Social Services Committee — 2 May 1994

1994-05-02

Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees

May 2, 1994

SOCIAL SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE

The committee met at 9:00 a.m. in the House of

Assembly.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Gilbert): Order, please!

First of all, I would like to welcome the minister

and his staff here, and welcome back the committee.

Mr. Harris informed me that he won't be able to

attend this morning. He has to be pallbearer at a funeral. Dr. Joy died over the

weekend, and he has to go to that funeral so we will have to carry on without

him.

Before we welcome the minister, the minutes have

been circulated and I would like for someone to make a motion that they be

adopted.

On motion, Minutes adopted as circulated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just in case there are some

people among the officials who don't know who the committee are, I will ask

committee members to introduce themselves.

I am David Gilbert, MHA for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir.

MS. VERGE: Lynn Verge, Humber East.

MR. LANGDON: Oliver Langdon, Fortune -

Hermitage.

MR. HODDER: Harvey Hodder, Waterford - Kenmount.

MS. YOUNG: Kay Young, Terra Nova.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Now, I will ask the minister, and the minister has

fifteen minutes, to introduce his staff and make some opening remarks. Then the

Opposition member has equal time that he can make a statement or they can

question back and forth if they want.

I understand that Mr. Hodder is the education

critic and he will be conversing back and forth with the minister.

I now ask the minister to introduce his staff.

I would suggest, if any of the staff are required

to speak during this meeting that they introduce themselves first, because the

people who are recording this know our voices by now but they don't know yours.

So, for that matter, if you would introduce yourselves it would make it easier

for transcribing this afterwards.

Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: Chair, Madam Deputy Chair, I want

to introduce Deputy Minister, Dr. Len Williams. It seems that whoever sits in

that seat has to have the name `Len'. As you know, Dr. Williams wrote the Royal

Commission. He was appointed deputy minister just a short time ago. He is not

involved in the day-to-day implementation of the Royal Commission report, but no

doubt, as you can appreciate, being a member of the executive he does take

part

in most of the executive meetings where we discuss the Royal Commission.

On my far right is Dr. Bob Crocker, Associate

Deputy Minister responsible specifically for the implementation of the Royal

Commission report. As you know, Dr. Crocker has been seconded from the

University for a two-year period, with an option for a renewal of an extra year

if we need some further time for the implementation of the Royal Commission

report.

Next to Dr. Crocker is the Assistant Deputy

Minister, Florence Delaney, who is responsible for finance. What's the fancy

title, Florence?

MS. DELANEY: Finance and Administration.

MR. DECKER: Finance and Administration. In

actual fact, Florence runs the complete department, but we will say she is

Finance and Administration.

The Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for K-XII

is Dr. Wayne Oakley, and for the post-secondary is Dr. Frank Marsh, who is here.

We have a Director of External Finance, Jack Thompson, and the Director of

Personnel is Mr. Eric Yetman.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to take up any lengthy

amount of the committee's time, using up valuable time that could be used for

question period. I will just take a few minutes to say, though, that the

emphasis this year is mostly on the implementation of the Royal Commission. We

have new legislation prepared which hopefully will come before the House this

session. It will be up to the House, then, what happens to it, whether the House

wishes to pass it over to a committee or whether the House wishes to pass it.

As you are aware, within the past week or ten days

we have already made a few minor changes to the legislation, the five items

which were tabled in this House, I think it was on Thursday or Friday of last

week. I don't think I will go into any more detail than that, Mr. Chairman. I

will just make myself available for questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to say welcome to the members

of the staff of the Department of Education, many of whom are well-known to me,

and to compliment Dr. Williams on his Royal Commission report, probably one of

the best analyses of the status of education in this Province that we have had

in the last quarter century, in fact, the only substantive report, and that is

not to say that there aren't things in there which cause all of us at some time

to question how and when we should implement it.

There are some things I would like to bring out and

things that probably we will come back to during the three-hour session but I

wanted, first of all, to direct some attention to the general contents as

contained in the last year's Profile-'92 - I understand that the data should be

now substantively completed for Profile-'93 - and to ask the minister when that

information will be tabled and whether or not there are some changes that have

occurred from the last testing period, which I believe last year we tested the

Grade - what grade did we do last Fall?

MR. DECKER: Bob, what did we do last Fall?

MR. HODDER: Grade III, wasn't it? Grade III, it

was their turn to be tested, I know, and we did it in Grade III, Grade VI and

Grade VIII - whether or not that data is now collated and when it will be ready

for publication, and also some of the work that was talked about last year

arising from some of the indicators in the Canadian Test of Basic Skills and

particularly as it applies to the achievement levels that we see evident between

boys and girls. For example, we find that while it is very encouraging to see

the increased performance standards of females in some of the sciences and in

the other courses, that we have been, for a long time, encouraging females to

participate in - that's going up - at the same time we are seeing that the

scholastic achievement of boys, as indicated in the public examination results

and the courses that they are selecting, show there is some need to address that

particular issue and I am sure that Dr. Crocker has some information and he

might want to comment on that.

