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HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2004
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY
2:19 P.M.
CHAIRMAN
Ms. Joan Massey
MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable Government House Leader.
HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Madam Chairman, we will continue with the estimates of the Minister of Education.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings West.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Madam Chairman, I wanted to start off today with a question regarding early childhood education. We see a trend now across the country where there are many pre-kindergarten programs, pilots and so forth going on with four-year olds. I was wondering if there are plans in Nova Scotia, not to necessarily jump on the bandwagon, but it certainly seems an opportune time to initiate programs that in fact may be beneficial to our public education system and to the needs of children in the province. I'm just wondering what direction the province may be going in in this regard?
HON. JAMES MUIR: Madam Chairman, I'm pleased that the honourable member asked that question, because what he has said is something that the province is taking very seriously. Indeed, the government has committed to 23 Primary pilots, beginning in September 2005. Now I will say that there has to be negotiations with boards and also with Community Services in setting up a protocol for these programs. Clearly, the department believes that a greater investment in the earlier years is going to have a big payoff in later years. So we will be proceeding with those pilots in September 2005, and the planning will commence very soon.
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MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Minister, I wanted to move into an area where I would like a bit more enlightenment, perhaps people throughout the province but, in particular, the Southwest school board and the Tri-County situation are pending legislation where the boards will start to become more autonomous in nature, however, a proposal has been put forth to the boards. Certainly there are a number of issues that are outstanding. I guess I'm wondering, generally, has sufficient progress been made to allow this reality to come into place by October 16th?
MR. MUIR: We continue to work with the two boards in question to see that we are indeed ready to proceed in, actually the beginning of the academic year. As the honourable member would know, there have been some reports in the media recently that things are not quite as smooth as we would hope to have them at this time. The deputy did meet with the board chairs this morning, had a very positive meeting. He will be meeting with them again next week and later on that week, he'll be meeting with both boards. I'm very confident that we can work out something that is going to work for everybody. I think part of it is the proposed model is something that neither board has had the opportunity, really, to work in or see in action. I think it's one of those things, once it's done, clearly there's going to be a lot of input from the partners, then once it's there, people might even be saying why didn't we do this before.
MR. GLAVINE: I guess when I look at the size of the Strait school board, with about 9,000 students, and we look at the Southwest, with about 8,500 or a little over 9,000 students and 8,000-something in the Tri-County, that size of school board certainly seems to be one that we have already established, less than 10,000 students. Is this a question of a money consideration, why they can't have the same full jurisdiction as we currently see in a model like the Strait, where Tri-County and Southwest would both be about that size of school board?
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, as the honourable member will perhaps remember, there was a Southwest school board that was initially set up, and there was some dissatisfaction with that board, thus the pilot arrangement that was made in that area and in the Strait area. The decision was made that we wanted to return the boards to full educational status. Initially when those boards were set up, there was $10 million allocated in the base, sort of for administration, and it was distributed, basically equally, among all the boards, or relatively equally among the boards. The old Southwest board had $1 million base in the administration fund, and the decision in full separation was that that amount would not be increased. I guess the real answer is, if we put more money into administration for those boards, it means there's going to be money coming out of the classroom.
MR. GLAVINE: I do have a concern that it has been five years to take a look, maybe not quite that long, at the operation of these two boards. I think they were both hoping to move clearly in the direction of having full jurisdictional and judiciary control of their decision-making. Is, in fact, some of the model that is currently being set up, when we share
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financial and human resources, aren't there perhaps, again, some inherent problems that in fact these boards may have to continue to work through all over again?
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, there are three things that basically will be shared, or it's expected will be shared, and the honourable member mentioned two of them, the third one is information technology, the IT sector, as well. I don't think there's any doubt that the preference of each of those boards was to have total control of everything. I guess if the province was in a better financial position, we probably would have gone ahead and just done that. I can tell you it certainly would have saved us a considerable amount of grief and probably a considerable amount of anxiety among board members within the individual boards. They worked very hard to get their organizations to a place where they could function autonomously again, and we respected that. Indeed, there was an external review done and it indicated that they did.
[2:30 p.m.]
Having said that, I don't have a real problem with sharing those resources, although I do recognize - it's done sort of in the health boards. When the health boards were split up, they were still required to share services. That has worked very well. I can honestly say that the health board in my area does share services, and I have never heard a complaint. It does work. Everybody likes to have their own independent thing, but sometimes what is best for many has to take precedence over what is best for a few.
MR. GLAVINE: One of the areas that I would like to come back to - I know this morning, after meeting with the Halifax Regional School Board, certainly they drew attention to the fact that they have many schools that are now requiring considerable repairs. We know the budget for those emergency-type repairs has been substantially reduced. In fact, if we go around the province, we now know that there is in fact a deficiency of many millions of dollars for school repairs. I've met with four of the CEOs this past year. I'm wondering if there is indeed a long-term plan that will address some of these issues regarding the repair of school facilities?
MR. MUIR: The government does continue to put money into that area, Madam Chairman. I don't know if the honourable member has seen this particular document or not, it does detail the report of the Property Services Review Committee, the Education Consultative Forum, which is basically the chairs and the superintendents. There has been some concrete work. I described our decision in the budget process this year as one which made a lot of us feel a bit uncomfortable, to protect the interest of the classroom, that was our number one thing. Like other departments, there was a limited amount of money that was available to put into my department and, by the way, a great portion of it went into public education. So we made the decision to reduce the amount of money that was going to go into non-TCA repairs this year, and I think I described it a couple of times, it was a decision, basically, we held our nose and made.
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Clearly, if we get access to more money, then it would be my intent to boost the amount of money that is available for that budget item. I guess I just want to comment, and the honourable member would appreciate this, since the year that this government took power, back in 1999, the physical condition of our school system has been a real priority. We have literally, in those years, put in about $0.25 billion into physical plants in schools, with new buildings and major renovations and repairs. The issue is it's like the highways or the health system or community services, there is always a need for more money, but our contribution this year, in school construction, is very close to $46 million. We would like to have more, but that is a significant figure.
MR. GLAVINE: One of the budget lines that I had noted here was a $3 million increase in NSTU life, medical and dental premiums. Now this is a pretty considerably sized dollar figure, a $3 million increase, that again gets wrapped up, of course, in the fact that government says we're putting $1 billion into education, we're putting $20-something billion additional this year. In my view, right now, at the end of the day, when we take a look at wanting to reduce a Grade 1 class size down to 25 and combined classes to 20, will $3.5 million be adequate, provincially?
We certainly heard this morning from the superintendent of the Halifax Regional School Board that the share that they have will probably mean that they will have to cut into some of the other funding. So already we don't see adequate dollars to support what I believe is an outstanding initiative of reducing class size. Are boards going to be able to cope with this additional requirement?
MR. MUIR: I think there were two questions there. I believe one had to do with the insurance coverage for NSTU members, and that additional $1.5 million quite simply reflects an increase in benefits, the cost of benefits for NSTU contracts. Of course, that would, I believe, include some of the retired teachers as well. As the honourable member would be aware, the NSTU, over the course of time, has negotiated a situation where their medical benefits continue, basically, sort of free of charge when they retire.
The other one was the class size initiative, and we do believe that that will be enough money. I will tell the honourable member that there are a number of boards that had made that type of thing a priority earlier, therefore, the numbers of classes that will have to be split or the number of teachers who will have to be added, you have to take a look at the current situation and the class size, and the department has done that. We feel comfortable. Again, perhaps the superintendent from the Halifax board said I was not there, but there will never be quite enough, no.
MR. GLAVINE: One of the decrease areas is in Acadian and French Language Services, again a fairly significant drop this year. I was wondering, what is the nature of the change in program or delivery of those particular services?
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MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, we embarked upon a pilot program this year, a four-year pilot in which we have transferred the people who are responsible for the curriculum work in the French Language Programs over to the French school board. So although it is a decrease in our budget, those people will continue to do the work in another sphere.
MR. GLAVINE: We certainly know that in terms of cost, transportation is a major one. We now have, of course, a dual service in the province, where we have boards that deliver some portion of the transportation of students and we also have contracts with private companies that provide this service. I'm wondering if, in fact, the Department of Education and government are really looking at one manner of providing this service, are they happy with the current arrangement, or is some direction being planned for that service?
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, as people know, that was a decision made by the boards. The department has allowed boards to make that decision. The bulk of the transportation is done by board employees. For example, Stock is the contractor here in Metro. In the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board, I can remember when it was the old amalgamated board, no, it wasn't, it was Cumberland that had its own board, it had private contractors. Not a big contractor like the one in the Halifax area, but a lot of people owned their own buses and they provided that service. I think in the Valley, if I'm not mistaken, there was some private transportation down there - a combination of things in that and I believe that may have been about the only combination. Whatever seems to work, we're prepared to go with.
Again, I want to emphasize that Halifax does contract out. We do make a grant to that board - I suppose it's the same as if we were running it for capital replacement of buses which I expect is passed right on to the contractor.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Victoria-The Lakes.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Minister, I'm going to focus not on what my learned colleague next to me has been doing, but on a situation with the announcement of the new school for North Sydney, the 59,892 square foot school with 11 elementary classrooms and 16 junior high classrooms.
Mr. Minister, I personally don't think that's a good decision. I'll reference some of my personal feelings, information and experiences along those lines. I'm wondering if the cost of busing has ever been taken into consideration. It seems to be an exceedingly growing cost of the transportation of students to and from schools and it's almost receiving now a larger priority than the actual cost of running the schools. Maybe the minister could comment on the cost of busing to the schools.
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MR. MUIR: Certainly the cost of busing or transportation continues to increase each year whether it's the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board or the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board. There are always increased costs in that.
You referred to the proposed new school on the Northside which is going to be a P to 9 school. I believe there would be four of the existing schools that are pretty dated and need to be replaced. Among things that government is faced with, how can you provide the best quality of education in the most efficient way? Really, it's educational programming, the type of education that is going to be received that is probably the important thing.
I do understand that every community and every local neighbourhood would love to have their own school, but in terms of today's practicality, folks, that's not going to happen. I can talk about my home community of Truro where I think we have five or six elementary schools and we're going to be down to two or three in the next two or three years. The fact of the matter is, in some of those areas I've been told by parents and the school advisory committee members - by the way, not formally, but because we talk, I said, what do you think about that? They said, I don't think it's a big problem because about 70 or 90 per cent of elementary kids are being transported anyway by their parents. That's a new thing, years ago they probably didn't have cars or something like that. That didn't happen. But it does today. That's a feature of society. More children are transported by parents or other means than they used to be.
[2:45 p.m.]
