater than we've been able to put together with community partners to fund the breakfast programs.
MR. MACKINNON: So you would estimate approximately 3,000?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you like to maybe get back to the committee and especially the member for Cape Breton West with that answer? Maybe something a little more specific?
MS. OLSEN: I'll get back to you with the exact number of students and breakfasts that we have served this year, and an estimate of the additional need that we haven't been able to meet.
MR. MACKINNON: I think, without getting into detail - I realize my time has come to an end - the absolute necessity of dealing with that issue more than a lot of the other global issues, because without proper nutrition . . .
MS. MCFARLANE: But does that necessarily fall to the responsibility of Education? What about Community Services?
MR. MACKINNON: Well, it's a collective effort. I believe we all have a responsibility.
MS. MCFARLANE: Yes, but it's falling right now, basically, on Education to do that.
MR. MACKINNON: Well, I'm not going to debate it. All I'm saying is, for example in the area where I come from there are 2,200 children a day - out of 16,000 that attend school in Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board - it's identified by the school board that at least 2,200 a day go to school without breakfast.
MS. MCFARLANE: I don't dispute that.
MR. MACKINNON: How can they learn if they don't have the energy to even keep their eyes open and that's what bothers me. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. MacKinnon. I think we'll move on to the short-snapper round, and I have a number of members who want to come back in and we'll start with Mr. Glavine.
MR. GLAVINE: Since asking my first question, I would have to say that I have gotten a fairly grim picture of where the funding lies for this year, especially if supplementary funding is not where you are anticipating. Very quickly - will you be getting sufficient funding to implement the 25 student per class for Grade 1 this year from the province? I'm aware of the global figure, but have you determined yet in your board whether there is adequate funding for that development?
[10:24 a.m. Mr. Russell MacKinnon resumed the Chair.]
MS. OLSEN: We've looked at that. I believe we're going to have to supplement that out of our regular classroom - we're getting a fair portion of it, but I still think there will be a handful of teachers, three or four teachers, that we will need to supplement that, but until we get the actual grade configurations by school we're not going to know that until the end of September.
MR. GLAVINE: Finally, there's to be a reduction of 97 teachers across the province this year, I suppose in conjunction with declining enrolments. Is there anticipated, even without shortage of funding and so on, was the Halifax board going to be part of some reduction this year or were you going to be able to hold the complement if all things are equal?
MS. OLSEN: I'm not quite sure what the question is.
MR. GLAVINE: We know that there are going to be teacher cuts this year across the province.
MS. OLSEN: We're going to have more teachers retire so we can absorb the reduction without having to lay off teachers, if that's what the question is.
MR. GLAVINE: Well, the question is that right now when we line up in September, there will be actually 97 less teachers on the front lines across the province. I'm wondering do you anticipate any teacher cuts in your board if all things remain equal for the coming year?
MS. MCFARLANE: The province has already reduced our funding by 25 teachers because we have 500 students and 25 in a class. So they have already told us, by 20 teachers, I'm sorry.
MR. GLAVINE: That's what I wanted to find out, I wasn't aware of that. So 20 teachers? (Interruption)
MS. MCFARLANE: Twenty.
MR. GLAVINE: Yes, okay. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm going to switch to Mr. Chataway who hasn't had a chance to speak yet.
MR. JOHN CHATAWAY: I very much appreciate this, Mr. Chairman. Of course, I'm not a regular person on this committee and I certainly enjoy the very good topic we have today and I very much appreciate the invitation to come and sit here because the riding that I represent, Chester-St. Margaret's, about half the students attend HRM schools. So it's very, very important to know more of the background and basically it's wonderful the questions that we're having discussed today.
I think I was very, very pleased as well that Bill Hogg, in your initial talk at the first, I think you were very optimistic and I couldn't agree with you more because I have not been around here for years and years, but I certainly do know that, yes, he's retired, but then he's coming forth and taking on this very, very important task. One of the reasons is he's very knowledgeable of all the challenges. The second biggest expense in the provincial government is, of course, education and he's very well aware of it. As Deputy Minister of Finance, he exactly knows what happened in the past and is very, very knowledgeable there.
The other thing is, of course, he also has some good past experiences, I mean past experiences of many years. It's sort of like with my friend here. Gordie Howe played hockey when he was 50 years old. Now, do you think many NHL teams would hire 50-year-olds to do that? Gordie Howe had the experience and they didn't want to say, oh, Gordie, you're retired, you should retire. No, no, he had the good experience. So I'm sure that Bill Hogg, because of the experience he has had, will be very, very knowledgeable and very good to give a good analysis of a very complex but important problem.