I wanted to address, as well, the distance

education project, and some of the criticism that is coming in my direction is

that, while it is a very worthwhile concept - certainly it is bringing quality

instruction to many Newfoundland communities. I do believe there are sixty-four

projects that are now operating in the Province or something like that, and I am

wondering if there has been an analysis done of the impact, you know, what are

the improvement standards that we are finding as a consequence of distance

education? Is there an evaluation process in place on that particular project of

the department?

As a general principle, I think it is commendable,

and the question I would have is that, while we are making the opportunities

available for the more gifted child in some of these communities, are we

reaching out to all the children we should be reaching out to? These are just

general questions on the project, not put in a negative way to the project, but

certainly it is something we should be looking at. On the new role for parents

in education: the Royal Commission talked of changing the role of parents. I

know that the department has had a committee working with the Newfoundland and

Labrador Home and School Association which is in the process of developing

criteria for parental involvement. I would like to direct some questions in that

area later on in the morning.

School improvement initiatives: that topic has been

around for a long time and again I am wondering if there have been any

evaluation of the process we have been following. The topic has been around for

the better part of a decade now and we have had people working aggressively

within the department and within the school boards to bring about school

improvement initiatives. I am wondering if we have been evaluating the process

and whether we can show that the school improvement initiatives of the

department really are having an effect at the school level, and what criteria we

are using to evaluate them.

I would like to address the issue of student aid

and what has been the result of the meetings that have been ongoing between the

student representatives and the department, and whether or not there have been

substantive changes to the way in which student aid will be functioning in the

next school year.

I would like to talk a little while about full-day

Kindergarten, what plans have been in place, and whether or not the ministry is

still committed to a full-day kindergarten, and whether or not the proper

procedures are now ready to be put in place so that we can try to address the

issue from the point of view of planning for facilities, for teacher education,

and for the curriculum aspects of that.

There are many other issues but I think that would

probably be sufficient for us to get started for the morning.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Profile-'93 - we can probably get rid of that one

pretty fast. Dr. Oakley, what is the situation on that?

DR. OAKLEY: Preliminary statistics have been

compiled for that particular document and the department is presently in the

process of finalizing the document. We anticipate it will be available within

the next six weeks.

MR. DECKER: Dr. Williams, would you like to

speak?

DR. WILLIAMS: I would like to respond because

you raised quite a number of issues. I don't intend to respond to them all

because we would be here all day but I would like to share responsibility around

with the department. Each one that you raised merits a good deal of discussion.

I would like to respond in a more comprehensive way to your first question, and

then if you would pick them up or whatever I will come back if you want me to.

The one on accountability, you touch on a very

interesting and important function of what we are up to. One of the main thrusts

of reform is not only to address what should be the main goal of schooling, but

also, how do we account for its performance? The thrust of the department

emanating from the commission is to focus the curriculum, because when you do

that you say that one of the prime goals of schooling is academic, and while

there are many other functions that would be laid at the doorsteps of schools we

have to recognize and make it clear to teachers that the prime function is an

academic one.

The school is an academic institution. It has to

address the needs of all children admittedly and that is a very difficult thing

in this particular societal context in which we operate, but if we do not place

a paramount importance on the first that I am stressing, there is no way to talk

about academic achievement.

So, for the department, it is to look to the

curriculum, to attest whether it is of the highest quality possible, anchored

with national and international. Our assessment is that we are now - when we've

done that we have a curriculum philosophically that is as good as anything in

the country.

If you look at the basic principles undergirding

it, it is sound. There is some considerable work with respect to refocusing,

particularly at the secondary level, where in the past ten years we had a

philosophy in this Province of containment. There are just too many dropouts

emanating from the 1960s, and in order to address the dropout dimension we tried

to broaden the curriculum to make it interesting and attractive to keep people

in school. I think, in some respects, in doing that we de-emphasis the academic

performance dimension and we're now trying to focus that secondary aspect,

really beginning at the junior high school level. That's one component but the

other is accountability, which you put your finger on, accounting for

performance of a system and we have made a number of major initiatives already.

We are going to establish an indicator system,

Kindergarten to Grade XII and post-secondary because we have to focus on the

philosophy of education for life. For too long we have segmented our thinking of

the K to XII separate from the post-secondary, separate from all of the adult

education initiatives that are going on in the Province. We need to develop a

system where we have a smooth transition from the beginning of school right to

the end of schooling wherever that is and if that's at sixty-five or seventy,

then the education system must be able to make a smooth transition in the

carryover of credits.

We will have an indicator system which will address

a number of things. The first will be benchmarks or attainment targets. We will

look to the end of primary and be able to address what young people should know

in the different disciplines. What should young people, by the end of Grade 3,

which is primary, know in mathematics and in language arts, for example? What

should they be able to do at the end of elementary, at the end of junior high

school and at the end of senior? At the end of senior we're working with the

other provinces in the Atlantic region to develop what we call graduation

outcomes. Now, all of that is the backdrop leading to your specific question

with respect to testing. There is a lot of testing in the school system and we

have to focus that.

