Social Services Committee — Department of Education

committees_standingcommittees_socialservices_ga43session2_1997-05-0608_ssc-edu_

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

May 6, 1997/May 8, 1997

SOCIAL SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE

Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Perry Canning, MHA

(Labrador West) substitutes for Gerry Reid, MHA (Twillingate & Fogo); and Rick

Woodford, MHA (Humber Valley) substitutes for Wally Andersen, MHA (Torngat

Mountains).

The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. on May 6, 1997 in

Room 5083.

CHAIR (R. Mercer): Order, please!

Perhaps, if we could get started, as you will

notice by the absence of the members at the table opposite, the members of the

Opposition are not available this morning, but we do have a quorum; any four

members of the committee constitute a quorum, and we have a quorum here this

morning. In the absence of the Opposition or in light of the confusion arising

over the schedule, the meeting was scheduled with you folks this morning at nine

o'clock. Through inadvertency, the

schedule that the Clerk sent out showed it to

be tonight at seven and I presume that is why the Opposition are not here. They

were notified last evening and, as far as I know, they were available last

evening.

CLERK (Ms Murphy): No.

CHAIR: They were contacted, were they?

CLERK: Yes. Well, I just left a message,

because they were not in.

CHAIR: Okay, they were left a message last

evening and this morning they indicated that, due to other commitments, they

would not be able to attend. So, with your indulgence, I would invite you back

to a meeting tomorrow evening at seven o'clock, in this same Chamber.

WITNESS: I think the Resource Committee meeting

is here tomorrow night.

CHAIR: You are meeting here at seven o'clock?

Well then, we will meet in the House tomorrow evening at seven o'clock.

CLERK: No, I think it is in the House.

WITNESS: No, it is in the House.

CHAIR: Are you sure.

CLERK: Yes.

CHAIR: Your committees normally have met in the

House.

WITNESS: I have no difficulty.

CHAIR: Yes, the

schedule shows that you are

meeting in the House, so we will meet here tomorrow evening at seven o'clock.

Again I apologize profusely, but perhaps the adjournment will only heighten the

questions from the Opposition on Wednesday evening.

So, thank you, and once again my apologies.

On motion, Committee adjourned.

**********************

The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. on May 8, 1997 in Room

MR. OTTENHEIMER (Vice-Chair): Order, please!

Mr. Bob Mercer is not available this morning due to a

prior commitment. So, by arrangement, what we have discussed and decided to do

is, that we would appoint, I guess, an Acting Chairman for the proceedings this

morning, other than myself obviously, because if I assume the role as Chair that

would limit me in my few questions that I would want to ask.

So, at this point, as Vice-Chair, I would seek a

motion from the committee to appoint Mr. Gerry Reid as the Acting Chairman for

this morning's proceedings.

On motion of Mr. Hodder, seconded by Ms Hodder, Mr.

Gerry Reid was elected Acting Chairman.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you. Mr. Reid?

CHAIR (G. REID): Thank you.

Mr. Minister, I would like to welcome you and your

officials here today to look at the Estimates for the Department of Education.

I would like to start by asking the MHAs to introduce

themselves, starting with Mary.

MS M. HODDER: I am Mary Hodder, MHA for Burin -

Placentia West.

MR. OLDFORD: I am Doug Oldford, MHA for Trinity

North.

MR. H. HODDER: I am Harvey Hodder, MHA for

Waterford Valley.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I am John Ottenheimer, MHA for

St. John's East.

CHAIR: Mr. Minister, if you could introduce your

officials?

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Today, we have with us our Deputy Minister, Deborah

Fry. To her right is Dr. Frank Marsh who is the Assistant Deputy Minister for

the post-secondary part of the education system, and on my left is Florence

Delaney who is our Assistant Deputy Minister for Finance and Administration for

the entire department or in the system. Dr. Oakley who is our ADM for the

secondary system is not available today, but if you have had discussions with

him remind yourselves of details you might need to know to answer any questions

that the committee may have for us today.

We are here at your disposal to deal with the issues

that you may deem of importance with respect to education. If you were to

permit, I would like to make a few opening comments, very briefly, as I always

do. I would like to leave the time for questioning by committee members.

CHAIR: May I ask, if you would, identify

yourselves when you speak for the benefit of Hansard. Thank you and go ahead.

MR. GRIMES: We will do that, Mr. Chairman.

If I could just take a couple of minutes to point out

a few things that, at least in our view, we deem to be of significance in terms

of the Budget as it relates to Education this year. I think just a couple

reminders. I believe everyone in this committee room and the members of the

committee remember and understand that we have done some significant change in

just fifteen months or so since this particular administration took office, both

in the K to 12, Primary, Elementary, Secondary systems and also in the

post-secondary system.

With respect to the secondary schooling, we have, of

course, just completed, on January 3, the taking over of the system by ten

boards instead of the previous twenty-seven. In the college system, the public

colleges of the Province, we went into an exercise that was conducted through

the last fiscal year that was announced last year in the Budget, from five

different administrative units in the college system for the provincial colleges

to a single administrative unit. Just recently, probably within the last three

weeks or so, there was the actual announcement of the new identity name and logo

for the new single college being the College of the North Atlantic, which merged

the five previously separate colleges that have been in our Community College

Provincial College system. The whole notion in both those efforts was to make

sure that government could make a shift to enable us to spend more of the

dollars in Education on services to the students rather than on administrative

units and administration of the system. We are convinced that that is a shift in

the right direction.

I would like to spend a little more of the time by way

of introduction referring to the K to 12, Primary, Elementary, Secondary system,

and maybe than the post-secondary, because that is where most of the focus of

public attention has been in the Province in the last year or so, and where most

of the activity has occurred. It has been interesting to watch the whole

sequence of events unfold but again, in context, I think it is important every

now and then for us to remind ourselves of the nature of that system, that it is

a shrinking system. The K to 12 student population has been in constant decline

for just about fifteen years. The projections are that that trend should

continue into the foreseeable future, at least for the next five or six years,

because we already have information about the births in the Province for the

next four-and-a-half years or so, and there is no indication that the trend to

lower birth rates, less students entering the system, is likely to change in

that part of the foreseeable future at least.

Last year alone the student population for K to XII

decreased by just in excess of 4,200 students, so we have a much smaller system.

We are down now, in this current school year, to just over 100,000 students.

Interesting to note, by the way, and it isn't meant for anything other than

exactly what I say, just an interesting comment, that the last time we had this

number of students in the schools of Newfoundland and Labrador was in the

mid-fifties. No one is suggesting we should return to the circumstances of

education in the mid-fifties, but at that point in time we had just over 100,000

students and they were in almost 1,200 schools, and were being served by 3,368

teachers.

This year, in the things that we will discuss I'm sure

with respect to teacher reductions and so on, by removing the 468 units from the

system, next year the projections for September are that we will have 102,000

students in the school system and we will still have almost 7,000 teachers in

the system. With the school closures that many of us have heard about being

announced by the boards in the last little while, we will be down to just about

370 schools from this year's number of roughly 430. There are sixty closures

expected this spring, so we are down to 370 schools operating next year. There

will still be almost 7,000 teachers in the system, and we will have roughly

102,000 students.

We understand that change is difficult and complex and

so on, but just for comparison and nothing else, the last time we had that

number of students we had three times as many schools. They had been scattered

all over the place, and we had less than half as many teachers. Somehow people

managed to - I guess maybe the phrase would be - at least survive the education

system. Some of the survivors of that era are in this very room and sit on this

Committee. We don't want to go back to the circumstances of the mid-fifties, but

just for comparison that kind of information might be useful from time to time.

Again, the other point that is worthy to note is that

even with the reductions in teachers again, the pupil-teacher ratio in this

Province will still be the second-lowest in the whole of the country. There is

an analysis being done now by Stats Canada on its educational statistics that it

does as a result of the latest budget information in Quebec, because Quebec is

the only jurisdiction with a lower pupil-teacher ratio than ours. The

expectation is that when it takes into account the latest changes in Quebec we

might even be the lowest pupil-teacher ratio in the country. We will certainly

stay the second-lowest. That has already occurred. We might even be the lowest.

There has been considerable public debate - and I know

members of the Committee are interested in it - about the relationship, or lack

thereof, between a statistic like a pupil-teacher ratio and the really

meaningful statistic which is how many students are in a classroom. In our

Province the latest information that was researched from the annual general

returns submitted by teachers, as of their registers in school at the end of

September, which the former teachers on this Committee would be very well aware

of, indicated that the average class size in Newfoundland and Labrador in

September of 1995, which is the last year we have information, is 20.4 students.

There are some large classes, there are some small

classes. The average class size is 20 students in Newfoundland and Labrador,

which is not an inordinate number, and not anything we, as the Department of

Education, feel we should be alarmed about. It is a very comfortable class size.

There aren't, unfortunately, measures of that information available through

Statistics Canada and its educational research on a comparative basis for the

rest of the country. It hasn't found a mechanism that the provinces can agree to

that compares average class sizes on a meaningful basis. They have all agreed

that the pupil-teacher ratio that is used is a number that is calculated and

used consistently across the country, and that when we use that particular

indicator we do compare apples to apples, that everybody uses the number

involved in the pupil-teacher ratio exactly the same way.