I can assure the honourable member that there are a number of P to 9 schools in this province that work very, very well. In most places, what you have is a school within a school. Although they're all housed in one building, the separation between the elementary and the junior high students or however they choose to break up the school. In some cases it's a 5-2-2 and things like that or a 5-3-2. What I've seen, I feel pretty comfortable that most schools are able very quickly to eliminate natural reservations that parents and others have when they see very young students going into the same building with junior high students. However, I can assure the honourable member that the experience here in Nova Scotia, we don't get pushed back on that.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Minister. The reason I raised the question about that school - not that I'm not thankful there's a new school going there and those schools that are being replaced are dated schools. What my fear is, is that there's going to be a loss of community identity. You have the Town of Sydney Mines serving a large area, the Town of North Sydney, you're going to take the school and put it in North Sydney, Sydney Mines is going to lose its identity in that respect.
Number two, there are four gymnasiums presently in those schools that will be dropped down to one. We have the Minister of Health Promotion putting a real push on for
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the children and active living. Four gymnasiums down to one. I know the gymnasium is a very large size, but still it's down to one. Community identity is one loss, the second loss is a negative economic impact in the fact that you have teachers, students, parents and guardians, administration coming to and from these schools for different functions throughout the day, throughout the week and that in itself creates an economic spin-off for the local communities.
What I'm looking for is, instead of a $16 million school in one community, would there be a possibility of two $8 million schools - one in each community? That would get rid of the outdated schools and it would at least give us a gymnasium, a cultural centre, a community centre, a heart in both local towns.
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, when the talk of school construction in that part of CBRM began, the idea that the honourable member has just put on the floor was there. The thinking changed that it was better to go with a single facility, P to 9 that had a full-sized gym and would ensure there was a critical mass to offer all of the educational services that parents want. On the other hand, until that school is actually under construction, if the school board were to come to us and say we've changed our minds, we would like something else, we're always prepared to listen. When the decision was made to build the new Halifax West High School, that was because the board came to us and there were options that could be worked out that were good. It has to be financially feasible too. There's no more money, so people have to understand that.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: You've referenced your own Town of Truro reducing the number of schools, but there still will be two or three or even if there was one large school, it would still be in Truro. The same with Halifax, it's still within HRM. There's no loss of identity there and that is a significant factor. I've always referenced a rural area like Margaree, in Cape Breton, a very rural area that appears, from all statistics that I can come up with, that there have been more professionals come from that rural area, to my knowledge, than most any other areas. If they do it better, if there's less societal pressures in a rural area or what, but I always reference that area when I'm referring to something because I personally don't think that big is always better when it comes to building this school.
You're saying when the decision was made, this is a decision that was made by the school board? Was there any public consultation with students, parents, administrators? Did everybody come together and make this agreement or did the school board decide this was where it was going to go? Maybe you could answer that for me.
MR. MUIR: The process, Madam Chairman, is that the School Capital Construction Committee Report was made, we worked on the basis of that, and there would be negotiations ongoing with the school board from that point to end up where we are at the present time.
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MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I just would like to re-emphasize the fact that when I placed the resolution before the House today kind of praising the children from the rural schools, Boularderie Consolidated and Bras d'Or Elementary are second to none with their students and their programs and whatnot. Given today's societal influences, I don't feel comfortable with somebody in Grade 7, Grade 8, or especially in Grade 9, having access to children from Primary to Grade 6 and given the problems, like I said, in society, I think they're more easily controlled for the benefit of the students if an elementary school is an elementary school and a junior high is a junior high.
But given the physical restraints, I would still ask the minister that if he wouldn't mind, when I return to Cape Breton, if I make the suggestion to the school board members that the possibility be considered - like you say there's no money - of an $8 million school in both communities rather than just one in one central location. Maybe the minister could allow me that permission, or whatever, to go there and do that. If there's a positive response from the school board, or a change of heart, maybe you would change your mind also, Mr. Minister?
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, I would love to have the ability to direct the actions of the MLAs on the other side of the House but, you know, of course, obviously, quite seriously, that is a matter for him as an MLA.
MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Madam Chairman, I'm going to now turn the questioning over to the honourable member for Glace Bay.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Glace Bay.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, it's a pleasure as always to ask the minister some questions before estimates. It's an area that I had some experience in when I served as the Education Critic for the Liberal caucus for a period of time, but it was under a different minister so I'm sure that the minister and I would have gotten along a lot better than the previous minister and I got along on several occasions. (Interruption) And I'm not even talking about the current Health Minister now. You used to be the Health Minister. Well, anyway, it gets mixed up even from there. It's hard for one to follow the lives of ministers on the other side.
Let me get serious for a moment though, Madam Chairman. When I was Education Critic for the Liberal caucus, one of the items that I did discuss with the minister was as serious a problem as you could ever find in this province, one of declining enrolments and one that affects a number of areas across the province which is of particular concern to my area in Cape Breton and to Cape Breton in general. As the minister would well know, the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board faces a severe problem of declining enrolments. There are some 600 less students who are in the school system this year in the Cape Breton-
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Victoria Regional School Board and next year, unfortunately, the projections show that there will be some 600 less students again in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board.
So as we all know, Madam Chairman, in this case the funding follows students in the Province of Nova Scotia. So if that funding is following students, it's following less students, it goes without saying, in Cape Breton which means that the schools in Cape Breton on a per capita basis, I would say, would be generally much less funded than the schools on the mainland and certainly in an area let's say, the metro area in Halifax-Dartmouth, which is experiencing somewhat of a population explosion.
So my question is, in particular, to the minister because this was a promise that was contained in your government's blue book in 1999, that there would be something specifically done concerning areas that were affected by declining enrolments in this province. What I would like to know, in a couple of areas, in the minister's opinion, what has been done to date, what's going to be done in the future to address that problem? I'm not certainly asking the minister to have all of the answers to things such as out-migration on Cape Breton, or the general problems that we are suffering from there, but what I would like to know from the Minister of Education is exactly how he foresees the future in funding the school system in Cape Breton, faced with a devastating scenario such as losing 600 students almost on a yearly basis. Where do you think that will end up and how do you see the funding problem being taken care of in Cape Breton, Mr. Minister?
MR. MUIR: I thank the honourable member for the question and he does present a Nova Scotian phenomenon. Of course, in the baby boomer years we had the reverse phenomenon and we had to build all kinds of schools and hire all kinds of teachers to accommodate. In 1997-98, Madam Chairman, just to illustrate what the member is talking about, the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board had just about 23,400 students and it's projected in 2008-09 that that's going to have decreased to somewhere around 15,700, certainly percentage-wise or anything else, a tremendous drop, which meant that the school board has had some really difficult decisions to make. By the way, I just want to compliment that board. They have really, I think, done a superb job in dealing with that really awkward situation of having great declines in enrolment year by year.
I guess, Madam Chairman, I will say that the funding formula is probably about 25 per cent student based right now. So although funding does follow students, you know, there's a significant amount of the money that is allocated to school boards that is not based on students. There are a lot of other factors in there. The 75 per cent was fixed basically on the 1996 enrolment. So we've got a base year which actually goes back for the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board when they probably would have had around 24,000 students. So really the funding does take that into consideration.
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In addition, Madam Chairman, the department is honouring one of its commitments. In 2005 we will have that designated rural school up and running. For example, there are some schools in this province, and I'm reluctant to name them, but I will just give you an example of a couple where, you know, they have to continue, like the school down in Advocate Harbour, a small school; up in Meat Cove, up in your area, you know. (Interruption) Way north, well, whatever it is, you know, there are some (Interruption) Oh, that's Minister MacDonald's.
Anyway, no, but I'm just indicating that there are rural schools really and, you know, I could go back a little bit. You know at one time they used to have a school on Pictou Island, but they don't have a school on Pictou Island anymore, but they do have somebody who teaches the eight or nine students there, but what I'm saying is that in addition to that initiative, Madam Chairman, later on this Spring we have a person who is engaged to review the funding formula, Mr. Bill Hogg, and we expect a preliminary report from him in November. That report will then go out to the boards and come back in and we'll finally, hopefully, have a final report very early in 2005, but that funding formula, that's his task, to review the funding formula and to make adjustments, to provide reasonable equity across the province.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, I think I used to get straighter answers from the former member for Halifax Citadel. At least they were direct and you could understand them anyway. I'm confused, but let me backtrack for a minute and remind the minister who says there are some 7,700 less students in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, he said, since around 1997-98, approximately. (Interruption) Yes, okay. All right, those are outdated figures is what the minister is telling me. (Interruption) 2008-09, okay.
[3:00 p.m.]
Anyway there's a tremendous amount, thousands less students in Cape Breton than there were at that time period. There are over 30-some schools, if I'm not mistaken, 30-some schools that were closed in Cape Breton in that time. So what we're looking at, and I agree with the minister, the board has done a pretty darn good job in this case, but the board has also faced some pretty tough opposition from parents and from pupils and so on back home who just throw their hands up in the air in total frustration, exasperated over the fact that, the board says we're not getting the funding for it, we don't have the money, because the funding follows students.
I know there's a base funding there that's allotted to that board as there is to any other board throughout the province, but because the schools have closed in the past and the services have been reduced that funding that follows students is no longer there. Again, I remind the minister that it was in the blue book in 1999 that there would be special attention paid to areas that were suffering from declining enrolments. That was one of the very exact
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promises that was made in the blue book by the Tory Government and, again, by the way those 30-some schools don't include the one that sank into the ground in Dominion and is now closed.
That was another unfortunate tragic event that happened that maybe if I have the time, I can ask the minister a couple of questions on that as well, but before I get to that, those schools that have closed, those students who have gone, they have left the area, how does it directly affect the operation of the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board and, again, what has been done to meet that promise that's in the blue book? What specifically has been done for this area, for the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board to handle the problem of declining enrolments?
MR. MUIR: I guess the direct answer to that is that when the board was required to do this with a fairly greater degree of seriousness, they were given a $1.5 million transition fund to help them through it. In addition, the reduction in funding is less than the proportionate reduction to class size. I'm sorry, I will rephrase that. It's less than the proportion of the percentage reduction of student population.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, is the minister telling me that things are better now in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board than they were back when there were 23,400 students? Do they get as much funding now as they did back then and are things as good in terms of funding as they were back when there were that many more students than there are in the system right now?
MR. MUIR: What I can tell the honourable member is that the funding to school boards has increased each year.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, specifically, that's the funding, the minister is saying every school board across this province got an increase in their funding. Specifically in areas that suffer from declining enrolment of which Cape Breton is certainly, I would suspect, probably the prime one in this province, the areas that suffer from declining enrolment, which was again a promise contained in the 1999 blue book of the Tory Government, that something would be done specifically to help those areas of declining enrolment. Aside from a general increase which was given to other school boards across this province, what has been done specially and specifically for the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board to help combat the problem of declining enrolments?
MR. MUIR: Specifically, Madam Chairman, there was $1.5 million given to that school board as they were into that transition and they were allowed three years to make the transition. So, you know, getting from there to where they are now, the province did recognize that and did financially assist the board.