With respect to your specific question of CTBS, we

had a meeting on Friday and I've been told that for the first time we've

exceeded the national norm with the mathematics component and the results of

that will be coming out later. Last week the students wrote the national writing

component and we're now moving towards a national science component in the next

year or so. All of that, though, is one external attestment of performance which

we have to link into. It's not enough simply to focus ourselves to our own goals

but they have to be anchored nationally and this is what we're trying to do with

these national assessments. The CTBS has been a troublesome one for a long time,

as you know, and we are moving away from that more towards a criterion reference

which means that it's directly related to our curriculum. That's why I began by

talking about the curriculum, because it is so important, if you're going to do

that, that your curriculum is of the highest quality in terms of being

compatible with what is in Canada.

We will, within a year, have these benchmarks,

these attainment targets identified - we are pretty well there now with respect

to primary and elementary - and that will do two things; one, we will have a

refocused curriculum, and two, it will be very clear to teachers, to parents and

to students what is expected to be attained at the end of the, what I call, the

transition level. We will then refine the testing mechanisms, if you like, or

the assessment mechanisms, to see if the system got there, and CTBS, criterion

reference test, mathematics test, science test, all of that sort of thing will

be integral to the assessment of the system.

I will just stop there because -

MR. CHAIRMAN: That possibly is a good point to

stop because Mr. Hodder's time has run out at that. I will now recognize Ms.

Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. I hope that is put in

plain language for the parents and the general population, but it sounds like a

worthwhile objective. I would like to ask a few questions about the

modifications to Adjusting the Course . I take it this is the correction

so that we don't go on the rocks. I should reiterate my support for the thrust

of the recommendations in the Williams Royal Commission report for reforming the

school system, and I hope that is where the government ends up.

In the modifications, point three has to do with

uni-denominational schools. That is quite confusing. I would like to ask some

questions about what is meant. On the one hand it says that in areas where there

is now just one system - essentially where we already have uni-denominational

schools - the first example that comes to my mind is the southern Avalon where

most people are Catholic and there have only ever been Catholic schools. It says

that the consent of at least 90 per cent of parents is required for the

continuation of uni-denominational schools. How does that make sense for the

continuation of one system in the southern Avalon to depend on the approval of

90 per cent of the parents?

MR. DECKER: Do you want me to address that now?

In Adjusting the Course , it was our aim, it was our intention, let's say

one minute after midnight, after the legislation was proclaimed, that every

school in the Province would for a split-second be interdenominational. That was

the thrust of Adjusting the Course .

The churches have argued all along that one minute

after midnight when the new legislation comes into place all schools should

remain as they are. Then, over a period of time, parents or whatever would make

a request that this school would be interdenominational. We said: No, everything

would be interdenominational first and the parents would request to be

uni-denominational. What we have done now is, we have said we will have a

transition period of about six months. During that transition period all schools

will remain as they are, but during that transition period there will be a

process put in place to determine whether or not a school will be uni- or

interdenominational.

The churches said: Well, let us say one, two,

three, four, five, these are all uni-denominationals. Essentially, we've been

saying: Let us say all interdenominational. As a compromise, we have agreed that

we have to put in place a process whereby maybe the churches, maybe the school

boards, someone will say: The school in Trepassey is uni-denominational.

Government might say: No, it is interdenominational. But to resolve that problem

we will go to the people of Trepassey, the parents of the children in that

community, who are either attending the school or are entitled to attend the

school. They will decide whether it will be a uni-denominational or

interdenominational.

Now, 90 per cent. Take a place like - and the one

I'm most familiar with is Conche, where practically 100 per cent of the children

will be Roman Catholic. Logically, you would assume that if the parents are

asked would it be uni- or inter-, most likely they will say: It is

interdenominational. Let's go to another place where maybe it is predominantly

Roman Catholic but there are some Protestants there. Now, we have said in our

viability guidelines, as we (inaudible) we not going to bus children past a

viable school. So you have a viable school - let's take, for example, Bide Arm.

In Bide Arm, the population is not predominantly Catholic, so I can use an

illustration. Let's take Bide Arm. Suppose Bide Arm were 85 per cent Catholic

and 15 per cent Protestant. Government will not pay to bus people out of Bide

Arm to a Protestant school down the road. Every person living in that community

is entitled to attend that school.

So it breaks out that 85 per cent of the children

are Catholic and 15 per cent are Protestant. Now, should we say, with a school

that looks like that, that it is a uni-denominational school? We believe not. We

believe it is an interdenominational because of the 15 per cent who are

Protestant.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

MR. DECKER: The trouble we have -

MS. VERGE: I only have ten minutes.