A couple of points of interest, again with respect to

some decisions in this Budget, Mr. Chairman, that I might just point out to the

Committee and then leave it for questions: The fact that with our new school

boards taking over the system, and all the things they are trying to cope with,

one of the things government did at the end of the last fiscal year was to

relieve them of any debt, so that the operating grants that are available to

them this year, none of that would have to be used to service debt from past

experiences, that they would be debt free. That was a $24 million investment to

the ten new school boards. Also, of course, the fact that we offered to the

boards and actually paid out to the boards $2.5 million to purchase new computer

equipment for schools in their districts where they saw a need.

We were pleased, as well, that in this fiscal year we

moved from a $4 million capital construction budget for schools in the Province

to a fund, actually over three years, that gives us a total of $38 million over

three years, now $14.7 million or so being provided in 1997-1998, or 1998-1999,

$14. 2 million this year and a further $9.1 million or $9.2 million in the third

year of our three year projections.

Our school construction committee had its first

meeting on Friday past. Ms Delaney actually is one of the representatives on

that Committee, along with three DEC representatives and a chair, Mr. Lake. They

had their first session. We are certainly hopeful that they will be able to make

decisions with respect to committing this year's capital money, if at all

possible, by the end of May, so that we can get a lot of work done in this

construction season for schools that will, in fact, see the impact in September.

Some of these projects will be later in the year because our construction season

doesn't finish till the fall and doesn't really have impact for the schools

until maybe the end of December or the first of January.

That committee is now up and functioning. It has had

its first preliminary meeting. They have requests in detail in terms of priority

from nine, I understand Florence, of the ten boards. We have verbal information

from the tenth board, but we have asked them to please put in writing their list

of construction priorities for the board so that that can then be merged into a

single list, based on provincial priorities for the whole of the Province, which

is the concept of the new construction board.

The other thing that it is important to note, I think,

Mr. Chairman, for the Committee, is that on the operating side for school boards

- because there has been some considerable debate about the notion of the

government making a promise to keep the savings in education - what we have done

now is we have taken the school board operating grants, the component of it that

they use to actually run the schools in the system, heat and light, for those

materials for the schools' supplies, and we have given them basically a fixed

budget for the next three years, even though the student population will decline

during that period by in excess of 12,000 students. They will have 12,000

students less to serve three years out, but they will have the same amount of

money that they would if they had the 12,000 students to try and provide for in

the system.

The expectation, as well, is that there may be some

further consolidation of schools. We may be getting close to the limit with the

sixty closures this year. There was some speculation and conjecture a couple of

years ago in some reports that there might be 100 or 110 or so schools in the

Province that could possibly close over time. Over half of them will close this

June. There isn't a lot of room left for school boards in terms of

consolidations. There is a little, and depending then on how the populations

continue to decline in certain areas, boards will make decisions to close some

structures to consolidate. There is limited flexibility though remaining after

this year on that part of the agenda.

With a fixed operating budget we fully expect that

they will be able to meet the needs of their students in a better way by having,

basically, a fixed budget over the three year period when they will, in all

likelihood, operate less schools, and they will definitely have in the range of

12,000 less students to provide for. We think that is a positive initiative.

The government, as a matter of policy, Mr. Chairman,

had determined that the teacher workforce would track the size of the system,

and that it wasn't realistic to leave salary dollars for teachers into the

system as part of keep the savings in education. Because there are so many

demands, particularly on the other side of the social expenditure budgets of

government, we will keep more than enough money in the system to provide for the

students in the schools that we operate. The salary dollars that would not be

needed any more for teachers, because they aren't there to teach the students,

would be used for part of the educational budget and part of some of the other

social demands that are on the government.

The other thing that happened in this Budget that we

were very pleased with - we didn't get much credit for it, unfortunately. You

will remember in the fall of last year when schools were opening and when I was

doing a public consultation in the Province, there were a lot of demonstrations

highlighted around students feeling they were going to be deprived of

extra-curricular activities because the substitute teacher budget had been

reduced. We restored the substitute teacher budget partway through the year last

year to provide for in-service for teachers, and we completely restored it - in

fact I don't think I would be incorrect in saying - 100 per cent in line with a

proposal that we got from the NLTA as to a working model where we restore it to

levels of a couple of years ago. Their proposition was that it would then be

reasonable for the substitute teacher budget to shrink in line with the

shrinking teacher population so that if they have less teachers the expectation

is we could do with a little less provision for substitution; and that is the

model that we have put in place. So we have restored substitute teacher funding

for in-service and professional development to the levels of some two years ago,

and the NLTA has agreed that it would then track the size of the teacher

population so in a future year it would reduce by the proportionate amount that

the teacher workforce has reduced.

There was also, of course, the matter of a program

that we are currently having a committee work with for implementation in

September of tutoring for tuition, so that students could tutor their peers and

gain some financial benefit for the tutorer and also, of course, some academic

benefit for, I guess, the tutoree, if that is the right word. I will be like the

Minister of Health; we have a dictionary on our side of the House now called

`Matthewisms' so that we know what it is. One of his most recent ones was when

he used the noun `litany' and changed it into an adjective and said - I believe

he was referring to one of the members of this committee; was up trying to give

a long litanous answer, and we weren't sure that `litanous' in that context was

really a word. I am not sure if `tutoree' is either, but it might get the point

across.

The other couple of things, in conclusion: Basically

we are on a three-year track of funding with Memorial University, where it was

announced last year that there would be reductions in the range of $3 million or

so a year in their budgets. They have accommodated that in their planning over

three years, have been given permission by the government to run some deficit

financing so that they can take the three years to plan their funding. That is

continued on in this particular budget.

Also, of course, we had the opportunity, because of

some funding available at the end of the fiscal year last year, to make some

up-front contributions to the Opportunity Fund, and I think this is where Mr.

Mercer, the Chair of the Committee normally, is today, participating in the

opening of the new student complex at the Grenfell campus in Corner Brook,

because that is the first initiative that was actually done from funds in the

Opportunity Fund, which is a $50 million program where private sector

contributions to scholarships, endowments and capital improvements at the

university are matched by the government on a 50/50 basis. They intend, largely

through the efforts of the President and the Chancellor, Mr. Crosbie, and his

committee, to raise $25 million of private sector investment into that fund over

four or five years, and the government has committed to match it. What we did

was pay $6.3 million into that fund as of March 31 last year because of the fact

that they had already had some significant success in their fund-raising

efforts. I think the sign that many of us see when driving the parkway in the

mornings indicates that their pledges to date are approaching $30 million of

that $50 million and they have only been at the project just over a year, so

they are doing very well. So we are pleased to be participating in that as well.

The last thing I just might mention before we leave it

for questions, is the whole notion of literacy initiatives in the Province.

There are two arms of the literacy initiatives that are, I guess, under the

auspices of the Department of Education, the Provincial Libraries Board and also

what was the Literacy Development Council. We had some meetings with them prior

to the budget and they agreed that they both wanted to focus their efforts on

literacy initiatives targeted at the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, young

and old alike, and they agreed to combine their administrative units into a

single unit, that all of the literacy initiatives can be done through a single

administrative unit. I think that work is being finalized now where the

executive director of the Libraries Board and the executive director of the

Literacy Council have worked out a plan to merge their two administrations into

one. The funding for both has been rolled into one fund and kept whole so that

their expectation is that they will be able to target more of the money towards

actually purchasing materials through the library system and literacy

initiatives in the Province, because they will have been able to reduce the

amount of money actually spent on administration, because there were two

separate administrative units before.

While there are some reductions again because of the

government's clearly stated decision to say we have a system, particularly K to

XII, that is in serious decline, our position is that we couldn't, as a total

government, defend the position of maintaining the budget for education at the

same level as it was before, particularly in light of such tremendous public

pressures for increases in some other aspects of the social budget of the

government, namely health care. Because the health care budget is growing, has

to grow, and I think the people of the Province support its growth. The

education budget is shrinking a little bit, and we are quite confident that the

shrinkage in this budget can be actually sustained without in any way impairing

the educational opportunity for the students in the system.

That is the plan of the government, that is what is

reflected, Mr. Chairman, in these particular Estimates. I would probably stop my

comments there and leave the time available to answer specific questions and

deal with items that the Committee members would like to raise.

CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Before I ask the Clerk to call the headings, I suggest

that maybe, for format purposes, we give each of the committee members ten

minutes to ask questions, and then we can throw it open after that. We don't

necessarily have to follow the headings, you can ask questions on any part of

it. Go ahead.

CLERK (Noel): Subhead 1.1.01.

CHAIR: Open for debate. Doug, do you want start?

MR. OLDFORD: I will pass.

CHAIR: You will pass.

MR. H. HODDER: Back to the overall change we are

doing, talking about school busing, one of the things that has been asked is:

Next year, when we will not have all the consolidations done, let's say in the

St. John's area, will the school busing that is being done now, for example, to

support the school population, let's say at Vaters Collegiate, drawing them from

all parts of the Province, will the total restructuring of school busing in this

area be completed for this September or will the restructuring be phased in

partially this year and completed next year? What is the status of school

busing?