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MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, what the minister is telling me then is that $1.5 million, that transition, the funding that was given to them, was supposed to be what was specifically promised in the blue book, that that was what was given to that area to specifically combat declining enrolments. The $1.5 million was supposed to solve all of the problems regarding declining enrolments. Is that what the minister is telling me?
MR. MUIR: That $1.5 million was a transition fund, but the other thing that the honourable member, and I think he probably would remember this because he probably asked the question last year, that there are in some ways two funding formulas in Nova Scotia and, whereas you get some boards criticizing the government on the basis of the formula that, you know, the Cape Breton board is still sort of being funded on the old formula which is to an advantage of that board compared let's say to another area where the population decrease has not been as great or even increased.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, if the minister is saying that the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board gets special treatment to its advantage, then certainly the superintendent of the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board and school board members and the chair of the school board certainly haven't relayed that to me that they're getting special treatment. If anything, what they told me, the message to bring here, was that they need more money because of the serious declining enrolment problem, but the minister is saying that they get special treatment from other boards around here and that's because of declining enrolment? Madam Chairman, let me give the minister this opportunity to clarify that statement.
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, if the honourable member has listened to the debate right around the province, he will find that Cape Breton-Victoria School Board is not alone in indicating that they could use more money. All boards are saying that and, indeed, they can. What I am saying is that in recognition of the declining enrolment in that Cape Breton-Victoria area, the reason that the money is allocated to them the way it is, was in recognizing that situation. Now, in no way did I try to indicate that that was going to mean they didn't have to make some difficult decisions. That's not my point. I'm simply saying that had the department not made that decision, then there would have been a lot more difficult decisions to make.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, you know, the minister knows that in the blue book of 1999, it was specifically pointed out that areas that suffer from declining enrolment in this province would indeed be helped by this government. Now, I don't know if that's what the minister is talking about here when he says special treatment or whatever the case may be, but this is exactly what that government promised - not just Cape Breton, but any area in this province that suffered from declining enrolments would get the help of that government to take on the serious problem of declining enrolments.
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I wouldn't see that as being special treatment, I would see that as fulfilling a promise that was made by the Tory Government, one that I suggest right now has not been fulfilled because still the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board has a funding problem on its hands and they're losing 600 students every year, Mr. Minister, which means that they have eventually got to get to the point where they're going to say we're going to have to close more schools in this school board. It's the only solution that they'll have.
Having made that point, and I know I don't have much time left, Madam Chairman, (Interruption) Thank you, Madam Chairman, seven minutes, okay. It kind of sounds like the minister changing his mind on a couple of items, but anyway let me get to this item before we get back perhaps to the declining enrolments and that being, as I mentioned, the 30-some schools that closed over the past, and can I say six years plus in Cape Breton there have been 30-some schools that have closed. Not among that count was Dominion High School in Dominion. I would like to ask the minister, to this day, his opinion of the Dominion situation, and whether or not a new school should be built for the people of Dominion?
MR. MUIR: I want to tell the honourable member that I met with the people in Dominion, and they are a very sincere group. They would really like to have a new junior high school back in the community. The fact is that it is not on the priority list of the board, therefore, the decision, our position on that, has really not changed. I just want to say, and I've said it before, the priority for our government was to see that the students got quality education. There are students from Dominion, the junior high and high school students who are either going into Breton Education Centre in New Waterford, which is a fine school that clearly had about twice as much capacity as it had students, there are students who have opted to go into the relatively new Glace Bay High School. I believe the junior high school students did go into either St. Mike's or Morrison High School in Glace Bay.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, just for the record, that's Morrison Junior High School. I graduated from Morrison High School a long time ago. Never mind, no need for comment on that. We'll leave it at that. Again, my question to the minister, and I think the minister knows that was a rather special and tragic incident to that community, when Dominion High School suffered from subsidence. I think the minister knows that it had an effect on the community, not only from a school viewpoint but also because the school served somewhat as a community centre and the gymnasium was used for various events in the community and so on and so forth.
I know there have been several proposals that had been tossed around. At that time I met with the parents of the Dominion area as well, and if the minister has met with them, then good for him. I would think at this point in time, one of the things that has always been discussed is whether or not the Department of Education should have some sort of emergency funding, some sort of contingency plan in the event of this ever happening again.
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It's a very real possibility in Cape Breton, it's a very real possibility in the area where I live, because some of the schools have already been identified - I should say - by government as being located on top of old mine workings and could suffer - not that they necessarily will, but could suffer - from subsidence. Hopefully they never will, but it could possibly happen in the future.
My question to the minister is, if there had been some sort of contingency plan, a contingency fund, call it what you wish, an emergency fund, some sort of insurance to cover for this eventuality happening - there's insurance for fires at schools, I would imagine, schools are covered for floods, covered by accident insurance and so on. Has the department taken a look at the possibility of insuring the schools in that area against any future subsidence, or have they looked at establishing an emergency or contingency fund that could possibly be set up so that we wouldn't be having this discussion in the future, regarding another school?
MR. MUIR: There was a study done in that area on schools that were built in areas that have mine workings underneath them. Fortunately, Madam Chairman, for a lot of people, the other schools have not been affected. Unfortunately for the people who live in the Dominion area, there was a problem with it at the high school. It just was not safe to leave the students in it.
[3:15 p.m.]
You asked about a contingency fund, I guess the answer is yes. We've dealt with blown-off roofs and oil spills and things like that, but we don't have a high school type of contingency fund. I would suggest, and I say this quite seriously, Madam Chairman, I suspect that he has been to see his federal MPs. I think the coal mines were a federal responsibility. He may wish to approach his MPs to see what their view on this is. The issue of subsidence, subsidence is not an insurable risk, therefore, there was no insurance for the Macdonald school because of subsidence.
In terms of an emergency, and I think you have to put that in context, fortunately - as unfortunate as it was that that school became non-functional or at least not safe to function - there was lots of school capacity in the immediate area, so the quality of education for those students should not have been abnormally affected, once you got over the issue of moving. I can tell you that we have had other situations in the province where students have had to move during the school year and have had to go into split-shifts. My understanding is that was not an issue for the people in Dominion.
I have a great deal of empathy, and I want to tell you that when I met with the group of parents and teachers from that school, the presentation that they made was exemplary. They made an exceptional presentation to me. They did their homework. Clearly, this was something that came from their hearts.
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MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Madam Chairman, I know I don't have much time left at all. I would remind the minister that the continual whining that we hear from the other side of this Legislature about blame it on Ottawa, the last time I checked (Interruption)
education was the responsibility of the Province of Nova Scotia.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order.
The honourable member for Cape Breton Nova.
MR. GORDON GOSSE: Madam Chairman, it's an honour and a privilege to rise today to speak to the Minister of Education. I have some questions for the Minister of Education. I just realized, just recently, that the government had appointed Mr. Keith Bain to the Cabinet Office on Prince Street, to work for the government. Mr. Keith Bain is actually the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board vice-chairperson. I'm just wondering, will Mr. Bain be advising the minister on school board activity or on government activity?
MR. MUIR: School board members come from a variety of backgrounds and have a variety of positions, including some who are unemployed or house husbands or housewives or single persons. To my knowledge, there are very few school board members who (Interruptions) Well, you would be surprised at the number of people who might be working for the Department of Health or the Department of Community Services or the Department of Transportation and Public Works or perhaps be a town employee. The numbers of people who serve on school boards and other agencies, boards and commissions, I think if we were to examine the backgrounds, we might find that they come from every sector of our population.
Clearly, Mr. Bain, if he is meeting with me as a school board member, then he'll be meeting with me as a school board member. I can tell you, as well, like all other school board members, there are elections upcoming this Fall. I have no idea whether he intends to continue or not continue or anything else.
MR. GOSSE: Thank you, that was very well explained. I'm just wondering, it just seems to me - I don't know if it's a conflict or something. Regular members of the school board may be a little bit nervous at this time, realizing that they have somebody working for the government sitting at the table when it comes to recommending funding or whatever happens at a school board, especially a school board like this - well, is it a conflict of interest? I've asked myself that question. Would it be a conflict of interest that Mr. Bain works for the school board, as an elected official for the school board, and works for the Cabinet Office?
MR. MUIR: I can give you a couple of comments on that from my broad experience in government. As I understand, the constituency assistant of one of the Cape Breton MPs is on that board as well. I'm not sure whether that person would be in a conflict and I can tell you too that in terms of the Capital District Health Authority, when he was appointed, a very
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good member of that board - he's still there - was the president of the Liberal Party of Nova Scotia. Maybe he had a conflict too, I don't know but I want to tell you he was and continues to be an exceptionally fine board member.
MR. GOSSE: I'm hoping this gentleman is going to be an exceptionally fine board member also, even though he's working at a new job for $46,000 a year in a provincial building.
Mr. Minister, we're all talking about the outward migration of Cape Breton students and people in Cape Breton and the enrolment in the school board has been down. That's well documented and we know that the funding formula is based on the number of students. You say that the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board has a different funding formula, but maybe the minister could answer, the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board is the third largest school board in the province, but receives the second lowest funding in the province. Maybe the minister can explain to me how that happens.
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, could I ask the member to repeat that question, it took me off balance because it seems to be reflecting something that I didn't think was so. I'm going to have to make sure I understood it.
MR. GOSSE: What I'm saying is that the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board has the third largest school board in the Province of Nova Scotia, but yet it receives the second lowest funding in the province.
MR. MUIR: I think the information you have is perhaps dated or something like that. It's certainly not consistent with the information I have. I will tell you this, the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board has about 13.1 per cent of the enrolment, yet gets about 13.8 per cent of the funding. I can contrast that to a couple of other boards, but if the honourable member will be patient, I am going to look at that.
The funding projected for 2004-05 - and these are rough numbers - Halifax, $301 million; Chignecto-Central, $145 million; actually the third highest is Cape Breton-Victoria at $115.5 million. So, it's a little different from what you have presented.
MR. GOSSE: Okay, definitely I'll be reflecting on those numbers, I guess, to have a look at that. The consensus seems to be that education was the government's second priority as I recall in this budget - $22 million in extra funding to public education, about $20 million of that to be shared among the school boards. Overall there was an increase of roughly $34 million and reductions of about $10 million when you crunch the numbers, all totalled, a $7.5 million increase to funding. Learning for Life initiatives; $3.5 million to reduce class sizes; a $3 million increase in special needs funding; $2.5 million to be used to fund core professionals - reading recovery assistant teachers - $500,000 will go toward special
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education pilot projects and an additional $1 million will go towards assisting struggling readers.
I'm just trying to figure out the municipal education levy, I think, is being questioned at this point. The province and the municipalities appear to be using different assessment rolls. Would there be any explanation of what rolls the province is using to assess them or the difference between the assessment rolls for the municipalities and the province?