MR. DECKER: May we have leave? I mean, we are

not going to fool up - the lady is on an excellent line of questioning.

AN HON. MEMBER: No problem.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure.

MR. DECKER: The trouble I have, Vice-Chairman,

is the 90-10. You are expecting every child to attend that school. Where is the

cutoff? Is it 90-10, is it 85-15, is it 95-5? You have to remember that the

minorities have rights as well. The whole system of education we have talks

about minority rights. Personally, I'm having a bit of a problem with the 90-10.

But that is the logic behind it. The neighbourhood school belongs to all the

people in that neighbourhood. When everyone attends that school, if you find out

that a significant number is of a minority group, whether it is Pentecostal or

Catholic or whatever, somewhere they have to be able to say: It is our school,

it is an interdenominational school.

MS. VERGE: Fine. The situation I am

particularly concerned about, given the district I represent, the District of

Humber East, which takes in part of Corner Brook, is the large communities where

several "viable" schools (inaudible). In Corner Brook, whether we want it or

not, or whether it is viable or not, we have an Integrated system, we have a

Catholic system, and we have one Seventh-Day Adventist school for the lower

grades. Many of us in Corner Brook would like to see neighbourhood schools which

are interdenominational and with attendance zones for the respective

neighbourhoods, so that in Corner Brook east everyone would go to the same

couple of schools, et cetera.

Are we going to be able to have that under the

point three - none of this is very easy for lay people to understand. The

education jargon is bad, but when you get ecclesiastical jargon injected, it is

impossible. Perhaps it is deliberate on the part of the people writing these

documents to conceal the true intention, but it is really not very easy for

parents to understand what is going on.

MR. DECKER: Yes. There are two - when we got

into this modification we really talked about two scenarios. One was the

Trepasseys, the Conches, the small, rural areas. The other was the urban areas

where we said it is possible to have more than one viable school. The

illustration we had in mind was Brother Rice and Gonzaga in St. John's.

MS. VERGE: I wonder if the minister could keep

to the examples I'm giving. I would like to know specifically about Corner

Brook.

MR. DECKER: Yes. The first thing any school -

MS. VERGE: St. John's is a case unto itself.

MR. DECKER: You first thing you have to

remember, any school, whether it is Corner Brook, or whether it is Conche or

whatever, would have to be viable. If there is only room in a particular area,

neighbourhood, for one school, and if the make-up of that school is

interdenominational, then it will first and foremost be an interdenominational

school. If there is room for two schools - and the illustration I use - assume

there are two schools in Corner Brook.

MS. VERGE: Well, in Corner Brook there are

buildings and I can't imagine that we will have enough money to build new

buildings. We are stuck with the buildings we have, most of which have many

years of useful life remaining. So, with the buildings that are now on the

ground in Corner Brook, can people get what most want, which is all

neighbourhood interdenominational schools? That is what most of us thought the

Royal Commission was calling for.

MR. DECKER: If what you say is correct, that

most of the people want interdenominational schools -

MS. VERGE: Well, your own polls show that.

MR. DECKER: There is not a doubt in my mind

that there will be all interdenominational schools in Corner Brook, if that is

the case. But supposing -

MS. VERGE: What does the 90 per cent have to do

with it?

MR. DECKER: The 90 per cent has to do with - we

were thinking mostly about places like Trepassey and Conche and these places,

but in the urban areas where there is room for several schools, there might be a

group of people in Corner Brook, maybe there will be enough families in Corner

Brook, who will want a Catholic school, that they can have a viable

uni-denominational school which will not make another school unviable. That's

very important. You can't strip one school to make a viable Catholic or viable

Pentecostal. The norm must be an interdenominational school, but if there are

enough children in one area to make a viable uni-denominational school, then we

will allow it.

Dr. Crocker, maybe you can help me out here. You

know more about that even than I do.

DR. CROCKER: A brief additional comment, I

think, on the urban area.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could you please identify

yourself?

DR. CROCKER: Bob Crocker.

The urban area situation, as the minister said, is

different from the rural in this sense, that we assume that there are sufficient

schools that if there is a relatively large number of people of one denomination

they can, somewhere in that locality, find a school in addition to the

neighbourhood schools that might exist.

If we take the Corner Brook example, a very nice

example, I think, would be the distinction between, say, Herdman Collegiate and

I think it's Regina, the Roman Catholic high school there. Under the system

that's being proposed, if there were sufficient Roman Catholic parents in Corner

Brook who indicated, through whatever consultative mechanism is going to be put

forward, who indicated that they wanted to retain that school, if that school

already exists, if that school doesn't, in the process, make another one

non-viable, the argument is that there would be no particular reason why a Roman

Catholic high school still couldn't exist. If there weren't sufficient parents

to make the school viable, then it couldn't exist.

There may well be, under these circumstances, a

shift of students from one school to another, and in the short term it may even

create some space problems, but the general idea is that if there are enough

buildings in the town, and if there are enough parents of a particular

denomination to justify setting up the school, and if there is no additional

busing required to do it, then there would be no reason not to do it.