MR. GRIMES: The department's approach to it is -

actually, Ms Delaney is working with the boards now in terms of finalizing their

funding for busing for the next year. The expectation is that because of the

elimination of cross-busing - that is the phrase that is used I guess for

different denominations passing each other on the road in the different boards

of the Province - because of the expectation that that will be eliminated with

the government policy that suggests to boards that paid busing should not be

provided to take a student past a school that can meet their educational needs.

That is the general policy of the government that we pass on to the boards.

This particular board, because it has indicated it has

taken an approach to do it in two stages, one being some adjustments that they

can make readily and handily this spring, but a larger review to be conducted

starting in the fall, depending on what it does with a complex like the Vaters

complex for September 1997, it may in fact find itself being willing to or

wanting to sustain a busing system for one more year. I can tell you from the

public consultation, the two meetings we had in St. John's, where there were

presentations at both from parents representing the Vaters system, their

expectation is they will have to pay for their own busing.

The government will be saying, through Ms Delaney's

office, to the different school boards that they will be given a block funding

for busing. It will be very marginally reduced from last year. It will be almost

at last year's level. For the whole of the Province I think our numbers last

year were in the range of $26 million or $27 million. The expectation is that,

through the ten boards, we will distribute $1 million less, so depending on

their populations, they could get $100,000 or so less than it had the year

before. They expect and we expect that just by the elimination of cross-busing

they will save that amount and more. Because of the block funding approach to

boards, they will actually have some busing money they might even be able to put

into other parts of their system.

Here, if this particular board, because of the

approach that it is taking, feels that it is absolutely imperative that it

continue the system it has for one more year, even though it would contravene

the general government policy, we would have to wait and hear from them as to an

exemption on a special case for one year, if that is what makes the best

educational sense for this board.

The clear expectation of the parents is that even for

September coming, if Vaters is to continue as a Pentecostal school of that

designation, and if they choose to go, they expect to pay for their own busing.

Now whether the board will actually come to that conclusion or not I don't know

because it is a matter again that will be left in their hands. If they are not

going to do that, I expect they would need some kind of permission from us

because the government's general stated policy is not to provide paid

transportation beyond a school that can meet the educational needs of the

students.

MR. H. HODDER: I seem to recall a question: What

is the target for savings for school busing, say as of September of 1998? We

were up to about $28 million a few years ago, a few hundred thousand over that,

and you say you are down now this year, 1997, to about $26 million or

thereabouts, then there must be a target that you have when all the

consolidations are done of schools. We are losing sixty schools: Will there be

further savings in school busing or will the more consolidations we have, in

fact, result in more school busing? Therefore, some of the savings you were

achieving in terms of teacher allocations and other supports - you know, keeping

sixty schools open and heated and everything else, there have to be savings

there. What is the projection and how will all these changes affect the budget

for school busing, let's say within the next year-and-a-half, September of 1998?

MR. GRIMES: I think the specifics of it, in this

budget year that we are now going to operate under, in the school system for

'97-'98, is, as I have indicated, we fully expect - and the discussions have

already started with the school boards - to fund $1 million less, done on some

kind of prorated per capita basis under the different boards depending on what

they were; and that it will be reviewed after they put their systems in place

for the next school year.

As to what kinds of potential savings there might be

for the year after: The government has not made any kind of a firm decision as

to whether any further efficiencies in busing that they might actually be able

to accomplish in another year, out of September of 1998, would then stay in the

block completely, to be used by the boards for other purposes, or whether the

government at that point, when we do the detailed review of our second year

budget - because we have some broader sweep approaches to the three-year budget

targets, but each year we will do a review when we come with the detailed

estimates to the Legislature. We would have to look, at that point, as to where

the various pressures are.

The hope and expectation of the Department of

Education would be that if the government's position is such that there is no

great demand or stress and so on for further reductions in the Education budget,

that that is the kind of money we would like to leave in the system for the

boards, that if they make further efficiencies they might be able to use it for

something else. But again, we cannot give them a letter or anything saying that

at this point, for two years out, because the circumstances may change. We may

have to go out to them again and say: We know you made more than a million

dollars worth of adjustments in this year coming up. They will have the money to

use for other things in 1997-1998, and we will have to discuss with them whether

we then say: Because you made more than a million dollars worth of savings, we

might have to now shave that transportation budget by another million dollars

for 1998-1999.

MR. H. HODDER: You may actually have to increase

it because of the fact that you cannot close sixty schools and bus children over

long distances without saying there is a cost to that.

On the issue of school construction programs: You know

that a few years ago we did, or I should say the Province did, a school-board

facility analysis, done by Tom LaFosse. That was back some years ago, and the

report was written but it was never ever published. In fact, it was never

printed as such. In doing that, my question would be: If school boards are out

there analyzing the state of their facilities, are we having consistent criteria

being used, and in terms of the physical state of the building, with engineering

criteria and financial viability, is an analysis being done? In other words,

what direction is the Province giving to school boards in terms of analyzing the

physical state and the maintenance costs of their buildings, and is that

consistent across all boards? In other words, are you providing the model for

that, and what support are you giving these boards in that particular analysis?

MR. GRIMES: Two things to that, Mr. Chairman. Mr.

LaFosse was actually, I believe, seconded to the department for a period of time

when he was doing that work.

MR. H. HODDER: (Inaudible)?

MR. GRIMES: His job actually didn't get completed,

the report didn't reach a final stage, before his secondment finished and I

believe he then retired, at that particular point. Part of that information is

around. He had done some work particularly in boards that he was familiar with,

like the old Avalon Consolidated Board and those things. Some he had close to

consistency and completion.

At this point what the provincial construction board

is doing: They have had indications from the boards, which may have used

different criteria themselves, because they did it independently when they sent

in their list as to what their priorities are and what their expectations were

and what their suggested potential costs were and so on. What the provincial

construction board is doing already is it is using, at this point, the services

of engineers and consultants in the Department of Works, Services and

Transportation to do a consistent evaluation of all of them. The engineers

actually from the Department of Works, Services and Transportation have done

some travelling in the Province, looking at the ones that are listed as

priorities by the ten boards, to give a consistent view and a consistent

analysis of them.

The models, as to expected cost and finances, are done

by a school construction sort of manual and guide that is done jointly between

the Departments of Education and Works, Services and Transportation, where they

have some standards for normal square footage, cost per square foot, in

different areas of the Province. Therefore, you would make at least a pretty

standard consistent guess as to what the potential cost of a project might be

for a school intended to house a certain grade level and a certain number of

students, and the normal space that would be required for that, and what the

expectation would be for a cost of actually building it. That information is

available to the provincial school construction board from the manuals that are

already in the Departments of Education and Works, Services and Transportation.

At this point, the construction board will consider,

as well, whether or not they need to engage some other exterior consultants,

because there are some firms that do, I guess, inventories of facilities as

their primary work. Presently we are satisfied with the assistance that has been

provided on a consistent basis internally from the Department of Works, Services

and Transportation. If the workload gets heavier, it might be necessary to go to

an outside consultant, but then at least that one group would be looking at all

of the requests on a consistent basis; and that is the approach.

The Avalon East School Board, as an example, has

indicated that it wants to do a facilities inventory for its own board through

next fall before it makes the final decisions about potential consolidations and

closures in the spring of 1998, and then the school system for September of

1998. At this point it has been indicating they don't have the wherewithal to do

that themselves, so they may very well be looking for some consulting

assistance. We would suggest to them, they would be well advised at least to

check with the provincial school construction board. Because there wouldn't be

much point in them having an evaluation done on a completely different set of

criteria than what the provincial construction board is using. We work with them

MR. H. HODDER: Keeping in mind, of course, that

next year eighty-five of the approximately 370 schools would be within that one

school board.

MR. GRIMES: With the one board.

MR. H. HODDER: Or that one school system for the

Province. So it is a substantial piece of the total educational system for the

entire Province.

In terms of the analysis of existing schools that have

environmental defects, what is the progress on that analysis? We hear that there

are still some schools that have real issues out there, real concerns. Is there

a listing of schools with environmental defects available? What kind of

initiatives is the Province making to bring these schools, which otherwise are

good structures - putting more money where we are going to be closing down

facilities. Is there extra funding going to be made available to school boards

to handle these particular environmental defects?

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Chairman, a couple of things with

respect to that: Again, this was one of the matters that was discussed by the

provincial school construction board at its first meeting, because there are two

areas of concern for existing facilities. One is the environmental defects that

have already been identified in the random sample of some fifty schools, all of

which had a range of deficiencies -

MR. H. HODDER: Yes.

MR. GRIMES: - none of which the health and

environmental officials determined were so bad that they should close the school

immediately and evacuate. So it wasn't that serious, but there were a range of

deficiencies recognized. They were deficient in certain of a number of standards

that were supposed to be met.

I think the opinion of the construction board, as

reported to me, is that they need not do any further testing of the remaining

schools at this point unless there is a problem brought forward by parents,

students or teachers because of an outbreak of illness or whatnot that requires

immediate attention, but that they should, in fact, dedicate a significant

portion of the $14.2 million this year to some corrections on a board-by-board

basis as to the worst ones on the current list.