The other thing is, too, his background in finance would make him - it's a complex thing on the funding. We have nine school boards, they all go together, and I very much appreciate Mr. Morris. You said that you have met. You're certainly going steps forward and you've met, as much as the Halifax Regional School Board has met, what concerns were said by the Auditor General, and we're going the same and that, of course, the thing is you're just one school board. There are eight more. So to get a sameness of accounts and the differences
in the accounts, it certainly takes people with good knowledge and certainly Mr. Hogg would have that.
At any rate, my friend across brought up about comparing bigger centres in other cities and, specifically, how does the Halifax Regional School Board compare with boards in other urban centres across the country per student funding? Many people live in HRM. Compared to other big urban centres in Canada, have you compared per student funding in education and things like this?
[10:30 a.m.]
MS. OLSEN: I think even the deputy, when he was at the school board, had a presentation to our school board regarding the differences in funding, board by board within different provinces, but when he showed the large urban school boards, like in Ontario or Manitoba or B.C., virtually, Halifax is, when you compare it to the other urban boards, less than any other urban board in the country, to the best of my knowledge.
MR. CHATAWAY: Is that written down? If you have anything, I would very much like to see that, just to peruse it sometime. Of course the other thing is all these urban centres compared to rural parts of their province . . .
MS. OLSEN: The urban centre compared to the rural or the minority language sectors of each province, the urban centres would be lower per pupil than the rural areas, but if you compare urban to urban, we're less than the other urban areas across the country.
MR. CHATAWAY: I think they should certainly study it. At least for this character, it's complex, and that's why I think it's very important that you have a seasoned bureaucrat who can examine books and point out - can analyze what you're reading. Certainly, I think it's going a step forward. The other thing, another speaker talked about the Education Act, community access to schools. There was an amendment to the Education Act, introduced in mid-April in the Legislature, which would allow young Nova Scotians to have more affordable access to school gyms and playing fields.
I do know that in Forest Heights, there was a pilot project. They built a new high school, and it's community access. It's worked out very well. I think that whatever the community is, it certainly adds - the building doesn't lock five minutes after the students leave. Basically it's used by the whole community, and everybody is going together on that, and it's getting more and more people all the time. It's a great strength. What's the Halifax Regional School Board - do you feel that more accessible schools will encourage more local community initiatives for healthy living and other activities? Is that good or bad, or what?
MS. MCFARLANE: Certainly, I think we encourage it. I think we have gyms there - but, to be honest, I think our gyms have been well used over the last number of years, and our classrooms, for meeting areas. We have quite a bit of school use across our system.
MR. CHATAWAY: Is this a school board expense, or do you have volunteers come in to do . . .
MS. MCFARLANE: Volunteers to monitor - we do have safety issues. They're well used.
MR. MORRIS: If I may, facilities rentals has been one of my areas of responsibility as well. I know we have information that shows that most of our schools, especially in the urban and suburban areas, are pretty well fully used every weekday evening and, in a lot of cases, on the weekends as well. We do have community school agreements at Tallahasse Community School and Basinview Drive Community School, where the communities are using those buildings seven days a week. We also now have a new community school agreement with Graham Creighton Junior High School. We are currently in the process of finalizing a service exchange agreement with HRM that will provide some reciprocal exchanges with respect to their recreation and outdoor fields and our school buildings.
We are certainly making every effort to try to make our public school buildings as accessible to the community as possible, all the while, certainly trying to minimize our costs, because, at the current moment, we probably spend in the vicinity of about $0.5 million a year for door monitors and additional custodial time to provide that community access outside of the regular school hours. Of course, those are resources that take away from the regular school day if there wasn't some means of recovering those costs through community use. That is a factor, as well, but we certainly do encourage . . .
MR. CHATAWAY: Well, my last question is what janitorial - what pressure is the janitorial services and monitoring services? Do you have an analysis of those facts and figures?
MR. MORRIS: Yes we do. We account for those costs for each booking.
MR. CHATAWAY: Is this public?
MR. MORRIS: Yes.
MR. CHATAWAY: I very much appreciate it.