MS. VERGE: To continue with Corner Brook, the

high school situation is easy; there are two central high schools. One is now

integrated with the larger population; the other is Catholic. The problem arises

with the primary and elementary schools, where people are being bused from one

neighbourhood across town to another neighbourhood, but if you allow the

continuation of a uni-denominational primary or elementary school, then it

becomes impossible to have neighbourhood or shared or multi-denominational

schools because there is a limited number of buildings, so you can't have it

both ways. If the one building in one neighbourhood is going to be taken by one

denomination, then obviously everyone else is going to have to be bused

somewhere else to go to school.

DR. CROCKER: I think this is a matter of zoning

- it is entirely possible. Let's say we had a town - I don't know exactly how

many primary and elementary schools are in Corner Brook, but there are several;

most of them would become neighbourhood interdenominational schools. On the

other hand, especially in a town such as Corner Brook where enrolment has been

declining, there may be a building that is about to become vacant, or with a

little bit of shuffling of students, a little bit of rezoning, there may well be

a building that could be made vacant. If there were, and it wouldn't matter

where that building was located, if it was going to become vacant, or if through

some rejuggling of students, through zoning, all students, or most students,

could still attend their neighbourhood school, if there were a certain number

who didn't want to attend, or whose parents didn't want them to attend the

neighbourhood school, whose parents were willing to bring them to whatever

school is available to be uni-denominational, then that school would be

uni-denominational in the same way that in many localities alternate schools are

set up at the instigation of parents. The parents are willing to bring their

children to those schools, and they don't even have to be uni-denominational.

Another good example would be a French immersion school.

Under these circumstances, the children wouldn't be

bused to these schools. The schools would be set up at the parents' initiative

and the parents would bring their children there. Most other children, however,

would still go to neighbourhood schools.

Now, there is a possibility, if there is a very

large number of parents wanting these kinds of schools, it could then begin to

interfere somewhat with the neighbourhood concept, but by and large there is a

sense that this would shake out reasonably well, especially given that over the

years denominations have tended to build parallel schools in neighbourhoods so

that it's not unusual to find two schools in close proximity to each other. One

of these could become, in the future scenario, the interdenominational

neighbourhood school; the other could conceivably become the uni-denominational

school for a particular group - that line of argument.

MS. VERGE: It sounds like a more complicated

system than we have now.

DR. CROCKER: Yes, it is complex.

MS. VERGE: Who would get to participate in the

decision-making? Would it just be parents of children enrolled? Would you have

periodic reviews? What happens if the parents vote one way the first year and a

different way in the third year?

DR. CROCKER: In an urban area we would

anticipate that this wouldn't be problematic because the 90 per cent criterion,

or whatever criterion you set up, wouldn't have to apply in an urban area.

Effectively the uni-denominational school in an urban area could be 100 per cent

of that particular denomination. It would be assumed, at least over a fairly

lengthy period, that there would be sufficient children coming up through the

system to keep the school viable. Once the school is no longer viable, then it

disappears anyway.

MS. VERGE: How do you define viability?

DR. CROCKER: We are in the process of trying to

define viability. It is not an easy matter, but it would be done on the basis of

programs, enrolment, busing patterns, and things of that sort. The idea would be

that the school would be set up through some consultative process initially and

as long as there were sufficient children who continue to want, or their parents

continue to want them to attend that school and to keep it viable, that school

could continue being a fully 100 per cent uni-denominational school for as long

as it is viable.

MS. VERGE: In an earlier version of

Adjusting the Course or correcting the course or whatever the titles are,

there was a clause about - similar to what is in the Charter for official

languages protection, ensuring that parents could have their children continue

in the school they are in now and have other children or siblings attend the

same school as the older children. Is that contemplated in this latest mix?

DR. CROCKER: By and large it is contemplated.

MS. VERGE: In other words, is there going to be

some provision for continuity?

DR. CROCKER: By and large it is contemplated,

yes. However, in the case of situations where there are parents who will wish

and insist that their children attend uni-denominational schools once these are

set up it would be anticipated that at least some of the children, perhaps even

most of the children in that future uni-denominational school, would have to

move from other schools in order to do so. That would be their choice, in that

sense, because they could always go to the neighbourhood school. If they are in

the neighbourhood school now they can always stay there.

The idea here is to shift, if you like, the

initiative for creating uni-denominational schools to those who want them, and

then under these circumstances they are the ones who would be expected to move

the children, not the other way around. We would anticipate most children would

remain in their neighbourhood schools, and their siblings and so on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Verge, I'm wondering if - you

are operating now on the leave of the committee and we have a couple of more

speakers. If you could clue up that topic with another couple of questions and

then - so the next time you come back you will be on a new topic.