The list that was done was provided to each of the ten

boards, to the directors, pointing out which ones in their district had been

tested, what the deficiencies were, what the ranking was from worst to best.

They are going to consider it again at their next meeting, I understand from Ms

Delaney, as to whether they then try one of two approaches: either try to

identify the eight or ten worst in the Province, whether they all be with the

same board or not, which is the whole concept of the provincial construction

board for building new schools, or whether they give each of the ten districts a

portion of a budget to address the worst one or two in their area, so that every

region of the Province would get one or two addressed.

They have not come to a conclusion on that debate yet,

as to how they would approach it, but the expectation is that somewhere in the

range of $2.5 million or $3 million of the $14.2 million could be put aside for

environmental concerns immediately, that they could be addressed and done before

schools open in September of 1997. The other component is the notion that was

made public from the engineers in Works, Services and Transportation about some

defects in the roof joists. All of the schools have been tested and examined for

that particular type of roof joist and so on that has been there, and the board

has indicated they feel, because the emergent ones were done again this year -

if the inspection was done and showed a crack or a break it was immediately

welded and fixed while they were on site, even during the current school year.

The school construction board feels that that is

enough of a priority as well, that somewhere in the range of $4 million or $5

million might have to be dedicated to the rest of the deficiencies that have

been identified that did not need immediate attention last year; but they are

very nervous about the prospect of leaving potential roof problems unattended,

and they are going to address that. So, maybe fully one-half of the full

construction budget might go into two particular aspects rather than new

construction. They feel the priorities - and this is the sense of the board

after its first meeting - should be correcting some environmental problems, the

air quality issues in a number of schools, and trying to get them all done over

a three-or-four-year cycle and, as well, addressing difficulties with the roofs

that have been identified so that we don't run any risk of having collapsed

roofs.

I think all of us saw an

article in the paper from

another province where it was just good fortune that the part of a building that

collapsed there did not happen to have any students in there at the time, or

they had heard a rumble and escaped just beforehand, that type of thing. We

don't want to run the risk of that in the Province. So the really emergency ones

were dealt with as they were identified in the inspections that occurred during

the last school year, and the sense and direction of the provincial construction

board is that that really should be a priority again through this summer

construction season so that when they go back in September, students and

teachers and others who use these school facilities for public functions, would

feel quite safe in the buildings.

MR. H. HODDER: In terms of inspections: Are we

carrying our inspections as well? Where we have portable classrooms, are we

inspecting the ceilings in those portable classrooms? I say that because some

years ago, about twenty-five years ago, I happened to walk into a classroom, a

teacher walked in behind me, and without anything obvious happening the whole

ceiling in the two portable classrooms collapsed on top of the students.

I just wanted to remind the minister that there are

inspections, including looking at the structure of ceilings within portable

classrooms, as well as the regular steel structures that we have, and yet we did

have a collapse in a classroom at Morris Academy probably around 1973 or 1974.

MR. GRIMES: Those issues have, to date, been left

as regular board based and initiated maintenance issues. They then usually only

come to the attention of the DEC structure, previously, and now the provincial

construction board; if there is an actual issue and a request for capital

construction. The regular, I guess, inspection and maintenance of things, like

the roof, the patch jobs that are done, the tar and pitch and gravel that goes

on mostly every year to stop the leaks and so on, the vast majority of those,

unless they are major in terms of capital expenditure, are done by the boards

through their own regular inspection routines. They are done out of the board

offices and done out of their operating budgets, rather than any contact with

the department and so on.

There hasn't been any departmental led inspection of

roofing of, say, portables or temporary structures of that nature. The reason

that there was a major inspection done of all the facilities last time is

because, from the engineering association there was an alert sent out, I think,

to advise everybody that with a particular manufacturer which had participated

in several schools in the Province, there had been identified a defect in the

actual product that had been used. It was felt, through Works, Services and

Transportation, that they had to go out and do a special inspection of those,

because there had been a notice sent out into the community at large suggesting

there was defective material in existence.

Normally roof inspections, checking the windows for

leaks and drafts and those kinds of things, would be done on a board based

initiative for their regular maintenance and operation and wouldn't be an

initiative the department would be involved in.

MR. H. HODDER: On the issue of schools again, and

funding: The DECs a year or so ago were said to have had about $6 million which

they had built up over the years. I do believe there was some agreement made

back in the early 1970s that they could keep the interest that was accumulating

on their capital funds. About a year-and-a-half or two years ago that amounted

to about $6.5 million. With the restructuring of the DECs, has all of that money

(

a) been expended, or (

b) has it been returned to the, shall we say, general

capital fund that is now being controlled by the school construction board?

MR. GRIMES: I guess the best way to describe that

is it is a work that is still unfolding. The commitment from the former

Denominational Education Councils was that they would wrap up their operations

by the end of February, 1997. Their former staff received their notices and so

on. Then under the new act that we passed last December and proclaimed in

January, a new denominational commission was established. Then they staffed up

and we had discussions about their operating budgets, which are outlined here,

in the range of $350,000 and so on to operate, because that operation before

used to be in excess of $1 million, just a couple of years ago. Then it went

down to $960,000, last year it went down to $650,000, and this year I think it

is at $350,000 for the new commission.

The commitment from them, and the arrangement with

government, was that they would have all of their books audited, there would be

a final reconciliation of funds noting the commitment to government, and they

would return to the Consolidated Revenues of the Province, the funds they had

accumulated in their capital accounts and through their investments and so on.

The estimates a couple of years back were that it might be in the range of $6

million or $6.5 million.

After they honoured some commitments and so on, there

had actually been in excess of $1 million or so returned as a part of that

process. One or more of the councils ran into some difficulty getting their

audit finished. Again, Ms Delaney deals with the group. There is an expectation

that in the very near future final reconciliation of the accounts will be done

and a transfer of $1 million, $2 million or so on, on top of what they gave

before, will come into the general revenues of the Province. It is not going

into a capital account or anything else; they will be passing over and it will

be taken in as general revenues under the consolidated revenue fund, like all

monies coming to the government are. I think that was accounted for in the

expected revenues of the Province, and I think the estimate was that it would

not be $6.5 million. In the final discussion it looked like we could expect

between the effort before and the effort that is ongoing now, that it might be

closer to, maybe in the range of $2.5 million or $3 million instead of $6

million or $6.5 million. There is actual cash still left to come to the

government from the final wrap up of the denominational educational councils.

MR. H. HODDER: Yes, you are right when you say

that there was up to $960,000, or over $1 million a few years ago, down to

$596,000 last year and down to $350,000 this year. Of course, if I had my way,

each church would pay a dollar each and we would only give them that if they

matched it.

WITNESS: Could you put that in a private members'

motion?

MR. H. HODDER: (Inaudible) but I will ask a

question relative to that. Since we, the taxpayers of the Province, are now

continuing to pay the rentals for the space that we have in their facilities, is

there any movement to further reduce the expenditures by providing them space in

government-owned facilities? Why do they have to have this arm's-length

operation that is away from over there? If they are part of the system, they

should be part of the system and operate from the government offices like

everybody else. Why are we keeping them over there at arm's length? If they want

to be part of it, they should be part of it; if they want to be separate, let

them be separate and pay their own bill.

MR. GRIMES: We have had discussions with them with

respect to those issues. We are obligated, I guess, to at least, if they went

into some three-and-a-half years or so, I think it was a five-year lease at the

time, into the space that they currently occupy, for another fifteen months or

so, I think into September of 1998 - we looked at buying out the lease and

moving the group somewhere else, but it would actually cost more money; as much

or more. So the agreement was that we would leave them housed where they

currently are until this lease expires. They, with us, are looking for other

space, either in facilities that we have available within government buildings,

or in some other building that has already been paid for and leased by some

department of government, even if it is not us. There are facilities that have

been talked about like the -

MR. H. HODDER: There is plenty of space in several

offices in the Prince Charles Building and other places like that which are

government owned.

MR. GRIMES: The other notion is that, with the

downsizing of the current commission compared to the former three separate

councils, it is clear that they have much more space now than they need; in

fact, the whole thing is leased. We were looking, and are actively looking, with

them still, as to whether or not, even in the interim, we might be able to move

them somewhere else and sublet the full of the other space to another tenant;

because we are committed to the lease for another fifteen or sixteen months.

Secondly, we have also had continuing discussions with

them about subletting part of their current space to someone else. If we could

find that someone else can co-exist with that particular operation in that

space, we might be able to find some beneficial use for some other part of the

space that they currently occupy. That is an ongoing discussion again with the

department and the group. If we could find other appropriate accommodations for

them and could backfill with some other use of that space, that would happen

earlier rather than waiting until September of 1998.

I think they fully understand, and I have had the

discussions with them, by the way, you might be interested to know, along

exactly the same lines that you proposed, that the preference of the government

really would be to give them zero, not even a dollar each maybe.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. H. HODDER: Anyway, I want to thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for your indulgence. I have to apologize to the committee. I have

thirty students from Mary Queen of the World downstairs, and with the change in

this committee, I changed it around to facilitate Wednesday night and all the

rest of it. I told to come on in this morning, so the Sergeant-At-Arms is

downstairs waiting, and I shall be out for a few minutes. This is your chance to

speed things up, and God bless you. Thank you.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We may be gone when you get back,

Harvey.