MR. MORRIS: Sure.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The next speaker - short snappers - and I know he will be to that effect, Mr. Estabrooks.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Let's go back to the topic of funding formula. Gordie Howe analogy aside. Bill Hogg, I want you to just quickly understand how this was done. We're in the middle of estimates. We're talking funding formula. The minister leans over to Mr. Cochrane and says something and then he stands up and tells the world that Bill Hogg's going to do this job. Then of course a release comes out the next day. What do you see as your role in HRSB with Mr. Hogg, because I hope Mr. Hogg doesn't sit in his office, wherever it's going to be, to use the hockey analogy, I hope he goes into the corners, I hope he finds out what's going on. I hope he gets out there and talks and listens to people such as you folks, and I hope that he comes back with a funding formula that's a lot more open and transparent than what we go through now. What do you see as your role in this funding formula review that Mr. Hogg is going to push forward? How was that?
MR. CHAIRMAN: That was great. They still didn't win the Stanley Cup, but that's beside the point. (Laughter)
MR. ESTABROOKS: In fact I was going to use a Bobby Orr analogy, but I won't go there.
MS. MCFARLANE: I can start and let Carole continue. I hope that he's going to come and meet with the boards, meet with senior staff, meet with the school advisory councils across the system, to look at really what is out there in the system - what are the cost drivers, what are the needs at the school sites, what are the needs at the board levels across the province? - and take all of those things into consideration when he builds his formula. He has to consider what each school board has, what are the uniquenesses in each school board? What are the communities in each school board? All of those things, I think, have to be considered before he sits down.
We gave you a copy, I think, Carole mentioned early, of the Manitoba funding formula. I really feel that this has to be a clear, open, transparent formula so that everybody almost knows before they go in to hear the end results, what their funding should be for the coming year. This isn't happening. When we go in for our embargoed meeting, it's all very - you don't know until it's up there. The public should have that ability to figure out - well, yes, we do get funding because of this and this. Certainly, as school boards, we should really know and we don't know. I think it has to be a very open dialogue with a number of stakeholders in the system.
MR. ESTABROOKS: Okay.
MS. OLSEN: I just want to pick up on what Carolyn said, I think our role is to work very closely with Mr. Hogg. I think we'll make it a very high priority to provide him with whatever information, whatever access he needs to come to an understanding about the needs of our board and I know every other board in the province would do the same thing, so that he can develop the formula and come back to the department and Legislature.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Taylor.
MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, I've never been called Gordie Howe but I might run the risk of being called a member of the Broad Street Bullies here. I have to ask this question, I see Mr. Hadley back there, but many of us out in rural HRM don't believe, we firmly don't believe that you recognize the diversity of the riding. What I'm talking about, and I'd be remiss if I didn't raise this question, is your storm day policy or your lack of storm day policy. We find it a very serious issue in rural Nova Scotia. We have cases where we're told that the schools are open but the buses aren't running, but the teachers as well are expected to come in and students who can walk. Sometimes a handful out of an enrolment of upwards of 400 or 500 show up, just a handful.
We have other situations where we're told that the schools are closed, but the teachers are expected to come in, and I talked with a number of teachers. I don't think your policy is fair to teachers, to the students, to the parents and I'm wondering when - and this just didn't happen last year, although we did have a large number of storm announcements. Stock Transport, for example, one time balked at running and Ms. McFarlane you may find it humorous, but it is a serious problem at MRHS, at Eastern Shore, at Duncan MacMillan and the feeder schools in that system, and I really think, in the name of safety and coordination and providing a fair curriculum to all the students, you have to come up with a policy that recognizes the diversity of the Halifax Regional Municipality and its weather - it may be difficult, I'm not saying it isn't, Mr. Chairman.
MS. MCFARLANE: I would like to say that it is a policy that we have struggled and struggled with, because we would like to keep our schools open. There are two sides of this fence - for every time you close schools, you get parents screaming where are they going to put their child that day, they haven't a backup system or, on the flip side of that, every time you keep the schools open it's, how are you expecting me to get my child to school?
Somewhere here the responsibility lies with the parent, whether they want to send their child to school if the storm conditions are - but we also have such a large municipality that what can be happening in the city could be quite different than what is happening down on the Eastern Shore. The road conditions are different; the cities are plowed more quickly and so we have a lot of parents and expectations in the former cities, and I hate going back to the urban areas - let's put it that way - where parents do drive their children to school and off to work, and it's not an issue.
It's a very complex issue to have to contend with, and I am very glad I am not the person who has to make that decision. It's senior staff and I'm glad it's them and not me.