MS. VERGE: Okay. I will ask this of the

minister. Is the current plan having the House of Assembly pass new legislation,

then having school board elections, and then allowing the school boards to hire

or appoint their CEOs and their administrative personnel, in that sequence?

MR. DECKER: The plan is to pass the legislation

and then, in the interim, appoint boards - I think that is what we are talking

about - appoint a board for a six-month period.

MS. VERGE: Who would appoint the boards?

MR. DECKER: The minister would appoint the

boards - for a six-month period. During that six-month period we would arrange

the elections and so on. The CEO - when do we intend to hire the CEO? During

that appointment time?

DR. CROCKER: (Inaudible) CEO, that would be the

first action of the interim board, to hire the CEO.

MR. DECKER: The board would hire the CEO but -

MS. VERGE: This is a major encroachment on

local governments. In other words, the minister is going to pick the boards and

the minister is effectively going to hire the CEO before you allow school board

elections.

MR. DECKER: The problem is, it is a time

factor. We are trying to get the boards in place as fast as we possibly can. I

believe it is quite common. What happened the last time? Didn't they appoint the

boards for an interim period when the changes took place in 1969?

DR. CROCKER: I'm sorry, I don't recall.

(Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: Yes. It is -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) appoint these from

existing boards.

MR. DECKER: Yes, of course, you would most

likely look to existing boards. But probably, what might be of some concern to

yourself, it certainly is to some of the superintendents, is that, even after

the boards are elected, in our Adjusting The Course,

Part II and, I would

assume, in the legislation, we are saying that the minister, whomever he or she

happens to be, would also approve the hiring of the three directors ten years

from now. We see - and especially I could put forward a case for the chief

director, whomever he or she is.

MS. VERGE: What is a chief director?

MR. DECKER: The superintendent. We are using -

MS. VERGE: Oh, okay.

MR. DECKER: They are calling them directors.

MR. CROCKER: The new terminology will be

directors and assistant directors - not that that matters a great deal.

MS. VERGE: A little more confusing.

MR. DECKER: Okay. For convenience I will call

them superintendents.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

MR. DECKER: We are suggesting that from here

on, the Department of Education, through the minister, would have an input as to

whom the superintendent, the assistant superintendent and the financial

administrator are; and the argument we are giving is this, especially in the

cases of the superintendent and yes, the assistant superintendent, too, with

curriculum: There is a role which - they have an obligation to the Province as a

whole. These school boards are handling millions and millions of dollars, there

is a -

MS. VERGE: But will you go through the Public

Service Commission in hiring the chief directors or superintendents?

MR. DECKER: We haven't got down to that detail

yet; that could be one possibility, but -

MS. VERGE: Will there be an affirmative action

policy to try to get some women in these administrative positions, given that we

have never had one single woman ever in our whole history (inaudible) school

board superintendent position?

MR. DECKER: We have not got down to these

details yet but I certainly share your concern about the lack of women.

MS. VERGE: How do the churches feel?

MR. DECKER: We have not discussed this with the

churches.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Anyhow, thank you, Ms. Verge. I

think we will now recognize Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: If I could continue on with the

same line of questioning and then we could go to something else after.

I do have some grave concerns about the dual

loyalties of the chief director, in that we are going to have school boards and

it is the school boards that have the legal responsibility to spend money and to

look after the taxpayer's interest, you might say, and I don't see that

situation being different from the manner in which the Federal Government puts

money into the Province or the Province puts it into the municipalities or

umpteen different ways in which money is transferred from one governing group to

another. I do see a potential for tremendous difficulties developing over time

between the superintendent and/or the director as you want to call them, and his

or her school board.

It works quite well in the municipalities where

there are tens of millions of dollars that are transferred every year to cities

and towns and other jurisdictions, but I am wondering about this divided

loyalty. You are going to have a director, a CEO appointed by the school board,

who will be answerable to two different authorities. You know, the school board

is going to be evaluating this person, the department is going to be evaluating

this person -in theory it seems to be okay but the practical reality, when you

get into a difficulty between a board and a superintendent or a director, it is

going to cause tremendous difficulties, and at best, I could see it as an

interim measure during a transitional period but not in terms of the long term.

These school boards are, in terms of Newfoundland, substantive corporations that

have legal responsibilities.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, I don't share the

analogy of Provincial Government versus the Federal Government. You are really

talking about two independent agencies, both of which raise money by taxes. Now,

in the case of the school boards, at one time there were school tax

corporations, but not anymore. The school board raises no money. They are

spending the money which is given to them by the Department of Education. There

are some precedents for serving two masters, if you will. The president of the

community colleges is hired lock, stock and barrel by the Province, yet, he or

she is also a servant of the college board in the community college system. So

there are precedents.

The other one, which you raise yourself, is the

role of the town. If you will check into the responsibilities of a town manager,

you will find that there are certain circumstances under which that town manager

does have a responsibility to even act contrary to his council and report to the

Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. There is an acknowledgement there

that the person who fills certain roles, performs certain functions, does have a

responsibility to the larger entity, namely, the Province. I don't see it as

being a major problem in the day-to-day working. He or she will be an employee

of the board and 99 per cent of the time will be reporting to that board.