CHAIR: The Vice-Chair, who is the education

critic.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was interested, Mr. Minister, in your comment, in

your introduction, about the numbers of students we now have in our school

population being equal to the numbers that we had approximately forty years ago.

When you really consider that statistic it is even perhaps more alarming when we

do an analysis of the actual age of students in terms of school-aged students,

and those children attending school. An observation of mine would be that in the

1950's we certainly would have a significant number of students of school age

not in school compared with that same statistic today. So that even drives home,

I would think, the alarming decrease in our school-aged population.

MR. GRIMES: If I could just follow the point.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Sure, please.

MR. GRIMES: I think we looked at that analysis a

little while ago. I think the statistical one you might even have. There are

copies of that in circulation; you probably have them yourself. I think it

showed at that time that there was about a 50 per cent retention rate. It was

pretty clear - because the statistics here are tracked even by grade level -

that what we had basically were about 80,000 students who were, say, in K to VI,

and we might have had about 20,000 who might have been in VII to XI, because

there was a very significant drop-out rate at age thirteen and fourteen, as you

would know; people left school and went to work. It was not that they could not

handle the education system; it was that there were opportunities and that was

the culture of the day, to go to school until you were a young teenager and then

leave.

I think a further analysis would also show that there

would be an imbalance in the high school population in favour of girls, that

there would be more females who tended to stay than males at that particular

age, because the young men went to work either in the woods or fishing with the

fathers in many instances, because that was the culture of the day. We think we

have some gender imbalance now, but it was pretty significant forty years ago.

The point you make is exactly correct, as I see it, in

that we would have had a population now that is spread pretty evenly. As a

matter of fact, it is top-end loaded now; our class age groups and grade groups

are bigger at the junior high and high school level than they are the school

entry level, and it was the exact reverse some forty years ago.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I am always interested in this

statistic, the pupil-teacher ratio. We hear comments regularly, particularly, I

guess, from our teachers' association, about exactly what criteria is used in

determining, I believe the number you used, Mr. Minister, was 20.4 in terms of

the average class size. We hear suggestions from time to time that that is not,

I guess, a true reflection of pupil-teacher ratio when one takes into account

guidance councillors, professional people, program consultants and so on. What I

am wondering is: In arriving at that figure, exactly what sort of analysis is

done and what is the raw data or the empirical evidence, I guess, which would

have been considered to arrive at that? Once and for all, I wonder, could we

have a clear understanding, describing in detail who is considered; what

individuals or professionals within our education system would be included or

excluded; what is the true figure in terms of those individuals who make up the

information leading to that figure of 20.4?

MR. GRIMES: I appreciate your raising that issue

because it is one, I think, that probably deserves some further clarification.

We used the statistic in our public consultation

document for last fall, and members like Ms Hodder and so on who attended the

session in Marystown, and members like yourself who attended sessions, I think,

in Placentia and Harbour Grace and others, would know that at each one of the

meetings there was always a point of contention raised by teachers and parents

about what the pupil-teacher ratio really meant. Was it significant and did it

really mean anything with respect to the classrooms of the Province?

The number you just used, 20.4, is the average class

size which is not a number that has been disputed between government and the

NLTA. The pupil-teacher ratio in the Province had been at 14.6, and with the

reductions in the 468 teachers, it will now be 14.8 which is still the lowest.

That is the number that draws the attention and draws the questioning as to what

does it include; does it really have any impact; is it really any measure of how

many children are going to be in that class. The answer has always been

consistent: No, it is not a measure of how many children might be in any one

class, but it is the only statistic that is used by every educational

jurisdiction in the country for purposes of making comparisons as to what their

efforts are in putting professional educators in the hands of school boards, to

use with the students.

There has been no agreed-to, across-Canada,

pan-Canadian comparison of average class sizes, but there has been an agreed-to

comparison of what effort is the government in each jurisdiction making to

provide professional educators to meet the needs of the students; and that is

the pupil-teacher ratio. The reality of it is, that each of the provinces - we

do not provide a number, we do not do a calculation here to say that our

pupil-teacher ratio is 14.8, and then have Nova Scotia do theirs which says

theirs is fifteen point something, and have Alberta do theirs which shows theirs

is 17.3 or whatever. We do not do them ourselves.

What every province does, is provide the raw data to

the educational statistical agency of Stats Canada. We tell them how many

classroom teachers we provide, and here it is one teacher for every twenty-three

students. We tell them how many administrators we provide, and here there is a

formula for that. We tell them how many guidance counsellors we provide. We tell

them how many other specialists there are for special education. So we tell them

at the end of the day, in the school system, how many trained educators of every

description, and each description is provided to the statistical agency and does

include classroom teachers, principals, vice-principals, the various

specialists, guidance counsellors, special education teachers and itinerant

teachers, who are the ones I was referencing earlier, specialists who are out

there checking on students with hearing impairment and working in several

schools instead of just one school. So every jurisdiction provides that

information to Statistics Canada; and they have, I guess, a branch of Stats

Canada which does education statistics in particular.

There is also the Atlantic Provinces Education

Foundation which does some correlation of information just for the Atlantic

Provinces, and there is the British Columbia Interprovincial Education

Statistics project which does the same thing out of BC. They request

information, again raw data, from all of the jurisdictions of Canada, and they

send out comparisons; because what educators and parents want is a common

comparison. They want to know that when I say something in Newfoundland about

what we are doing, and when the minister in Nova Scotia says it and the minister

in BC says it, that we are comparing apples to apples; and that was the point of

the discussion, I think.

They were saying that the accusation always is, that

the number we are using is not a real number and is not calculated the same way

as it is calculated in other jurisdictions. Well, it is, because that is exactly

how it is done in everyone of the jurisdictions. We do not calculate a

pupil-teacher ratio ourselves. We send in the raw data to the statistical

agency, and everybody else sends in the raw data.

The statistical agency asks exactly the same

questions. They ask all twelve jurisdictions in Canada. They say: How many

classroom teachers are in your province today? How many principals are in your

province today? How many guidance counsellors are in your province today? How

many special education teachers are in your province today? They get that

information and then they do a division. Basically what the pupil-teacher ratio

says, that 14.8, if we round that off to 15 for Newfoundland, that for every

fifteen students who are in the system - now the students are of all

description, they are from severe disabilities to very bright and talented,

gifted students; there is a whole range of students. All the pupil-teacher ratio

endeavours to do is show, by a constant, consistent comparison, how many

educators of all these descriptions are here, compared to somewhere else. What

it amounts to is there is one in Newfoundland and Labrador for every fifteen. In

a place like Alberta there is one for every 17.8. So we provide more educators

into the system in this Province on a per student basis than they do in every

other jurisdiction in the country, except Quebec.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: So in arriving at the figure,

what you are saying is it is all-inclusive - it includes everybody within the

system - however, in arriving at that figure, the same analysis is used in each

Province.

MR. GRIMES: And in each province everybody

excludes board office staff. So that doesn't count the people -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: But does that include program

consultants at board office?

MR. GRIMES: Yes. Now they are the ones -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: They are not factored into the

ratio or they are?

MR. GRIMES: They are not factored into the ratio.

The distinction here is that they are part of the teacher's bargaining unit. By

description, they are part of the NLTA, and they are the only board office staff

that are. But for purposes of the calculation, as done by the B.C.

interprovincial agency and by Stats Canada, they exclude anybody who is working

at a board office.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: In all provinces.

MR. GRIMES: In all provinces.

I know the question has been raised many times, and I

have answered it many times, but again, I guess, the debate usually then shifts

to saying: Okay, it might be a consistent number but it is not important anyway

because that does not tell you how many students are in a classroom; and it

doesn't.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I think what (inaudible)

statistics on legitimacy is the fact that it is uniform across the country, but

where the argument perhaps has some weakness is the types of individuals and the

roles of various individuals that are applied to determining that end result.

Because it seems to give a message, or perhaps even an impression, that the

situation is a lot better, but after close scrutiny, because of the information

which is introduced in coming up with this statistic, it is somewhat distorted.

I think what gives it legitimacy, having said that, is the fact there is

uniformity across the country.

MR. GRIMES: There is no question again that there

are differences in the different provinces. In some places there is more of a

concentration of classroom teachers, in other places there is more of a

concentration of specialties in other areas, but when you take the total number,

which they always do, and do the division, like I say, at least there is a

consistency to the global picture. There are a lot of differences inside the

information. The parental concern expressed at the meetings that we attended

through last fall, once they would argue about the pupil-teacher ratio, because

some people would say to me: Are you trying to suggest to me that the class

sizes in Newfoundland are 14.8? I said: No, I am not. I am not suggesting any

such thing. The average class size in the Province is a little over twenty, and

there are, I think, in 3 per cent of our classes in the Province, over forty,

but there is also 5 per cent of our classes that are smaller than ten. So we

have a pretty wide distribution because of the geography and demography of the

Province.