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, the mandatory municipal funding is based on property assessments which are done through the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. Those aren't finalized and they won't be finalized until after this budget is passed. The budget is really based on a preliminary assessment and you're probably going to find some assessment changes - as the honourable member knows - as a result of appeals. I can tell you that the rate has been set at 0.351 and boards were advised of that orally in January. The number is no surprise. The actual amount of dollars that is going to be generated is still a bit iffy. Well, minor because we're not going to get a huge, huge swing in that.
The education rate has gone down twice in the last five years. I believe the honourable member would be aware of that. The changes in assessments really aren't reflected in a change in the budgeted rate.
MR. GOSSE: I'm looking at some other stuff here. When I was looking in the book, Acadian and French Language Services is down $130,000. On Page 6.6, Learning Resources and Technology cut by $1.5 million from $6.2 million to $4.7 million.
I was here and I listened to the minister, I think yesterday, when he was speaking on the bus funding cut from $4.1 million to $3.1 million. I did hear your explanation yesterday to the member, being able to purchase buses as a whole Atlantic Region. I think that's pretty well.
I would like to switch now to the Black Learners Advisory Committee and the report that came in - I think it was 1994 when this report came in. I see in the budget this year $500,000 invested this year into that report. I thought it was supposed to be $4 million. Maybe you can clear this up for me. That would still leave $3.5 million to be implemented in this report. At this rate, it will be 2011 before this report gets fully implemented. An African-Nova Scotian student who was born in 1993 when the report was authored will be out of the public education system, graduated from Grade 12, by the time at this rate that the report receives $500,000, that person will be graduated. There's $3.5 million left to be implemented. Can the minister tell me when all the funding will be implemented and why is it so slow? When I figured that out, at that rate of funding, the person born in 1993 would be gone and graduated out of the public school system. So, maybe you could explain to me why the BLAC report is being so slowly implemented into the school process. Thank you.
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MR. MUIR: I thank the honourable member for that series of questions. Let me begin with the difference in the Acadian or the French language programs. As I have said, the reason for that amount of reduction in the Department of Education budget is that we entered a four-year pilot with the French language school board in which the curriculum development responsibilities are being transferred to them. You'll find that the grant to that board has been increased by an amount equivalent to the decrease in the department's line item CSAP is going to get roughly about an additional $500,000 - actually about $490,000.
You've also talked about the implementation of the BLAC report. This government made a commitment during the term of this government to implement as well a considerable portion of that. We've committed to that end, $4.1 million over a four-year period. So we have been able to, as you know, like any of those projects, when you are committing money, you want it to be used in the best possible way. We were not able to commit the whole thing up front, but the government will keep its promise that $4.1 million will be there over the course of our mandate - the four years.
MR. GOSSE: It seems as though it's very slow acting, for the report to be around for that - I remember just getting newly elected when they came here to give an update on that report in the Legislature. We all gave them a standing ovation from the Black Learners association. I think maybe some more fast action on that would be appropriate because a lot of the students are not graduating and I don't quite know the ratio to make that comment, but there seems to be social and economic factors in my riding where a lot of the African-Nova Scotia students are having some problems. I was just wondering also, or maybe the minister could tell me, here's a question, upcoming new school construction and renovations, could you please give me a list of the new schools that are going to be built in the upcoming 2004-05, please, if that's okay, a list of the new schools?
[3:30 p.m.]
MR. MUIR: Madam Chairman, the schools which are scheduled to open this year are: in December, we have Amherst elementary and the Cumberland elementary; the Shelburne Regional High School, the new high school down there, should open hopefully in September; the East Pictou Rural High School is open now. The Rankin Memorial School will not open until May 2005. That initially was in that initial list for this year but, as I think the honourable member well knows, the difficulties with power and whatnot, that kind of delayed that project. The South Colchester High School which is in Brookfield is open. The Sydney elementary should open in September. The Truro Junior High should open in September and West Pictou and Windsor high are now open although there is still a little bit of money for all of those projects to be expended in odds and ends.
The schools that will be started in this fiscal year include the Barrington Municipal High School scheduled to open in September 2005; the Hammonds Plains Elementary School, again in September 2005; the Harbourside/Robert Jamieson School in September 2006; the
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St. Pat's-Queen Elizabeth, the new school in Halifax, September 2006. There is an elementary school in Truro that is scheduled to open in January 2006 and the new western HRM high school is scheduled to open in September 2006. The total price of those packages last year and this year is roughly about $46 million.
MR. GOSSE: Mr. Minister, I just wondered where the new school construction was for Iona, the state-of-the-art school that was going to be completed by September 2004? Maybe the minister can explain where the new school is for Iona?
MR. MUIR: I just want to make one thing clear, Madam Chairman. In response to the last question, I used the figure of approximately $46 million. That is money that was expended this year and the projects obviously add up to be a lot more than that. The Iona school is scheduled to open in May 2005. The reason for that was the schools require three-phased power to operate effectively. There was not three-phased power on the island so some engineering - well, they had to make some engineering changes and some adjustments and that was one of the major reasons. There was no sense building a school that could not function if the appropriate service was not there. So there was a delay.
MR. GOSSE: No, I kind of figured, when I asked him that, if it was just that I didn't hear him say Iona, and I was wondering what the delay was and he explained it, but the minister said three-phased power in the Island, I'm pretty sure we do have some three-phased power in the CBRM, Mr. Minister. Thank you very much for that answer. I appreciate that. (Interruption) Okay, I thought you were talking about the big island, our beautiful big island. (Interruption) Too much power, yes.
Mr. Minister, the SEIRC report in 2001 called for the immediate injection of $20 million into education. When I'm back home and I hear from the students at UCCB, I find that the students graduating this year will have an average debt of about $21,794. Some of the students were saying that by the time they graduate in 2005 and 2006, their debt for education will be around $42,000. I find that quite high today for many students. I just wanted you to know, that seems very high. In my opinion, I think that the people in low income families, that their children are not going to be able to access quality education in the higher institutes in this province because of that gap between the have-nots and the haves of the province, I guess, and kids and families.
So I guess I will move on to another question for the minister. The minister says that the department says that there are 4,500 students on individual program plans and that 1 per cent to 2 per cent will qualify, but there's only enough funding for this for 1 per cent and that would only cover 45 students for the actual plan. I'm reading in my notes here, is that to establish, let me see, to do with special needs students? Is there any extra money this year for special needs students in the Education budget this year, Mr. Minister?
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MR. MUIR: There is about $3 million additional dollars in the budget this year and that was over and above the additional $3.5 million that went in last year. So over the last two years, in terms of new money, if you stack it, last year it was $3.5 million, this year it's $6.5 million.
MR. GOSSE: So I'm just looking at, saying that $3 million, at the same time we cut the resources and technology program, is this true, by $1.5 million?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, just before I move to that one, I had indicated in response to the last question that it was $3.5 million invested in Learning for Life; last year it was $2.5. That went into the base so the additional $3 million is on top of that. So it's $5.5 million rather than $6.5 million.
The information technology, that involves hardware, software and professional development. That was decreased as we got into the budget process and, again, it was an issue of limited financial resources - can we continue to protect the priorities of government which are reading, writing and math? You know, we have high-speed Internet in every school. Again, something that we did not want to do, but when you have to make choices, we felt that that choice would allow more resources to flow into the classroom and, to be quite frank, a fair bit of that money was scheduled to be used in professional development. One of the things, and I think I made the observation yesterday, that there would be, I think it would be the odd person who would be employed by a school board now that is a recent graduate from a teacher training program or from a university, or wherever it happens to be, that would not have considerable computer skills. There is no question that the in-service is desiring, but I really think that people who are a little bit better prepared in that area are coming into the schools than certainly they were just a few years ago.
MR. GOSSE: Going back to the question before that and you said that there was $2.5 million the year before and $3 million put into, so it would make it a total of $5.5 million that was injected in the last two years in that. Now, this new bit of money, the $3 million that was injected this year that the department is promising to inject this year, about $1.5 million of that new special needs funding will go to the HRSB and the other $1.5 million will be divided among the other school boards. Can you please explain to me how that's going to be done, Mr. Minister?
MR. MUIR: Just in clarification on his first point, it would be an additional $8 million because there was $2.5 million given last year, that was into the base, so $2.5 million, $2.5 million, plus the $3 million would make $8 million. The other question, the class size initiatives were agreed to by the superintendents. The largest problem appeared to be in the metro area and the Reading Recovery money that came basically into metro this year to the exclusion of the other districts is they were ahead of metro.
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MR. GOSSE: Mr. Minister, I think I'm slowly running out of questions here. I may have a couple more left here as I looked at some of this. The outward migration of students is a problem. I just wonder in the formula, when you decide the formula per students compared to teachers, the principal and the vice-principal, they're included in this formula - I know that's the way it is, that actually the teacher - student ratio, the vice-president and the principals are included. Is this true that they are included in the funding formula?
MR. MUIR: Yes, the administrators are included in that, and that's the practice right across the country.
MR. GOSSE: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I do seem to have a little bit of issue with that, but that's the way it is, I guess. I just think that when they were funding the formula for the actual people who are teaching, I don't think that the administration should be a part of that formula, but that's just the way it is.
I'm winding down now, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to pass my time that I have left to my colleague, the member for Dartmouth North.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, very much, for your questioning this afternoon.
The honourable member for Dartmouth North.
MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my honourable colleague for allowing me to have a couple of minutes.
Mr. Minister, my issue will be specific to constituency. Primarily the issue is with respect to maybe some correspondence that the minister's department has had. As you know, there is a potential for the Shannon Park Elementary School to become a part of the Halifax Regional School Board, and because at the present time, it is within the Department of National Defence's purview that in fact there needs to be a negotiating process going on with the Department of National Defence with respect to acquiring a portion of that school. My understanding is a part of that school was in fact built on a smaller scale, it was built by the former Dartmouth District School Board at that particular time, but there was an add-on which in fact is a part of the property of the Department of National Defence.
As you know, the Shannon Park has actually closed and there are no residents living there and so on. The school will become surplus to the needs of the Department of National Defence. My question to you, Mr. Minister is, has the Halifax Regional School Board had conversation with you seeking your input with the Department of National Defence on acquiring or purchasing Shannon Park Elementary School?
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[3:45 p.m.]
MR. MUIR: Yes, Mr. Chairman, the department has had contact with the Halifax Regional School Board about that school and that land. It's quite a complex process over there because the honourable member just mentioned that part of it belonged here and part of it belonged there. I just hope that negotiation does not take as long as it did to acquire the Greenwood school.
MR. PYE: Mr. Chairman, the minister indicated that there were negotiations going on, but he didn't say at what stage in time those negotiations are, if, in fact, the minister's office is still required to communicate with the federal department on behalf of the regional school board, or if the minister has sent a directive to the school board to allow the school board to carry on that negotiation. As the minister said, it is an extremely complex issue. It's an issue that needs to be addressed rather quickly, because in fact there is a whole host of issues surrounding the Shannon Park lands. We need to know as quickly as possible, where the status of the educational facility is.