MS. OLSEN: If I can just clarify some of your comments. We recognize the issues down in the rural areas and we've got a practice that if the buses are cancelled because they can't get through in the Duncan MacMillan, Musquodoboit, Eastern Shore and Sir John A. families, schools are closed. That's a communication that goes home to every family at the beginning of the school year. It just isn't worthwhile to keep the schools open and it's not safe to have some youngsters try to struggle to school if the buses aren't running. We try to make that announcement at 5:00 a.m. because, for schools like Cole Harbour, the youngsters are standing at the bus stops before 7:00 a.m. and if they haven't heard that the buses aren't running, again - on some of those terribly cold days we had - that cannot be safe.
Also, with respect to the teachers collective agreement - if schools are closed, teachers don't go, no one goes to school. What we do have in terms of a policy is to ask our caretakers to go to the schools, when it's safe to go during the day, to make sure that the systems are up and running and the schools would be ready to receive the youngsters the next day. So I just wanted to make that clear for the committee in terms of how we manage our four primarily rural communities as opposed to what Carolyn was describing as our urban centres.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
Ms. Whalen.
MS. WHALEN: Yes. Just a couple of quick ones.
MR. CHAIRMAN: One short snapper, because we have quite a list.
MS. WHALEN: Only one?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, it depends upon how short it is.
MS. WHALEN: It's very short. Tuition agreements - I'm wondering, how many, if any, you have currently within the school board?
MS. OLSEN: Currently we don't have any.
MS. WHALEN: None. Can you give me a figure on how many people have come asking for it? How many requests have you received in a given year? Just one year.
MS. OLSEN: I've had a couple since I've been at the school board. Our staff believe that we can accommodate the youngsters within our school system.
MS. WHALEN: So only a couple? That small number?
MS. OLSEN: It's less than . . .
MS. WHALEN: Okay, fine. One more? That was short.
Just to go back quickly to the funding formula, you are very well familiar with all of your needs and where there are some deficiencies or things that you'd like to improve on. I'm wondering what it is you would ask the province if you had the opportunity to sit down and say what is really needed. It may not be a dollar figure, it might be programs that are unfunded.
[10:45 a.m.]
MS. OLSEN: There would be many areas that we would like, certainly more in terms of special education, we would want ESL. I'd want more resource to support not the most high-needs youngsters, but those who need a little bit of additional support to move them just over the top so that they can be successful. I think our maintenance funding is atrocious. We've got really old buildings and I think there's $1 million in the funding formula this year for maintenance for all the schools across the province. Our share of that for 140 buildings is $350,000 in maintenance. That just aggravates the deferred maintenance issues.
I'd let Richard speak to the transportation. We chose to go to outsourcing with our transportation, and the other boards in the province as I understand it provide their busing internally. The province provides capital cost to purchase buses for the school boards that have it in house, and we don't. Richard, if you want to speak to the busing formula.
MR. MORRIS: Again, Carole referred to that in her opening remarks, about the example of an operating resource requirement of the board that is not directly linked to the funding arrangements. We don't know, for example, how much we receive for transportation, but our budget is over $11 million a year and it has been growing, again, because of the shifting of students. A lot of students are moving to the suburban areas and they do then end up qualifying for transportation, so we have to put more buses on. Special needs busing as more and more special needs students arrive on our doorsteps to attend school, they do require special needs transportation. These are the factors that are contributing to costs that aren't directly provided for in the funding arrangements.
MS. OLSEN: The other major area would be libraries, both resources to replenish our libraries, because I really see the library as the centre of those kinds of resources that youngsters need. We've gone long past the ability to put teacher librarians in; we can't even provide library text to keep our libraries open. I think that's a major area of need.
MS. WHALEN: I know we've just scratched the surface but thank you.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: I know that earlier there was some allusion made as to how many teachers are working outside of the classroom in the board. Sometimes I wonder how many are working outside of the classroom in the Department of Education, having lost some excellent teachers from my schools to that particular bureaucracy. I want to tell you that, principals in particular, and teachers as well, but principals in particular in my school system tell me that there are so many new initiatives being announced out of the Department of Education that require measurements and documentation and planning and meetings and consultation and increasing participation. This is making it very difficult for them to cope and it is putting an extraordinary amount of stress on them as principal administrators and teachers, and takes away, in fact, from the time they can spend in the classroom and dealing with some of the core curriculum.
It seems that this government likes to make announcements, on a weekly basis, about some new initiative that they are taking that's often unresourced, or certainly under-resourced. Is this a concern that you have? It's not that maybe some of these initiatives aren't important, but they don't seem to be resourced when they are announced.