We have acknowledged all along, as the Department of

Education, that there are probably very good reasons why we have the

second-lowest pupil-teacher ratio in the Province, because it is kind of hard

not to put some teachers in Harbour Deep where there might only be thirty

students; but you are going to put two or three teachers in there because

otherwise you cannot offer the minimum program that is prescribed by the

Province. The generally believed view in the Province is that we probably have

as much as, if not more, isolated scattered community situations like that than

most other jurisdictions.

What we have indicated in our last round of

discussions, since the budget with the NLTA, with the Home and School Federation

and with the School Board Association, is that through next fall we will do one

other public exercise; we will go around the Province and ask the school boards,

in public meetings with the parents, in the wide-open spaces, not in any kind of

private meetings or anything, to run some models for us as to what will happen

and what choices do they have in their district if the government follows its

policy of letting the teacher workforce track the size of the student

population, because that is the government's policy, that if the students

disappear then we take out some teachers.

We would like to know; so there is not much point in

going to a place like Clarenville, because the population is pretty stable, but

if you get some of the smaller communities, as the member knows, say Burgoynes

Cove this year where they are likely to close the school, if you go to a

neighbouring community where they have a small school that is fairly close to

some other community that has a shrinking population - those are the kinds of

places we expect to go and have the meetings and say: Tell us, school board,

what will happen here if we take another twenty teachers from your board next

year? Because the generic nature of the formulae that allows this is that, if it

is 14 point, if you round it off to 15, if that is, say, the general overall

pupil-teacher ratio, then the notion is that for every fifteen students who

disappear we will take out another teacher. So, if 4,000 students disappear

again, you have yourself 200 to 250 teachers who, theoretically, can come out of

the system; but they do not come out in batches of fifteen as everybody knows.

You do not have fifteen coming out of one room in Clarenville. If that happens,

well, easy enough, take out a teacher because there are fifteen students gone,

but it is probably one in Clarenville, it is one somewhere else on Random

Island, and there is one down the shore a little ways. There are fifteen alright

but they are probably scattered in fifteen buildings.

So we want to go, in a very public fashion, and

examine that issue, that we have a policy statement, we have a policy position

that we intend to follow as long as it makes educational sense. I think you,

yourself, as the critic and others again might be interested in being involved

in that exercise as you were last year, with some of our public meetings, just

to see, because the information will largely be coming to us from the directors

of education, who know how their systems organize. They know how many schools

they are running, they know what their student enrolments are projected to be.

We will say: Okay, the expectation is that even if we take a round number, there

will be 4,000 less students for the next year. The quick math will give you

about 250 teachers as a reduction.

Let us go out and say: Where is that breakdown? It

would not be divided by ten because that is not how it happens. It is not that

there is an even distribution of the population, but even if it were, you would

have twenty-five teachers taken from each board, again, for a future year. Can

they accommodate it without major disruption in the system? That is what we want

to find out next fall.

So the pupil-teacher ratio is a useful, consistent

statistic for purposes of interprovincial comparison. I contend, it does not do

much at all to suggest to a parent as to what size classroom a child might be in

in any one circumstance in Newfoundland and Labrador, but if you are looking at

an interprovincial comparison to show the effort of the government in providing

professional educators into the system, we do it better than eleven

jurisdictions in the country. There may be good reasons as to why we have to do

that, as I say, because of isolation, geography, the population spread,

demography and so on. The fact is we are second best in the country right now.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Well the statistic, as I see it,

is for comparison purposes, as opposed to an aid for delivery of program or

delivery of services. Is that a fair comment?

MR. GRIMES: I could not agree more. I think that

would be a very appropriate description of it. So when you are looking at a

statistical measure to say, what is the measure of the government's effort on a

broad, general basis in this Province, compared to other jurisdictions, it is a

good measure. As to actually making educational decisions and looking at the

impact on students in classrooms in the Province, it is not really that useful.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I have a question on, I guess,

the consequences of the cancellation of our public exam system. I am wondering

what initiatives the department has taken to ensure that there is some

uniformity within our schools, with respect to both testing and evaluation, with

a view, of course, to trying to achieve standardization, which is recognized as

being important and perhaps was the single, most important factor in our

position to the cancellation of public exams. I am wondering what initiatives or

direction the department has taken to ensure that there is this standardizing

within our school system on both testing and evaluation as a result of the

cancellation of public exams?

MR. GRIMES: None, specifically, at the

school-leaving level in terms of final certification. The university is

considering, through its Senate process, whether or not they feel any necessity

to establish any kind of entrance exam or anything of that nature. So far, they

have been more than willing to accept the Attestant School Leaving Certificate

from the Department of Education, based on school-based and school-administered

evaluation and testing.

The teachers and the boards know - and what the counts

in in-service over the years has always indicated - everybody knows the basic

components of the curriculum that are expected to be covered in all of the

courses that are required to meet the graduation requirements of thirty-six

credits through the high school system. There have been banks of testing items

and common approaches developed over the years through the public examination

system. The offer has been made for anyone who wants to use those; and actually

the department, up to a year or so ago, used to publish every year the exam

questions from the year before so that teachers would have a bank of questions,

or types of questions, that they could incorporate into their own examinations,

so there would be consistency in terms of the level of questioning of the

material that was covered.

Quite a bit of work had been done, in any event, by

school boards with teachers for their own school-based and local-based

evaluation of examinations that were not on the public examination list. Because

while a student, to get a high school leaving certificate, required thirty-six

credits, there were only a maximum of eighteen of them that were ever examined

publicly. The other seventeen or eighteen, or depending on the mix of courses

that they took, were always examined locally under the supervision of the

teacher, with no direct input from the department other than the regular

in-service to teachers encouraging them to use proper standardized, not

necessarily a public exam, but standardized and accepted levels of evaluation

and testing; so that is a constant effort.

I think one of the things, as well - it is one of the

components that is compulsory in teacher education training in the Province - is

that every teacher has to go through a course that deals with evaluation

standardization and those kinds of things, so that they will be equipped to know

the theories and approaches behind proper evaluation to make a determination as

to whether or not a student has actually learned the desired outcomes from a

course that has been taken. So half of the system, even at the high school

level, 100 per cent of the system up to Grade IX, had always been left in the

hands of local testing and teacher-oriented evaluation done through their own

expertise and directed many times by the boards, because some of the boards had

their own evaluation policies as well. Now the whole system is left to that. All

of the past experience of public examinations, some forty-odd years of it, is

available to teachers in terms of at least knowing the type and level and kinds

of questions that have been determined to be appropriate through the public exam

process before.

Last year, when we did the short notice cancellation

of examinations, we even offered, at a point in the discussions, to make the

exams - because they had already been prepared - available to teachers for use

in the school if they wanted. At the end of the day that wasn't the approach

taken. Again, that bank of information and the wealth of knowledge that came

from it, for consistency, is there for teachers to use in terms of making up

their own examinations at any point in time.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I notice in the estimates that

the funding which was made available for an assessment of the impact of the

Royal Commission, of course, has been suspended, and I think last year was the

last year. I am just looking for that, to find the exact page. Oh, I see it.

MR. GRIMES: That was the Royal Commission

Secretariat?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, I have it, Royal Commission

Implementation.

MR. GRIMES: Page 184, is it?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes.

I am just wondering: There is no funding in the

estimates shown for that; and I remember this issue came up last year. It was

certainly proposed by the department that last year that particular funding

would expire. Despite the fact that the funding has expired, my guess is that

the implementation of the Royal Commission and its recommendations is still seen

by the department as being significant and important, and there is always an

attempt made, I would think, to ensure that many of the recommendations of the

commission are certainly addressed and hopefully implemented.

I am wondering then, Mr. Minister: In view of the fact

that the actual funding has ended, am I correct in assuming that the department

is still mindful of these recommendations, and what specific steps are being

taken by the department to ensure that many of these recommendations, as found

in the Royal Commission, are addressed and, as I indicated, hopefully brought

into action?

MR. GRIMES: I am glad you raised the point again,

actually, because it is an important issue and remains to be. I guess certain

policy items or certain documents become the guide post, or the phrase I

sometimes use, `the bible', for somebody in trying to say: Well, if you are ever

going to stray, check this because this is what you are supposed to be doing.

Other times, in the past, I would refer to administration where the Strategic

Economic Plan, for example, was seen to be one of the bibles, that every time a

department of government was making a decision they would be well-advised to

check and see whether or not they were forwarding one of the actual

recommendations of the Strategic Economic Plan.

What we have been challenged to do in the department,

from K to 12, is again continue to use the Williams' Commission Report and its

recommendations as the bible for the department because the government has

accepted it in principle.

The Royal Commission Implementation Secretariat that

had been established was very necessary in the first couple of years because a

lot of the attention, I think as you had pointed out actually in some of your

representations in the Legislature, had focused on the legal, administrative

aspects instead of the school-based educational things that probably could have

proceeded in any event; and we concurred with that assessment. A number of the

school-based initiatives, like the establishment of the school councils, just as

an example, had been proceeding in any event for some couple of years now. It

slowed down a bit last year because of board organization, the fact that we did

not have resources to go out and assist, but still continued, however not at the

pace of the previous year.