I'm not interested with respect to the parcels of land and everything because that's going to go through a company called the Canada Lands Company, that's going to acquire the rights to sell the property from the Department of National Defence, on behalf of the federal government, and that in itself will be a long drawn-out process. That's the unfortunate part of the complexity of this. Although this process will take a long protracted road, the need for the school to be at least a part of the Halifax Regional School Board's facilities for education is extremely important. If the minister could elaborate just exactly where his department is and how his department is involved in some of the negotiating process, then I would be pleased.
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, we are negotiating directly with DND and the Canada Lands Company for that facility. I will give you an update on that process and I will have to get staff to draw up a note on it. One of the things that may be encouraging is that I'm advised that we expect to be able to purchase that property or have the purchase completed in five months.
MR. PYE: I want to thank the honourable minister because that's very timely. Five months, I believe, will move it up to October of this year. The school year starts in September, but nonetheless, the school year will continue to go on regardless if the school is purchased or not. It is timely and gracious of the provincial government to be actively involved in the negotiations of this because that is, in fact, moving rather quickly when you're dealing with the federal government, particularly on lands and facilities. So that is good news. However, once it becomes the domain of or the property of the Nova Scotia Department of Education, will it then be handed over to the Halifax Regional School Board to use as a facility as long as it's in the school board's domain again? Again, once it becomes surplus to
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the school board it obviously will revert back to the province. I guess that might be some of the process that might happen?
MR. MUIR: The honourable member has laid it out just about precisely. When we acquire the property, we will be turning it over to the school board and when it becomes surplus to their needs, I expect that it would be turned back to us.
MR. PYE: Mr. Chairman, like I said, the kind of questions that I will be asking are constituency, and they're somewhat brief. The next question is around a constituency issue. The minister knows that a couple of years ago there were a number of school closures in the constituency of Dartmouth North. A number of the student population had been shifted to different schools within the boundaries of the family of schools of Dartmouth High. There seems to be a potential growth in the population of the student community because of new residential developments growing in that constituency. My question to you minister is, has the Halifax Regional School Board asked the Department of Education to do an evaluation and assessment on building a new school in the Dartmouth North constituency and I mean a P to 6 school, simply because many of the schools are aged and as I've said, the expected increase in student population in that age range?
MR. MUIR: The honourable member knows his constituency very well in educational matters and he's right about the situation that happened a couple of years ago, but we have not received any requests from the Halifax Regional School Board for a new school up to this point.
MR. PYE: Mr. Minister, I must say that I'm a bit disappointed in that, knowing the age of many of those schools in the Dartmouth North constituency, that there has not been a request, but that's an issue that obviously this MLA can take to the local regional school board and the local regional school board then has to inform me as to why there was not a request. So that's important.
I want to go to the community colleges, particularly the I.W. Akerley Community College. Now, I do know that the former Minister of Natural Resources, when he was here in the Legislature, made the announcement, or assisted in the announcement with the Minister of Education, with respect to the building of a new community college in Dartmouth and that new community college will now be situated on a new site overlooking the Halifax Harbour and, hopefully, adding to and attracting new developments to the Dartmouth side of the harbour, particularly as the student population migrates there. My question to you, Mr. Minister, that will take the student population away from the existing I.W. Akerley Community College, or it's my belief that that's what will happen, when in fact that occurs, will there be a name change to the community college or will the name of I.W. Akerley continue to be the name of the new community college?
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MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, that's not a matter that has come up before us at this time and, you know, I'm sure that the community college board and those with the community, if they wished a name change, would make it. We have not received any request and we certainly haven't thought about making one.
MR. PYE: Mr. Chairman, that's the reason why I raised it to the minister; as you know, Mr. Akerley played an important role in the growth of the City of Dartmouth and a very important founder to the city. As a matter of fact, when the city was a town and actually through its annexation of the outlying areas at that particular time, he played an important role in the growth of the City of Dartmouth and helped bring the former City of Dartmouth to where it is today. It would be my hope that if, in fact, there is a new community college built - and I'm glad to hear that there has been no conversation with respect to suggesting a name change in that area - that the minister would certainly look at it very closely if, in fact, there was a suggestion, to see the legitimacy of why the name change ought to take place.
The other question with respect to the community college, is if the community college land then becomes vacant and, as we know, that is land that is surplus to the province once again and it belongs to the province. My understanding is the property now belongs to the province and also the facility. My question is, has the government looked at the Department of Education, or has any other department in government looked at the potential use of that land and/or the use of the facility and the land?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the Akerley Campus is undergoing a renovation project. It will continue to be used. So Akerley is not going to become vacant and the new college to be built down on the waterfront will be adding more seats primarily and just remember that on this side of the water, there will be some changes as well. So we're looking really at that community college in metro as a system.
MR. PYE: Mr. Chairman, then if you're looking at the community college as a system, particularly in the metro area, then there's going to be defined courses in each of the particular facilities that are set aside so there won't be a duplication of programs and services in the one institution versus the other. I guess my question is, if in fact the Akerley Campus is going to be an extension of the community of colleges which offer education, then my question is, what kind of programs and services are going to be offered out of the existing Akerley Campus and do you have any information about that?
MR. MUIR: I don't have detailed information, Mr. Chairman, but I do know that the food services programs and accompanying food services hospitality programs are being consolidated there. They expanded the facility. I had the privilege of going over to their Touch of Class dinner this year and one of the things that the college officials proudly spoke of was that those programs were going to be located in that campus and it's going to be better for everybody.
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MR. PYE: Mr. Chairman, that exhausts my questions to you as the Minister of Education and I would like to pass my time over to the member for Halifax Needham.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Halifax Needham, you have approximately 20 minutes in turn.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, Minister, I want to talk to you about Sex. (Interruptions) The booklet, I want to talk to you about the failure of school boards across the province to provide some uniformity in the distribution of the healthy sexuality for adolescents handbook. We have in front of us on the floor of this House a bill, Bill No. 46. It's a piece of government legislation creating the Office of Health Promotion and that bill talks about the need to promote a culture of good health and general preventive health measures in a number of areas - healthy living, addictions, tobacco control, physical activity, nutrition and healthy sexuality.
Your colleague, the Minister responsible for the Office of Health Promotion, his office has been involved in writing, researching and focus group testing this manual for young people. Yet we have seen many of the school boards in this province refuse to participate in that process of the distribution of this piece of information to our students. So I want to start by asking you why you, as minister, perhaps I missed it, I haven't heard you as Minister of Education speak to this issue and I want to ask you if you did and, if not, why you weren't more supportive of your own colleague in this piece of government legislation in ensuring that that handbook is distributed in a uniform way across the province through our school boards?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member raises a good point and, clearly, lifestyle choices are things which make for healthy individuals. The publication, as the member has correctly said, was a publication of people in the Office of Health Promotion and our role in the Department of Education was to provide a distribution mechanism. I will also tell the honourable member that when you bring a publication out like that, now let me say as well, that information on that particular subject was and is available in high school and junior high school programs through other courses, and the honourable member well knows that.
[4:00 p.m.]
This particular publication was an interesting one. I guess I can say that when I reviewed it first, and I did read it, along with the Ministers of Health and Health Promotion - I guess it was read quite widely, because I did hear on the radio and see in the newspapers that others had read this draft version as well - but it was a draft version, the one that came in. The honourable member knows that. With most draft materials, very seldom does a draft come in where there are no adjustments made in it, whether you're writing a letter or whatever it is. To be quite frank, in my opinion, one of the major things that has to be done with this type of material is it has to be in a form which will be used or acceptable. To be
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candid, I thought in the initial draft that I saw, there were some things in that that were not acceptable, and I passed my suggestions on.
What we were really trying to do was to help the group that was putting this together, put it in a form where it would be acceptable. I could be specific in these things, there were two things that I vividly remember that were in that book that I just didn't think would fly with the population of Nova Scotia. It wasn't necessarily the content. That's what the unfortunate part of that debate was, that people got wound up in the content of it as much as in the presentation, which was really where I felt, and I think my ministerial colleagues felt, it could be improved. Indeed, through the efforts of the Minister of Health Promotion, the staff has gone back and revisited that thing, and we believe it is now in a form that will be accepted much more readily in its present form than the initial draft, which was the one that people got hold of and went from there, without really knowing a whole lot about things, in some cases - I guess uninformed is probably the best way to describe that.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: I'm not sure if the minister has really told us, though, about acceptable to whom. What is the test for whether or not the information is good and useful information? My concern, and I think the concern of a lot of people who followed the media coverage of school board meetings - and I have here a fair chunk of what was said at board meetings around the province - I think many people were very concerned about comments that were being made by members of the boards.
I want to point out to the minister that the initiatives of your government, with respect to Health Promotion in the area of tobacco control, have been supported by your department with respect to policy around no smoking on school grounds. The initiatives around physical education or more activity is being supported by your department, with respect to getting phys ed and physical activity back into the curriculum and access to the gym facilities and what have you. The initiative around better nutrition, a big feature of that is getting pop out of the vending machines in the school system and getting nutritional kinds of snacks and things into those vending machines.
So I am wondering, why is it that healthy sexuality is being treated differently? Why is it that if we needed to have information - I have no difficulty with the Office of Health Promotion sharing a draft version and soliciting feedback and input, I think that's very important. The minister says that, the responses, that there were things in it that weren't acceptable, I wonder about that, acceptable to whom, with some of the things that were said. Why didn't the Department of Education take the draft and send it to perhaps the school advisory committees around the province and solicit input from parents, rather than have it go to school boards? Do you not think that the decision around the distribution of this book could have been taken out of the hands of the school boards, that this would have been a justifiable occasion to take a decision away, rather than end up with a very piecemeal approach with some boards being prepared to distribute this information?
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Frankly, kids in this province need good information. They're getting it in other ways. They're getting it off the Internet, they're getting it from God knows what, Britney Spears and 50 Cent and Snoop Dog and all of this stuff. I think we really need to have good, high-quality information that helps young people make better choices, informed choices that deal with the realities under the conditions that they live in today. Today is not the same conditions that I grew up in as a young person or the minister or others - you notice that I said it's not the same kind of time, I didn't say era. I look at some of the comments from the school boards and I wonder what era people are inhabiting or what era they are coming from or what age, the Stone Age comes to mind.
I think this is a very serious issue. It's an issue about obtaining the objectives that have been set out by your government and the absolute requirement that the Department of Education be a full participant and partner in achieving these objectives, because this is where young people congregate, this is where we get access to them, this is where they have access to other resources, like guidance counsellors and trusted teachers and members of the teen health centres that are often in our schools.