One of the weaknesses that I find in the present

system is the existence of twenty-seven isolated boards which operate almost as

if the government which is funding the whole thing did not exist. I think there

is a role there. I will certainly argue strongly that we would leave that in

place, whereby the person does recognize that he or she is an employee of the

board, yes. But he or she also has an obligation to the Province which is paying

for the whole shot, and he or she has to be part of the whole provincial system

where education is being delivered, not only in his or her own board but is also

being delivered throughout the whole Province. I think it will certainly improve

what we have now if that position serves two masters.

MR. HODDER: I think we are all in favour of

improving the existing system. I'm probably putting up warning signals or

concerns about the further centralization of decision-making authority at the

Confederation Building level, you might say. The whole idea of creating smaller

numbers of boards is to have centralization occurring at the community and

regional level and not necessarily to have a focus in the Department of

Education.

I'm all in favour of having it more of a central

authority and a more regional approach to education decision-making, but I'm a

little leery of having these eight or ten superintendents who are essentially

going to become with divided loyalties - you know, they are people who are going

to be very busy, they are going to have a lot of things on their desk, you might

say. And I just haven't seen the evidence that good functioning school boards

can't really administer the kinds of programs that the department puts forward.

I would like to move to another topic.

MR. DECKER: Before you do, I should advise you,

you are not the only one who is leery. There is a considerable amount of concern

throughout the system about this dual role as well, so you are not alone when

you are leery about that.

MR. HODDER: I know. The superintendents have

done their homework.

On the issue of once you appoint your boards;

therefore, all the existing boards then are ceasing to exist. Therefore, every

teaching position in the Province, in essence, is then redundant. How are we

going to overcome the problem that was created, for example, a few years ago -

as the Deputy Minister would know - when we changed just a school. Mount Pearl

Central High School ceased to exist, and the two schools were created: Mount

Pearl Junior High and Mount Pearl Senior High. In essence, when the school

ceased to exist, every teacher in that school then essentially became redundant

and it was only by agreement being reached that we could have an easy transfer

and division of staff. I'm going to ask the question of what progress has been

made with the Newfoundland Teachers' Association and what procedures are in

place to ensure that we don't have a lot of disruption occurring because of the

difficulties that might come, albeit, there are positions guaranteed under the

various legislation at the Department of Labour.

MR. DECKER: I think, Mr. Hodder, you put your

finger on it when you said `agreement being reached'. Most people of good will

want to see the system reformed and I don't think there's any difficulty in

reaching an agreement. However, in the event that we don't, again there are

precedents. I was Minister of Health when the Grace Hospital and the St. Clare's

Hospital came together. Now, they have an agreement, the two different units of

the same union made an agreement and recognized each other's seniority and what

have you. In the case of the Janeway, where the Anderson Centre was taken over

by the Janeway, an agreement was not so readily reached. But in the event there

is no agreement, of course, we have a Labour Relations Board that will do these

things, but I certainly don't see the need for that. I would say that we can do

it through agreement. I don't foresee any major hurdles there.

MR. HODDER: Could I move to the - let's talk

about the 2 per cent savings clause, the impact it is having on rural

Newfoundland and the fact that the government has, by ultimatum, said that they

will not sign a collective agreement in which the 2 per cent savings clause

continues to exist; and the small schools policy that the department has worked

out in which, as we all know, the 2 per cent savings clause was an initiative of

the government and later on, rightly or wrongly, got added in as an addendum to

the collective agreement.

What are the steps being taken, in this school

year, to implement a small schools policy? Could the minister comment on what

would be the - of the 362 positions that are declared redundant on the 2 per

cent savings clause, how many of these positions will be, in essence, recovered

by the school boards, and what criteria is being used?

MR. DECKER: For the benefit of Hansard - I

don't know if this is being covered by the media or not, but for the benefit of

anyone who doesn't understand what the 2 per cent rule is, the 2 per cent clause

of the union, the NTA contract, says that no matter how many students are lost

to a system, no matter what the impact of declining enrolment is, the board

cannot lay-off more than 2 per cent of its teachers. Now, if you push that

argument to its logical conclusion, supposing that all the people on the Great

Northern Peninsula had to move off that peninsula for some reason or other,

whatever it was, we would be left with about 400 teachers up there who are being

paid from the public purse. Now, that's the effect of the 2 per cent clause, and

it's on a board level. It's the board, if it were on a provincial level it

wouldn't be quite as bad.