The Implementation Secretariat had concentrated a lot

on trying to organize some things and had done a lot of work with respect to the

constitutional issues, the actual changing from twenty-seven school boards to

ten, working on preparing the legislation for the new Schools Act, the new

Education Act, things that again would set up the framework for what is going to

happen in the schools, but were not directly curriculum related. What we had

decided to do in the department was to clearly change a bit of focus and

indicate that the Assistant Deputy Minister who is not with us today, Dr.

Oakley, would take full responsibility, as the ADM responsible for K to 12, for

the implementation of school-based, curriculum-related recommendations for the

Royal Commission. So there is not a Royal Commission implementation group

funded, but the mandate with respect to school-based issues in the report that

had been housed in this, along with everything else, has been handed clearly

over to Dr. Oakley - what was the phrase we used (inaudible)? Do it! Do it!

WITNESS: Handle it! Handle it!

MR. GRIMES: Handle it! Handle it! Who used to say

that? I am trying to remember who used to say that on a tv program. Was it Boss

Hogg in the Dukes of Hazard? Now, there you go; our technician tells us yes it

was. I do know it was somebody on tv. Whenever anything came up, he said: Handle

it! Handle it! But handle it, handle it, now is, I guess, what Dr. Oakley has

been charged to do with respect to the school-based, student-based, education

curriculum-based initiatives that are outlined still in the Williams' Commission

that have not reached full implementation yet. I think one of the latest things

that has occurred - he is the one, for example, who is leading and spearheading

the final analysis of the Special Matters Report from Dr. Canning; and based on

some of the input that we got from the different stakeholders and agencies, is

now trying to help us formulate a position for government as to what we may or

may not be able to do about some of those recommendations. So, that is the

notion that has occurred there.

Now, of course, as we know, the other big piece of

work that really dominated the agenda for well over a year, in terms of steering

the constitutional change through our Legislature and through the Parliament of

Canada and steering and guiding the new legislation through - that work had

largely been done and finished, so we did not see any real downside to

disbanding a separate Secretariat. The person who had been in charge of it has

returned to his former position at the university. The other staff have returned

to their former functions within the department, but many of them are still

available to Dr. Oakley to assist in the school-based student centre changes on

which we are now trying to focus.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Okay, I am going to go to the

issue of the Francophone school board. I believe only recently, in the last

couple of weeks, there was a press release indicating that the Francophone

school board would be up-and-running for this September. It was envisaged, of

course, there would be one board that would deal primarily with a number of

geographic areas: St. John's, Labrador, and I believe the Port au Port Peninsula

area. Could you just give the committee some indication as to exactly, number

one, if that is the plan, if things are on

schedule and these are the areas of

the Province that will be affected; and how do you envisage the board, I guess,

satisfying the needs of the Francophone community within our Province? To what

extent will it be dealing primarily with the Francophone community, or will

there be some overlap with those students who are involved with the core French

program? Will the Francophone school board attempt to include those students

involved in core French, or will it be primarily exclusive of the Francophone

community in the Province?

MR. GRIMES: A timely issue as well because, as you

have indicated, there has been some continuing concern from the Francophone

community as to whether or not we are going to be able to give them the legal

wherewithal in time for them to get up-and-running for September of 1997, for

the next school year, because that is what they would like to accomplish.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I believe the impression given

from the last press release was, that was the objective of the department as

well, as I understand it.

MR. GRIMES: Very much so. Actually, I was hoping

to see you privately later today, and will, because I want to share with you the

actual draft of the legislation that has now, at this stage, received Cabinet

approval. We have worked very closely with the representatives of the

Francophone community and their legal counsel. We will be providing them today,

actually, with the draft bill that we hope to present in the Legislature, with

the concurrence of the Opposition and the Leader of the NDP, in a matter of

days, so that we could hope that we would have some concurrence on the issue.

Because I believe the sentiment, as we understand it, is that everybody agrees

that this should occur, and we just want to see now, in line with the questions

that you have asked, is it going to cover those particular areas, and is it

going to cover it to the satisfaction of the Francophones, first and foremost;

and, secondly, what are the interplays with other students in French, and will

there be any kind of linkage?

It is clear, in discussions with them - the draft

legislation that I will share with you later today lays out their wishes for

representation from the three main areas where they have Francophone

populations, St. John's, Labrador, Labrador West in particularly, and the Port

au Port Peninsula. It is largely designed, as we understand, to meet their

request in terms of how they want to structure their own organization.

It is clear that there would be no overlap with

students are in. This is a Francophone school board for Francophone students,

for Francophone schools, and there is not an expectation that there will be any

overlap at all, that this is going to be a school system run by and for the

Francophone population of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Anglophones: I don't even know how to answer the

question as to whether an Anglophone parent might want to register their child

in a Francophone school. I guess it would be an advanced version of French

Immersion because it will be clearly, 100 per cent, a French structure run by

the Francophones for Francophones. I think currently - how many schools are they

offering at this point?

WITNESS: Five.

MR. GRIMES: Five to date.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MR. GRIMES: Five that are identified as

Francophone schools, and those five will be under the complete jurisdiction of

this Francophone school board in September.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: An interesting point, though;

would an Anglophone parent, as you see it, be denied the right to enrol a child

within a school under the jurisdiction of a Francophone school?

MR. GRIMES: The potential exists. My

off-the-top-of-the-head answer would be that they would have the right, the same

as other boards would, by setting up attendance zones and attendance policies,

to say that this is for Francophones. I don't know what their thoughts are on

it, but I would expect that just as the other ten boards have the right to set

attendance policies, this board would have the right to set attendance policies.

Whether they would consider that to be a reasonable attendance policy -

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Interesting issue. It never

occurred to me before, to be honest.

MR. GRIMES: No, and me either.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: You know, It is a matter of

definition, isn't it?

MR. GRIMES: I don't know if the Deputy, because

she has been involved in some of the discussions with the group, has any

indication that that is (inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: It is an interesting legal issue,

I'm sure, as your deputy would agree, because it is a question of definition. I

mean, a maternal grandparent, for example, may fit within the definition, but

the family seeking admission within the school board may be completely

Anglophone, but with a maternal or paternal Francophone grandparent fitting

within a more global definition.

MR. GRIMES: It would be interesting, because the

whole driving force behind it, as we recall, is a

section 23 issue under the

Charter, where there are rights for Francophones where numbers warrant; because

that is where that language actually exists. It has been used a lot in other

contexts, but where it doesn't exist. Where numbers warrant, and the government,

of course, agreeing that we would concede that the numbers warrant rather than

have it tested in court, is now giving the Francophones - I guess, however being

Francophone is defined under the Charter, is what will determine the

(inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: So, what we are waiting for is

the first Francophone-Anglophone interdenominational, unidenominational

application.

MR. GRIMES: There might be some native or

aboriginal references in there as well.

You probably have dealt with and know more of the

issues of how the Charter applies, and who is entitled or not, than I do. The

intent clearly, through the whole piece, is to provide for the Francophones, who

either agree amongst themselves or have legally decided they are Francophone, to

be able to run their own system for themselves. I guess if anybody else wants in

they can ask, but there is no guarantee. I don't think you can demand to get in.

It will be interesting.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, indeed.

The School for the Deaf: I wonder, Mr. Minister, if

you or one of your officials could just comment briefly on - I guess it is more

of a monetary question than anything. There is some slight discrepancy or

variance, I guess, from last year's figures and this year's Estimates. I'm

wondering if you could specifically indicate what allows for that slight

variation in the Estimates for this year compared with last year, as it relates

to the School for the Deaf.

MR. GRIMES: It is all administrative at this

point. Probably, just so that you will hear a different voice for a while and

whatnot, maybe either the Deputy or Ms Delaney, both of whom have dealt with it

directly, could give you the details of it. We have had the discussion on Budget

Day with the parent group from the School for the Deaf. They fully understand

what the changes are to occur, what accounts for the difference, and have

indicated that they think it will certainly be accommodated without any

detrimental affect to the student at the School for the Deaf. So, either of the

two.

MS DELANEY: The minister is correct, all the

reductions are on the administrative side, and all in positions, in fact. It

includes a business manager, a couple of clerks and a janitor, I think. All of

the reductions are totally on the administrative side.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: So, no impact on instruction or

programming? None whatsoever?

MS DELANEY: No. The number of teachers remains

exactly the same as they were last year, even though the student population is

declining.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I'm not really surprised to hear

that, because I remember last year there was a fairly significant lobby group,

and fairly vocal representation, on behalf of deaf advocates within the

community, which quite frankly I haven't heard this year, in response to the

Estimates and to the Budget documentation being released. That, perhaps,

explains why.

MS DELANEY: We met with the parent group on Budget

Day and basically went through the reductions and the rationale for the

reductions, in fact, and I think they accepted them.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, and obviously with success,

I would think.

MS DELANEY: That's right.

MR. GRIMES: It is true that the prior year was a

little different because there were actually a couple of units in terms of

instruction and so on that were to be removed from the system. There was, again,

resistance to that. This year it was clear to everyone that with regard to the

people who were going to have direct contact with the students, that there was

going to be no impact and also their equipment and purchase budget, in terms of

getting the aids and equipment that they need for their students, all was kept

at status quo. I did not attend the meeting myself but I met the president of

the group afterwards just in the hallway, and they indicated that they were

quite satisfied and pleased to see that we had made some moves on the budget,

but they agreed that it was not going to have a detrimental impact on the

service to the actual students themselves.