MS. OLSEN: I'm not sure that I'd make that categorical statement in fairness to the department, particularly with the Active Young Readers and the math initiatives. We have been able to make excellent utilization of both the resource materials as well as the professional development days that have been provided. We were distressed, I think, this year with the reduction of the IEI funding, in terms of technology, because I think that's another major area. I think you are quite right, more of the department's initiatives are targeted funding, and we do have to account for the money. We're more than pleased to do that, because we so desperately need the money for those targeted areas.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: But it does intensify the work of people on the front lines enormously, doesn't it?
MS. OLSEN: Yes, it does.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.
MS. MASSEY: Mr. Chairman, I'll try to hold my tongue this time. I do have a question, but first of all I would just say that I am concerned about some of the comments here today that make it sound as if we have x amount of students divided by whatever, equals whatever, and that we have to reach some sort of efficiency level. We're not talking about a commodity, we're not talking about pegs that you can set into a certain size hole, we're talking about children and youth who are the future of our province. As my ex-board member, Grace Walker would always say, something like, we're here for the children. I guess I miss hearing her say that.
My question is, do you think the province has lost sight of that fact that we're here to serve? That's our job, to serve our children and serve our youth. Have they lost track of that? Maybe that's an unfair question, but we're talking about human beings, we're talking about our future, and we're not just talking about some numbers on a piece of paper.
MS. MCFARLANE: That's a tough question, being a politician I guess it's mine to answer. I can appreciate the fact that the province is representing the taxpayers and trying to make the best decisions. When you look at the demand of health care, it's a huge one. But education should be right up there, because no one really speaks as children. When politicians come to the door, it's often people, seniors, whatever, saying we need better health care. The children - no one campaigns for them, because they're too young to vote. Children are our future and our resource in this province, and they will be the future taxpayers.
If they're not educated well, if they fall through our cracks, and I will tell you more kids are falling through the cracks today than they were five years ago. I've been on the board for 13 years and I see our resources dwindling to help the child, who Carole mentioned before, who needs a little nudge. We're putting our resources into very high-needs, not the low-needs. These kids are falling through the cracks, and they're going to show up in other areas of government, needing support, be it at Justice, be it at Community Services, whatever. So our kids should be right up there with health. They need the resources, they need the support. We all do, but the kids have to be noted. We're here for the kids, and that's what we try to do at the school board.
MR. CHAIRMAN: With the permission of the committee, could I ask a short snapper? In view of the comments you've just made, Ms. McFarlane, my question would be, and it's because of all the media attention I've noticed lately with regard to violence and drugs in the school system in Nova Scotia, has there been an increase of violence and drug usage in the schools, in the Halifax Regional School Board, over the last year or two?
MS. MCFARLANE: I'm not sure that I could answer that. I think that, certainly, violence - and I'm not sure about drug use - is prevalent in society in general.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Let's put it this way, for the benefit of the members of the committee, if you have any type of a report or analysis on this particular issue, would you provide it to the members of the committee to help us in our deliberations?
MS. OLSEN: We would certainly be pleased to provide the committee with all of the initiatives that we're undertaking to deal with this very significant issue.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just, without getting into specifics, give us the numbers, the documented cases and so on.
MS. MCFARLANE: We have a variety of programs that we have implemented in schools.
MR. CHAIRMAN: No, I know the programs, I'm looking for numbers of actual reported cases and so on. Thank you. In closing, if you would like just a few moments to close, and then we'll close down.
MS. MCFARLANE: Firstly, on behalf of the Halifax Regional School Board, I would like to thank you and the committee for inviting us here today and allowing us to share with you what we see is needed as a new funding formula across the province. I hope you will take what we've said, that we want a fair, equitable and transparent funding formula for the future for children and any extra monies, we would accept as well. So thank you again very much for having us here today. We really appreciate your time and efforts on behalf of children.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure on behalf of all members of the committee, we certainly appreciate you coming, all the members and staff, and for your openness and candidness and for providing some very important information. My mom, who taught school for 45 years - Mr. Estabrooks is very familiar with her . . .
MR. ESTABROOKS: A tough lady.
MR. CHAIRMAN: . . . she missed 1.5 days of school in 45 years and she indicated to me, one day she said, you know, one time we used to have wooden ships and iron men, today we have iron ships and wooden men. So I don't know if she's right or wrong, there's a lot to be said for experience in life. For all members of the committee, the next meeting is May 11th from 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. and we have the Nova Scotia School Boards Association, so a very timely topic. Again, I thank you for coming.
The meeting is adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 10:57 a.m.]