I'm not convinced that the department has shown enough leadership in terms of dealing with the school boards on this one. I wonder if the minister has ever considered, given what occurred around the sex booklet, doing an in-service for school board members on their responsibilities and the realities that these young people face in today's society?
MR. MUIR: I would say to the honourable member that in-service on all subject areas takes place, if not every year, during the year. I would think that if school board members were interested in sitting in on in-service sessions - and I can say I have seen cases where they have - they would certainly be welcome. I just want to draw the honourable member's attention to the role of the school board. This is a public health resource, and it was produced to try to help young people make safe, healthy decisions. What we did was, we asked school boards if they would consider distributing the resource for public health.
I want to tell the honourable member, as well, and she probably would understand this, that before material can be distributed in the public school system, it has to be put on the authorized list of materials. That booklet, as far as I know, I will be putting it on the authorized list of materials, but it was not on. It hadn't even gone through that. All materials are screened. We don't put just anything on that list, holus-bolus. On the list of authorized materials, there are certain prescribed texts, but that was not a prescribed text, that was a resource material, so it meant that it's a resource for teachers and not intended, really, as a textbook for students.
Again, in any material, it's not just information that goes in there, you have to be concerned about values, and I'll give you a couple of examples. I think it's stronger now, the book is more usable, and it's a better book now. For example, the initial draft of that - and you saw it - one of the things that it didn't mention in terms of the role of the parent or the
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guardian or anybody was if a child needed advice. It's the home that should be at least one place that could be turned to. To be quite honest, I thought that was one of the things that should have been quite prominent, and it was not - I believe it is in there now.
Another thing which I thought there was a little bit of difficulty with was the message that, as written initially - again changed - I can remember this list of things basically saying it's okay to have sex if, and one of the things was, you can talk to your partner about it. Well, this book was going into Grade 7, and I'm not sure that most Grade 7 students or parents or people would think that was probably a real good thing without some other conditions. We had some suggestions about things like that. It was the value that was out there, in addition to the content.
I think it's a stronger book now because the group putting it together was open, received feedback and made modifications. So I think that resource is a stronger resource and is going to be a more effective resource than it would be if that draft had not gone out and they had not gotten feedback.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: I, too, hope it's a stronger resource as a result. I think that any time you circulate a draft and you have an opportunity to reflect on it and hear what people's views are, then you have an opportunity for some improvements. I'm looking forward to seeing what those improvements actually will be. I'm pleased to hear that the minister is prepared to authorize this text or this handbook as part of the resource materials that are available as the authorized list of materials. I think that's very important.
With that in mind, I want to ask the minister a question about the department's policy with respect to those who teach in the area of healthy sexuality in the school system. I know that there has been some concern expressed by a group of young people, as recently as Friday, at a session that the minister and myself and the Health Critic from the Third Party attended to speak with young people who have been doing some projects around the province, in their various communities all over Nova Scotia, around the needs of young people around healthy sexuality. One of the things that they talked to us about was that sometimes in the school system people who are teaching aren't necessarily trained and don't necessarily feel comfortable with the materials, might not have materials at their fingertips, and that the assignment of those who teach in this area, quite often, can be not the highest priority, maybe not as high as math or other specialty areas.
[4:15 p.m.]
So I think if they had a chance to ask the minister a question, this would be one that they would put to you. They would want to know what the department can do. First of all, are you aware of this problem? Secondly, if so, what can you do and what are you prepared to do to try to raise the calibre of instruction and interaction in our school systems, with young people, in the important area of healthy sexuality?
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MR. MUIR: I haven't been made aware of that concern, Mr. Chairman. I thank the honourable member for drawing attention to that. There is the PDR course and other courses in junior high and high school, where human sexuality is a subject for study. I guess I agree with the honourable member that there are probably people who would feel comfortable dealing with that subject and there would be others who wouldn't feel as comfortable. I think you would probably find, quite often, it may be some of the younger people who are dealing with that topic in schools, because older people might not feel as comfortable.
If a group of teachers wish to approach their school board or approach the department with help in professional development, we would certainly entertain that. I expect there has been in the past, but I just don't know the details of it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: At this time, I would like to inform the NDP caucus that their time in turn has elapsed.
The honourable member for Colchester North.
MR. WILLIAM LANGILLE: Mr. Chairman, schools are very important in any MLAs' ridings. I would like to ask the Minister of Education, the North River Elementary School is presently on the list for renovations. In fact, I believe the Department of Education has had it on its list for awhile, through the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board. My question to the minister is, what renovations will be done to that school this year?
MR. MUIR: This year there is $250,000 allocated for roof and windows.
MR. LANGILLE: I thank you very much for that, although I know the people in that area will be disappointed, as they were expecting a new gym this year. Under the Department of Education, you have a nine-year plan, which is now an eight-year plan. I was wondering, what new schools do you have planned in Colchester North in the next eight years?
MR. MUIR: The major projects in Colchester North: the most recent new project was the Redcliff Middle School, which opened a few years ago; there is a $2.85 million upgrade in North River Elementary School. I don't see any new project listed for Colchester North, brand new construction.
MR. LANGILLE: I know about Redcliff Middle School, that was put in by the former government. If I heard you correctly, there are no new schools planned for Colchester North in the next eight years?
MR. MUIR: The Chignecto-Central Regional School Board did not include any new schools in Colchester North on their capital priority list.
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MR. LANGILLE: Also, I was wondering about renovations in the next eight years for my schools. I realize that North River Elementary School is presently on the list of renovations. I've been having meetings with everybody for the last four years to understand that that was on the list with Chignecto even as I met in these meetings. So I was wondering, we're talking about new schools, so there are no new schools or renovations other than North River Elementary School in the next eight years. Is that correct?
MR. MUIR: Schools physically located in that constituency, the answer is no, but as the honourable member knows, for example, some of the residents of his constituency, I believe, go to Salmon River, as do some residents of mine and, indeed, some residents of my constituency cross to go to Redcliffe. I'm just trying to think, you would have in that constituency: Redcliffe, you have Valley, you have the two schools in Tatamagouche, and you have North River - you've got Debert and all those areas, yes, right, I'm sorry, Colchester North. No, the list for Colchester North as submitted by the school board contains no new construction.
MR. LANGILLE: I thank you for that, Mr. Minister. As you know, some of the schools are very old in my riding. We just closed one, the oldest school in Nova Scotia, last year. It was built in 1878. My mother went to school in 1927 in Great Village and that's still being operated as a school. Tatamagouche High School was built in 1950, and I just want to ask the minister, what new schools are you getting in Truro-Bible Hill in the next eight years?
MR. MUIR: There are two elementary schools on the books for the constituency of Truro-Bible Hill, plus a renovation in the Salmon River Elementary School is there, too. Now, there is some real discussion about in which constituency the Salmon River Elementary School actually lies, whether it's Colchester South or it's Truro-Bible Hill, but I generally recognize it as lying in the geography of that constituency, our constituency.
MR. LANGILLE: The Salmon River Elementary School, as the minister says, there's a discrepancy whether it belongs to Truro-Bible Hill or Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley. Mr. Minister, what schools or renovations are going to be done in Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley within the next eight years?
MR. MUIR: Well, there is the new high school in Brookfield opened this Fall. Just give me one minute. Stewiacke Elementary School, Primary to Grade 6, is proposed to be occupied in September 2008. It will replace the two aging schools in the Stewiacke area, and site selection is currently underway. Musquodoboit Rural High School is scheduled to be in September 2007. I would believe, Mr. Chairman, that's the list.
MR. LANGILLE: Thank you, Mr. Minister, and I just want to bring to the minister's attention that high schools are very important to my area, as well as the rest of the MLAs, and I would like to bring to the minister's attention that Brookfield High School was just replaced, Musquodoboit is on the block to be replaced, and Tatamagouche High School is
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not. I just want to bring that to the minister's attention - those schools are identical schools and they are schools all built in 1950. That concludes my questions for the minister.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your questioning, member, and now I would like to recognize the Liberal caucus. I would like to say that your time is 4:26 p.m. You will have one hour in turn and, before I recognize you, honourable member, I would like to recognize the Minister of Education.
MR. MUIR: Could we just recess for a minute or so?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Certainly, Mr. Minister, we'll recess and we'll calculate the time when the minister comes back from combing his hair.
[4:26 p.m. The committee recessed.]
[4:28 p.m. The committee reconvened.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: At this time I would like to call the committee back to order and I would like at this time to recognize the member for Halifax Clayton Park, the time being 4:28 p.m., and your caucus has one hour in turn. You're able to share your time, if you would like, with a member of your caucus. You have the floor, honourable member.
MS. DIANA WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask if I could share my time, I do intend to. So if that's allowed, then I will make sure that that's on the record to start with.
I have a number of questions. First of all, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to ask some questions directly, and I feel this is a very good forum because it's somewhat less formal than we're accustomed to in Question Period and we have a chance to raise issues that are of great importance in our own communities.
Just by way of a little background, I know you've talked a lot about rural schools, a lot about depopulation, and I'm sure that the minister knows very well a little bit about Clayton Park at least. We're a growth area and an area that has seen two new schools built in the last little while. A new high school replacing Halifax West was opened in the last two years, and prior to that in the year 2000 we had a P3 school that opened in our area, and the capacity has grown and Halifax West was built larger than the old one in order to take in that extra growth.
So we're a very different kind of neighbourhood in terms of most of the ones that you're talking about in Nova Scotia and our needs are different. I think it's important for us then to shift gears a little bit and look at what the needs might be in an urban area like Clayton Park. I want to ask you some of the questions about the school specifications when you're building a brand new school, and I'm just basing it on some of the things that I've seen in
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Halifax West, in particular. I'm wondering, why doesn't the department allow for oversized gymnasiums and for auditoriums when they're building new high schools? So if I could just ask that, why it's not in your standard specifications?
[4:30 p.m.]
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, there are standards for elementary schools; there are standards for junior high schools; and there are standards for high schools in this province. The standards are uniform across the province. On the other hand, there is certainly opportunity for communities to participate should they wish enhancements, and there are quite a number of examples of that in recent years. For example, the new high school in Colchester South, in Brookfield, had a significant amount of community money for enhancements. The two high schools, both in Pictou County this year, the community put a lot of money into that. In the Town of Truro, where the new junior high is going, there was a lot of money that has gone into that, and down in the Valley, Kings West, one of the schools down there, there was money put in for enhancements by the community.
The type of enhancement may be different. For example, at the junior high school in Truro, they really wanted a larger gymnasium because the athletic program is pretty important to that school, and some other places have redesigned the cafeteria and the music room to make sort of a cafetorium, they call it. You know, it depends on really what the needs of the community are, depending what the existing facilities are in the community and, again, I come back to my home community of Truro with the new junior high school. They didn't need a big theatre because there's one in the high school. Now, I expect in the new school, the Halifax West school, I expect it has a theatre in it, does it? It does have a theatre in it, or at least space to put one in if there would be, and I expect that the new school that is going to be coming to downtown Halifax, whereas both QE and St. Pat's had rather significantly sized theatres that received a fair bit of community use, I expect that the board will probably ask the public to participate and do that type of thing.