CHAIR: Maybe, before we go to another member, we

should discuss whether or not we want to take a coffee break or, if you wish,

continue.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: We have a caucus meeting fairly

soon and, as you know, we have significant opportunity in the House of Assembly,

Mr. Minister, through the concurrence debates, to review the Estimates of this

department and others. I could certainly limit my questions and, perhaps, with

the consent of the rest of the committee, we can agree not to have a coffee

break and perhaps conclude fairly quickly? That would be my suggestion.

CHAIR: Right. Go ahead.

WITNESS: (Inaudible) could almost have the same

procedure (inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, we did that last year and I

found that very helpful, just questions back and forth. It is really a

continuation of the specifics, perhaps, as we see them in the Estimates.

One question, and again it was raised, Mr. Minister,

in your introductory comments in dealing with the budget for substitute

teachers. I believe you indicated that they were returning to the level of some

two years ago. What does this mean in terms of - and I realize this is perhaps

more of a board-directed area - but, what do you see as minister in this

department? How does this translate in terms of the activities, extra-curricula

activities, leave, the whole issue of those reasons, I guess, for which

substitute teachers are required? What is your analysis of this whole area,

particularly when you say it is returning to the level that we had some two to

three years ago? At the end of the day, what is the impact of all of this on the

student in our classroom?

MR. GRIMES: Two things: I think it makes it clear

that the concern and disruption that were obvious at the beginning of this

school year about the potential for teachers to be denied leave and the

provision of a substitute so they then would not be available to volunteer or to

go with student groups for different activities, whether it be sports or other

student related activities in the school; that issue should not raise itself at

all. It is clear now that all of the provisions under the collective agreement

with respect to teacher leave and provision of substitution to support student

activity, extra-curricula activities, will be able to be met by the school

boards.

The

article has always been a may

article with respect

to the boards but the days that are there and provided for, so many per teacher

per year, are available in this block of money to the boards. We had an

agreement with the boards at the end of some discussions last year that they

would not unnecessarily deny a teacher, if the intent was for the teacher to

accompany groups of students because there were activities that they had worked

hard at raising money for and so on, that they wanted to see occur.

The other big part, of course, the other big piece of

it, is that the restoration of the money which is in the range of $2.5 million

provides the ability - began a series of summer institutes where they come into

the University and they refresh and upgrade themselves in the latest techniques,

the latest developments, in their areas of curriculum.

Last year, because of some concerns over this issue,

the public examination cancellations and a number of things, the NLTA advised

its members not to participate in summer institutes that were already planned.

This year, as far as I know, in our latest report, they are encouraging their

members to participate again, and all because they at least appreciates the fact

that during the regular year there will be substitute days available again in

September 1997, and through the year, for teachers to be in-serviced as needed.

Boards have dealt with it in two different ways. Most

boards actually have used a dual policy. One being that the board itself decides

and dictates a certain amount of in-service that it wants to do for certain

groups of teachers. They request their teachers to come to certain sessions and

provide substitution to fill in back in the school. The other issue is that

teachers themselves, because of their area of expertise and what they are

teaching, seek out different conferences, meetings and other things,

professional development activities, that they request to go to individually.

The board is able to meet some or all of those requests as well.

Our understanding again, from the NLTA, is that both

should occur, that we should hear no reference whatsoever of a threat to a

discontinuation of extra-curricular activities as a result of this

reinstatement, and that teachers should be able to go back to, I guess the

phrase would be, a much more normal level of ongoing professional development

opportunities throughout the school year; Either organized by the board for

groups of teachers in the board, or permitted for a teacher to go to an

individually chosen in-service opportunity, and for their work day and work

duties to be back filled by a professional substitute at the same time.

Being in government, of course, we were hoping that we

would get high praise publicly for that from the Teachers' Association, but that

didn't quite occur. They just decided not to say much about it.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: My last question has to do with

the topic of distance education. About three weeks ago, I visited the community

of Long Harbour where I witnessed, at least, a fairly energetic group of

students, a small number of students, who were involved, I think, in advanced

math at the time. That is a school, as the minister is aware, which is closing.

A few days after that I was at a school in Southern Harbour where they too have

a distance education program. That is a school which is not closing but is

undergoing some changes in terms of designation. It is uncertain as to exactly

what the end result of that will be. It is my understanding that the high school

students in that particular school will be going to, I believe, Arnold's Cove

next year.

My point is, what I was able to witness was a program

that from my observations at least appeared to be working. The distance

education program, as I say, is designed for, I guess, relatively small numbers

of students in smaller communities to give them an opportunity to share what

other students in the Province would have the opportunity to have. When we look

at the Estimates we don't see any significant change, I guess, when comparing

this year with last year.

I'm wondering: What does the department see as the

future for this program as it relates to our schools in providing an opportunity

for students, particularly in our smaller communities, in our smaller schools,

which even after the reform process is complete presumably will still exist?

MR. GRIMES: An interesting area, actually. There

were a couple of things we participated in just recently. One was working with

other groups to have the Chair of Telelearning established at Memorial

University so that the teachers themselves, as part of their training program,

can become much more familiar and comfortable with the whole notion of distance

education as part of the overall programming base for the students.

While it is concentrated and targeted for more rural,

isolated schools where there are limited opportunities, it is interesting to

note that students in St. John's use Distance Education for some subject areas

in some of the schools, advanced placements in mathematics and so on. They might

not have a full class and they might not have a teacher available for it but

they can do it in St. John's in a school, the same as anywhere else.

The funding that is here basically sets up the centres

from which the instruction is actually done and co-ordinated, and pays a bit of

the services for telephone lines and those types of things, but there is a

possibility in the meantime that there might have to be some expansion of the

program. We don't sense that we need to expand the number of sites from which

the actual instruction is being done and then put out on line, but there might

have to be some expansions of the opportunities in some of the other schools,

even with the consolidations. Because if they need a broader range of

programming, and if the student base itself is not going to warrant the actual,

physical teachers, and in some instances the match is not exactly what school

boards and students and parents would desire, that they have some teachers but

they might not have somebody who is actually there and able to do chemistry with

them. So they might have lots of teachers but because of the way the hiring

goes, and the redundancies and the assignments go, and the collective agreements

and so on, they may not end up with a chemistry/physics or whatever specialist.

So they might need to have those program options filled by Distance Education

rather than an actual hands-on teacher in the school.

It is one of the things where, if there are some

shifts within the education budget over the next few years, it would not be

unreasonable to expect that there might be a shift in the area of Distance

Education because, as you have indicated, I think the experience is, as well as

in the schools that I have visited, that the students find it very workable and

they appreciate having the opportunity through that mechanism rather than not

having the opportunity, and they would rather have more of that than not have

the exposure to the broader program bases.

Because this estimate head actually deals with the

setting up of the teaching centres themselves, from which it is co-ordinated, we

don't see any immediate need for any expansion in that. The other aspect of it,

of course, is the teacher's salary units themselves that are actually doing the

instructing, and whether we expand the program and what our costs are going to

be out into the system to provide it maybe in more schools or on a broader

basis.

The other thing we participated in, just yesterday at

the university, was a contribution to the stemnet program, which is the internet

access to all of the schools in the Province co-ordinated through the

university, whereby it had guaranteed that all of the teachers of the Province

could be linked on the internet. The phone rates were a little exorbitant in

terms of trying to give student access from school to school through the

internet.

AT&T yesterday was involved, was at the university

making an announcement that they would contribute in excess of $100,000 a year

in a reduction in phone rates so that students themselves in all of the schools,

because every school in this Province is linked to the internet through

stemnet... It compares to President Clinton's pledge that he would like to have

every school in the States linked by the year 2000. We already have it done for

teachers, and the contribution yesterday from AT&T allows now access of up to an

hour a day for student groups at very reasonable rates of less than ten cents a

minute for phone access. So, with the continuing competition for phone lines,

and still a need to have some phone line access into the system in many of our

schools, if the rates continue to drop we can expand the provision of that

service as well, access to stemnet and the internet, along with the Distance

Education options that are being used, so that the program can be actually

broadened for students, no matter where they live.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Mary, do you want...

MS M. HODDER: I don't have any questions but it

has certainly been an informative session. I certainly commend the members for

their well-thought-out questions and, of course, the minister and his staff for

the insight they provided this morning.

I thank you very much.

CHAIR: Before I ask for the motion, we can do it

two ways. We can do each of the headings individually, or we can do it in one

group.

WITNESS: Do it all in one group.

CHAIR: All in one group. I need a motion that all

of the headings of the Department of Education be passed without amendment.

On motion, Department of Education, total heads,

carried.

CHAIR: I would like to thank you, Mr. Minister,

and your staff, for coming today and enlightening us on some of the issues

concerning your budget.

Before we close, there are a couple of items the

Committee has to look at, and that is the minutes of April when we did the

estimates for the Department of Environment and Labour.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

CHAIR: Also, May 6.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

On motion, Committee adjourned.

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
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Source	PROVINCIAL
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