So the enhancements, you know we put a lot of effort in trying to accommodate municipal enhancements. We offer free design services and we participate in the overall tender which gives you a better price, but what you would perhaps come into is that you would find inconsistency across the province. So what we do is we have a design which is intended to maximize educational opportunity and communities may have different needs which the construction of a new school may provide the opportunity for community enhancements, and we certainly are open to that.
MS. WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, just to continue on in that vein, in terms of Halifax West, the space for a theatre was provided by funding from city council, because at the time when the plans were being finalized there was only a short window of opportunity if an auditorium was going to be part of that building. The request came from their school steering committee that we act quickly, if possible, to respond to the need. So city council did, in fact,
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contribute $300,000 to the building in order to get it into the shell of the building - and it still remains just the shell of an auditorium, because there is required apparently over $1 million in fundraising to complete it. So it's another burden really on a community.
The gymnasium in that school was built, I believe, to the standard size for a high school and when I spoke to members from the school board today at the Human Resources Committee meeting, just asking them afterwards about the community use agreement with Halifax West, I was told that the gymnasium, being just a standard size, is always in use with the 1,400 students that attend that school. It is a large school, a big population, and just to manage their own program of sports and extracurricular sports, it's busy all the time and unavailable to the community. So it's a bit of a lost opportunity that that wasn't identified when the school was being built and expanded in some way, because the intent of the school steering team, which I was a member of, was that that school be very much a community school and, as the minister may remember, it was a very unusual and unique situation in that that school was built on city-owned property which we did not charge for. If you were to have bought, I think it takes up about 17 acres, and if you were to have tried to find 17 acres anywhere in Clayton Park West, it would have been exorbitantly expensive.
Because of the good move afoot to co-operate between municipal and provincial needs, the city did come forward in a very unusual circumstance and offer to provide land to the province and let the school be sited on land that was part of the Mainland Common recreational properties. It takes up a much larger chunk, I might add, than what was originally envisioned, although it's a school that we're all very happy to have in our community, but I think we originally talked about seven acres and it's more like 17 acres but, luckily, the space was available and a good arrangement came into being.
The idea that adding these facilities, such as an oversized gym or an auditorium, to a community as an enhancement I think is a little bit belied by the fact that every school that I know of that has been built in the last number of years has had those enhancements not as part of your core standards, but always because the community recognizes that if you don't get it when the school is being built it will be a loss to the community, a lost opportunity, or they may have lost that facility when an old school is being retired. As you mentioned, the high school in your town has an auditorium, as do Queen Elizabeth and St. Pat's, and they will lose that because our new standards for schools don't require the need for an auditorium.
So my question would be that if you're looking across the province at all of the new schools - and being part of the Halifax West School Steering Committee we had looked at Horton High and we had gone down to Digby and both of them have provided auditoriums in them as well, so it seems to me that everywhere you go, you'll find that the community has stepped in to fill the void and it seems, again, like a sort of downloading because we're left with lesser facilities than the ones that are retired. I would ask, I guess the biggest question would be, how did we decide on what those standards are because they seem very minimum given that every community has needs beyond that?
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MR. MUIR: I've not been in the Horton High School, Mr. Chairman, but I'm told it's a very good school in every way, facility wise and the education program. I know that the Digby School, I can remember my former colleague, Gordon Balser, who was the MLA for Digby, he used to rave about that facility, but that was a renovation as opposed to new construction. Having said that, the specs are set so that an educational program can be accommodated. Now, the specs, obviously, vary from school to school depending on population and the grade levels of the populations that are being served because the particular courses have varying needs, but I guess you could say really the standards are standards which will, if this facility is built, enable the provision of a good quality education program.
MS. WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, just continuing on that theme, I have seen a press release today at the Human Resources Committee meeting that was relating to the two high schools on the peninsula here, saying that the community is looking at $6 million that they'll have to raise and that they had asked for a feasibility study to be done, I think through the school board, to say we need $6 million to add what we're going to be losing from that. So I think that the numbers we're talking about are very significant and the problem is really quite massive for the communities that are, yes, the beneficiaries of a new school, but they're losing community facilities at the same time.
If your mandate is just to replace the educational facilities, then we've lost some of the heart of what a school really entails. As we've talked about over the last few days that you've been here, schools provide much more than just the basic curriculum. So I think that that point needs to be made, and I'm glad we've had a chance to exchange views on it, but I would like you to consider that our standards may be low and perhaps if you're able to answer, I would like to know whether our standard equipment, if you will, or standard facilities that we outlined for a new school, are they comparable to other provinces?
MR. MUIR: That's very difficult to answer. Clearly, I don't think they are comparable to the wealthy provinces, for example, schools in Alberta, they can build some really nice facilities out there because they have more money. Our schools, considering the amount of money that we have to spend are as good, and I think the quality of programs is good, which is really the important thing to me. We could enhance the standards for school construction, there's no question about that, but when you have a limited amount of money, you have to make your choice. We could do all of those things that you would like to see done and have the government pay for them, but there are a lot of communities who would not get schools. You can either build really elaborate ones and fewer of them, or more and ask people to participate.
MS. WHALEN: Okay, point taken, we're talking about scant resources and spreading them further. I see that.
What I'd like to ask you as well is a lesson learned in the construction of Halifax West, and that was that there was a close collaboration, in the building and how it was built,
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with a group called Citizens for a Safe Learning Environment and they helped very much in designing some standards for healthier schools because, as you will recall, the old Halifax West was closed really because it had become an unhealthy building and it was known that for some time people were sick in that building. It had to change and the actual building of Halifax West we saw, in the community, as a model for a much healthier school and maybe setting standards that would continue in other school buildings in the province, and I think really made some headway in terms of creating a model that could be used even across Canada and other places.
What I'm wondering is what has been done since that time. I'm just aware of the collaboration at the time of Halifax West being built. Can you give me some idea how you've taken that as a very positive experience and taken it forward?
MR. MUIR: I remember, Mr. Chairman, I do believe that when I was in a different portfolio I did meet with Karen Robinson - I assume that's who you were speaking about - and she has provided advice to the section of our department which is responsible for school construction and renovation, and I'm told that her advice has been heeded. I'm told as well that she has also had some input into the Premier's Office. I can tell you that probably what she has done has probably had an influence on future school plans. I can tell you that some of the healthiest schools that I ever saw are the old ones that the member for Colchester North may have been talking about, because you didn't really get into many problems until you started to make schools airtight, and other public buildings air tight. When the wind was able to blow through the windows and all of those things, we didn't have that problem. The more advanced we get, I guess, in terms of being concerned about energy efficiency and everything and closed circuit air systems and all of this, clearly it costs a lot of money to do that and have a closed system.
MS. WHALEN: I'm not sure that the old Halifax West was one of those high-tech airtight schools. I think it was leaky and mouldy. From what I understood, it was built in 1959, so I think it predates some of the technology for R2000 and so on. However, It was built, I think, very poorly and very quickly. We learn lessons over time that you have to have good construction in the first place, and in terms of the internal environment of these schools, I think because there are so many new materials that we're using in schools as well that it's very important to look at the timing of when you seal your gymnasium floors or when you tar the roof and so on to make sure that children are not in the school and that longer time is allowed before the school is going to be occupied.
Those were some of the simple things, but I must say that group had information on even the purchasing and where you would find products that were less toxic or noxious, and I would hope that - actually your answer indicated that there has been dialogue, but I would really hope that would be formalized, that it would be worked into your formal structures for new buildings, when new schools are coming on stream, because a lot of other communities
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might not have access to that kind of information or have an advocate of that standard, somebody as knowledgeable as Karen Robinson is to actually bring the issue forward.
So it's very important I think for the department to be proactive and say this now becomes something that we will adopt. Of course it's something that's going to be dynamic and always changing and updating, but I really think there's a need for that, and maybe you even need an expert within your department who would look at that, especially with all these schools and school expansions on the go. Perhaps you could just respond to the need to make it more formal, that connection more formal within the department?
[4:45 p.m.]
MR. MUIR: I could add that the individual whom I mentioned earlier is one of the resources that the department used, and we do have a person who is, I guess you would say a specialist in air quality, who provides advice to the staff who are involved in construction.
MS. WHALEN: I'll have to take that to mean that you feel you're adequately resourced. Okay.
I'd like to move to a couple of other questions about school curriculum. Perhaps I'll just go back a bit when we talked about the components of a school, and one of the things that becomes clear is that each of the departments can't operate just as single silo, and education is sort of a catch-all for a lot of other issues that fall under it. We heard this morning at Human Resources from the Halifax Regional School Board about things like the breakfast programs that schools are offering, but in fact they really are offered as a result of social service problems or community service needs, that children arrive at the doorstep and have those needs in place.
That's just one tip of the iceberg, but because the students come through your doors into the classrooms, they have that first-hand contact with teachers and problems are identified that are not just educational, but they may create impediments to the learning that you're looking at - so some of them are community service-related and some are health-related when we look at the special needs and the kids that don't get help perhaps before arriving at school and, when they get there, suddenly they become a challenge for this school system to absorb and to help, and help them learn.
I think it's pretty well accepted that you don't operate in isolation, as just looking strictly at the educational curriculum, and that was pretty much what you said about building the buildings, that we look strictly at what we need to deliver our curriculum. I would just challenge that there might be room to work with the other departments to provide for some expanded facilities because, in fact, particularly with the phys ed facilities you're looking at healthier communities. You have an initiative to open the schools to young people, if your bill comes forward soon to make these schools available at little or no cost, just covering
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overhead. So those kinds of initiatives mean that you're trying to expand the use of the facility so that we get other benefits, in that case health benefits, for our young people.
I think there is a good argument to be made that maybe as the Office of Health Promotion gets up and running and perhaps properly resourced, there may be other funds available there or in some other way that could help provide the facilities that are really needed, because if a school is going to get expanded facilities you really are relying on that community's capacity to absorb the extra cost. Some of them can do it, and some don't - or don't do it to the same degree. I question that we try and get away from the silo idea of each department just looking at their own specific demands and try and work together. That would be something that I think you could advance within your own Cabinet. No question there, just a comment.
On the educational side, I'd like to look at, again, a brand-new school. Libraries are an area that concerns me and I wonder if you could tell me, when a new school opens how much money is allocated to outfit a library?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, that's a difficult question to give a precise answer to, because there is no specific money allocated for library books. There is a group of funds that are called, FFT&E, which is Furniture Fixtures Technology & Equipment, and that would be the decision of the school and the school board how that money is going to be allocated, and in addition, of course, there are very few new stand-alone schools that just were all of a sudden created from nothing, they usually replace something, and usually when you move into a new school you bring certain things from the old school - so what I'm trying to say is that normally you're not exactly starting from scratch.
MS. WHALEN: Certainly in the Clayton Park area or in my neighbouring area, Timberlea, they have a new school as well. Where growth is phenomenal, we do have brand new schools and they require money, especially for library books. What I saw in the elementary or P to 9 school in our area was, again, the public had to do a lot of fundraising, or that school community, to get some books in there. They had a very small library and I had a figure of about $10,000 in my mind for the money allocated to outfit that library. That would be in Park West School, but I wasn't sure if that was accurate, so I thought I would throw it out there. It's very important not only that we have all of the technology but that we have some books and some resources available. Again, it points to the need to strengthen our libraries and our commitment to the delivery of professional help in the libraries. I'm wondering about the standards, if you could tell me some of the standards that are in place for libraries or library assistants across the province, if there are any guidelines for school boards that they must adhere to, what kind of commitment we have to school libraries.
MR. MUIR: We are doing a review of school library programs right now, but up to this point it has been a decision of school boards how they wish to allocate resources. Clearly, I think one of the points that I want to make, particularly at the elementary level is there has
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been some talk by other members about school libraries. The issue is that the heavy, heavy emphasis on literacy now - and if the honourable member would go into the elementary school classrooms, the resources for literacy that are in the typical elementary school classroom today - if you were to look at that and the knowledge of the teachers in selection of materials and their better knowledge of children's literature than probably it used to be, you can understand why many boards have made the decision to put more resources into classrooms rather than formalizing the position of a school librarian.
MS. WHALEN: Are there any requirements then to have a library that's professionally staffed? I think virtually every school has a school library, so is there any requirement that there be somebody to staff that library?
MR. MUIR: No, boards assign their resources, Mr. Chairman.
MS. WHALEN: Short answer. In the Halifax Regional School Board I know there are some library specialists - whether they're library techs, I'm not sure of their designation or training, but I know there are specialists within a category of employees who are dealing with our libraries, although I don't believe they're in every school library. I'm thinking they are paid for probably under supplementary funding - is that probably the case, do you know if that is the case in Halifax?
MR. MUIR: I know at one time Halifax was different than the other school districts in the province because in the days when there were "teacher librarians" in a good many schools, then at least the City of Halifax, before the amalgamated board, they had one librarian for the system, and they had a lot of what they called library assistants in junior high schools and in high schools. Actually, in terms of that, they were behind the rest of the province. If you want to look at it, the other people had qualified teacher librarians, at least people who had a teaching licence running the libraries, whereas Halifax - quite frankly, I don't know which system was better, and I'm not commenting on that. I expect right now if there are these people in Halifax - I can't comment on how the board uses its resources, but I am advised that there may be some supplemental funding that is used to provide personnel for libraries.
MS. WHALEN: Perhaps over the last couple of days you have talked some about the things that supplementary funding in Halifax and Dartmouth and our county area, what's covered under that, so you'll excuse me if I go back to that because if it has been covered, I wasn't in the room at the time. One of the things that concerns me - as you know I was previously city councillor for the Clayton Park area and so I sat through the very lengthy debates that we had there at our city council about whether or not to continue funding for supplementary funding, and because we have a mixture of former municipalities falling under different funding arrangements through supplementary funding, we therefore have an inequity across that one school board, which remains a real sore point for everybody - and really difficult to deal with.
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I still have a child in the Halifax Regional school system, but from the time my children were little, I felt our standards were far too low, the provincial standards you set are far too low and when I look at what some of the supplementary funding was paying for, it was really to provide a reasonable level of service. We talk about it as being enhancements, but really it just is providing a reasonable level of education.
I'll point to one area in particular which is a sore point and that is the core French. My understanding is that our standards are that we start core French in Grade 4 - maybe you could let me know if that's right?
MR. MUIR: That is correct.
MS. WHALEN: Okay, so maybe I'll talk about whether there are studies that would show that is a very late time to start that. We do offer in Halifax, and in some parts of the county now, an early French immersion. I don't think we're offering parents a very good choice at that age, because you have a choice between your children not even beginning French until Grade 4 or going whole hog and saying I'm going to French immersion right now in Primary so that my child actually gets a decent level of education in French. As you know, we had a discussion very recently here in the House about the capability of most of us to speak French properly and to understand what goes on in French and whether or not we need translation services here. I believe it's important that our young people have an opportunity to learn French and to be able to take their place in the rest of Canada as well in terms of jobs. So waiting until Grade 4 I don't believe has been shown to be a good age to start a new language. I wonder, can you talk about that as a teacher?
MR. MUIR: I do not profess to be an expert in the learning or teaching of languages. There have been a variety of models. There are people who would argue, as the honourable member has suggested, that core French should begin upon entering school. I can tell you that there are classrooms in this province where that happens simply because the teacher has facility in French and is willing to do it. Whether it continues grade by grade, I don't know.
There are also people who would say that despite the fact that it would be very desirable, it would be much more practical to delay the core French until junior high. There are others who - you know we also have the enhanced core which begins in junior high school programs now. There's a fair mixture across the school system. I guess if I were to look at, I suppose that if one started to speak a language, they spoke two languages when they were in the home, probably most of them can do it.
The other thing, there are a number of us in the House who have had some experience working in public schools, and for some students who struggle in their mother tongue, to ask them to try and learn another tongue does not make for a very pleasant learning experience for them. There was considerable debate a number of years ago about whether French should be a mandatory subject in junior high or not, and I don't know whether it is or not now - yes,
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it's mandatory - but I can remember some of the debate by a variety of people. As desirable as it is, or similarly, if you were in a French language school, to require the English, the same thing - it would work both ways.
MS. WHALEN: I guess I'm definitely a big believer in starting early with a second language. Junior high wouldn't be the best time, in my opinion, to start it, especially across the board, because children at that age have so many insecurities or inhibitions and it becomes something that they're perhaps embarrassed about to some extent. I just think when they're young they accept it, it becomes very much a part of their daily routine, or their classroom experience, so it has worked well.
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In terms of French immersion and its availability across the province, I wonder if you could comment on just how well we've done in providing that option in the school boards across the province. I understood, just by way of background, today that HRSB has about 69 per cent of the French immersion students.
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, the number of French immersion classes in the province continues to grow every year. To be quite frank, in a good many communities there's a competition for seats. Halifax, I think, has about - you said 63 per cent, roughly, and that's probably right. Halifax, sort of by nature of the city, was probably really the first one in the province to get into the early immersion. They had both the critical mass and the support they needed to get in it. Some of the other jurisdictions, to get geared up, took a little bit longer. The number of people in immersion classes is growing each year, and I expect will continue in the foreseeable future.
MS. WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister could tell me whether or not there's any initiative within the department that would really encourage the establishment of French immersion classrooms and programs across the province, whether there's a commitment on the part of the Department of Education to see that further?
MR. MUIR: Monsieur le président (Laughter) the department does provide a financial incentive through the federal-provincial agreement if a French immersion class is begun, and that funding then continues throughout the school years.
MS. WHALEN: Maybe I will just go one step further with that and ask if you have any specialists within the Department of Education who would particularly be there as resource people for existing programs or for any school board that wanted to expand or set up programs?
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MR. MUIR: Yes, we have.
MS. WHALEN: I'm sure the minister knows that by and large, at least in the Halifax Regional Municipality, the parents of French immersion students are very active and very engaged, and perhaps have somewhat of a reputation for engaging their elected representatives as well. You can appreciate I come from an area that has a strong enrolment in French immersion; in fact we were pleased this year to have the high school French immersion students join Halifax West High School and become part of that school body, those French immersion students who come from Mainland North. I realize that has created a ripple effect actually in the downtown area which has created problems for the St. Patrick's High School community, really because the school board - and it's outside of your hands - decision was if it was good for Halifax West High School to be in their family of schools, it might be good as well in Mainland South and on the peninsula. So it has created a difficulty there.
However, my question would be whether or not there is any way for the Department of Education to intervene in that issue where the parents of the French immersion students in high school at St. Pat's want to remain together? I'll say, I'm a neophyte, so I want to know whether there's a way for you to, in some way, help that issue resolve itself, because again, just by way of numbers, I understand we have a critical core of French immersion students at Halifax West High School, but I would say not so at J.L. Ilsley, and that if they were reunited with the St. Pat's component that is from the peninsula, they would probably have a better curriculum and options. Could you speak to that?
MR. MUIR: Mr. Chairman, had I known the honourable member had been a city council member before she came here - I didn't know that, because when she asked me about supplemental funding, I thought she was asking me a question rather than making a statement - I probably might have phrased my response a little bit differently had I known the degree of your knowledge. Anyway, that is a decision of the school board. They made the decision to go with the three immersion programs in high school. All of those programs do provide sufficient credits for high school graduation. Would there probably be a broader program if they were in one location? The answer is yes. Are they getting good education in the three situations? I'm told yes, but that really is a matter for the school board.
MS. WHALEN: I'm glad we were able to address it at least here, but I thought perhaps that was the answer. I would like to go briefly to ESL, the English as a Second Language, demands. In my area, again, we have a large population of people from other countries; a lot of immigrants move to the Fairview-Clayton Park area. We feel that it has embellished our schools. It's most obvious when you go into the schools, the mixture of children from around the world. Halifax West, being the largest school, has children from about 50 different countries. Even the elementary schools, when you go in, they boast 38 countries or 35 languages spoken. It has really been a marvellous addition to our schools and it has changed the complexity and the character of schools as well.
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The problem that I see is in the ESL area, and I would like to explore it with you, I'm told there are 700 students in the Halifax Regional School Board who require ESL classes, special one-on-one ESL help, and there is no money following or attached to that service. Could you explain to me what the response is from the Department of Education? I know you're aware of that as a pressure or a challenge to the Halifax regional area, and really I would suggest most of the immigration is into the Halifax regional area. Could you respond on the departmental view of that?
MR. MUIR: The area that the honourable member represents, I know that area reasonably well - actually at one time I considered buying a home in that area. I can tell you I recognize the multicultural composition of the population of that area, probably the greatest in any section of a town or any section of the province. I can also tell you that the ESL pressure is one that has been drawn to our attention by the Halifax Regional School Board, and I believe it is one of the things that Mr. Hogg will take into consideration when he is putting his new funding formula forward, and making the recommendations on the new funding formula. Whether or not it would be included in the funding formula, I'm not making that commitment, I'm simply saying it's going to be one of the factors that will be looked at.
MS. WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister specifically about that, whether there would be any federal dollars available to help us in our efforts to fund the ESL, since it's very much tied into the immigration initiatives? You talked about federal money being available for new French immersion classes and following those classes as they advance in the system. I'm wondering if there's an argument to be made, or has been made, to suggest th