We have said that we will not sign another

collective agreement with the 2 per cent clause in it. That's not to say that we

won't recognize that there are places like Harbour Deep, like Conche, like Red

Bay, like Pinware, like North West River, and what have you, that have a problem

with small schools. So we have to address these small schools based on a

provincial policy. We can't just say, if the small school in Harbour Deep is

lucky enough to be part of the Deer Lake School Board, which has twenty-eight

teachers on holdback, then their problem will be dealt with. Supposing they

didn't have twenty-eight teachers on holdback, they'd be left with one teacher

for thirty-five students. So we recognize that we just can't say if enrolment

declines at a certain rate that we can let all teachers go proportionately. We

recognize that. But we're coming at it the wrong way. The 2 per cent clause is

not there to protect the school - the 2 per cent clause is there to protect the

employment of teachers. Now, I look at that as a bad thing, because the schools

are dependent on the clause in the collective agreement.

Supposing, for whatever reason, that clause comes

out; your schools are left in the lurch. So I want to see a policy where,

regardless of what happens to the collective agreement, we have a policy in

place for the small schools and, as opposed to calling it a small schools

policy, we are looking at an isolated schools policy. You see, you can have

small schools and you can have isolated small schools.

You have two small schools in Roddickton, side by

side. One is Pentecostal and one is Integrated. They should not be classified as

small schools. The common sense for them is to come together and form one school

and they wouldn't have to be a small school any longer, but the people in

Harbour Deep don't have that option - they have only one school.

We want a policy that puts in place some sort of

regulation or rule or understanding so that we will deal with the small schools

specifically, but we will not encourage schools to be small. The ironic thing

about it, a lot of the small schools legislation that we have actually

encourages schools to remain small when they don't have to.

You talked about the number of teachers who have

not been reassigned because of the 2 per cent clause and the fact that we left

it out. Now, I don't look at it that way at all. You're coming at it from a

negative approach. I look at it positively. We look, as a department, at the

whole Province. How many teachers do we need to address the problem at Howley?

How many teachers do we need to address the problem in the Mount Pearl school

where you taught? How many teachers do we need? And we assigned

7,200-and-some-odd, whatever it was, to address the problem. Now, we believe we

can address the problem with that.

As a result of that, there are 135 teachers who

would have gone over and above the 2 per cent rule who will be redundant and,

what is it, 190-something positions, I believe -

MR. HODDER: (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: Yes, but twenty-seven, or

fifty-four, I believe it was, co-ordinated, was it? Fifty-four. So they're not

all coming out of the classrooms; fifty-four - two co-ordinators per school

board. So I am confident that the number of schools that we have assigned is

perfectly adequate to deliver the educational system this year, and I want the

flexibility to be able to say if we need another 100 teachers I'll do it, but if

we need 100 less we'll take them back. We don't have that flexibility when we're

bound by a 2 per cent clause.

You know, as I do, that there is a lot more problem

with - what's the opposite of declining - increasing enrolment in the Conception

Bay area, in the Avalon North area, than there is in parts of rural

Newfoundland, yet they're really having a tough time getting enough teachers in

the Mount Pearl area where the enrolment has been increasing for a number of

years.

Your argument has always been, we need extra

teachers.

MR. HODDER: We do.

MR. DECKER: But Appalachia, we have forty-six

teachers on hold-back.

MR. CHAIRMAN: As interesting as the topic is,

Mr. Hodder's time has expired. Does he have leave of the committee? We have

several speakers lined up. It's interesting, and I know everybody wants to hear

him. Does he have leave of the committee to ask one more question to clue up

this line of questioning?

AN HON. MEMBER: One more question.

MR. HODDER: The concern we have is that the

decisions are being made at the school board level right now with twenty-seven

school boards making decisions on staffing for next year. The complaints of

parents is that the school boards are making decisions about dropping programs,

about essential services like guidance and these kinds of things, and that there

are interim measures being made that are made because the school boards are

making them in the absence of what they interpreted to be a well-defined

criteria under a small schools policy.

Again, the small schools policy was an initiative

of the Newfoundland Teachers Association and had nothing to do with collective

bargaining at all. It just happened to have `snuck' in there over the years and

it was an initiative of the Newfoundland Teachers Association itself. The

concern is not, for my part, a negative one. My concern is getting the criteria

out there that will satisfy the concerns of parents, whether the schools are

isolated or not. But there is a real concern in many communities that the school

boards are making decisions that are negatively affecting these communities and

I am wondering if the minister could assure that the precise criteria are being

communicated and are understood, and if the department is monitoring this very

closely as far as isolated communities are concerned.

MR. DECKER: I will ask Dr. Williams to deal

with that specific issue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Dr. Williams.

DR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, we are monitoring

that very closely. As you know, the deployment of teachers is the responsibility

of the school boards.

AN HON. MEMBER: Exactly.

DR. WILLIAMS: That is why it is of such

concern. The department determines the actual number to be given to the systems

and then each school board allocates according to its priorities. We have been

working with the superintendents in recent days on that very thing and are

continuing to do so.

There is a broader context in which we have to

place all of this. The 2 per cent, as was indicated, was a formula brought in to

deal with decreasing school enrolment and the protection of teachers.

Unfortunately, what it did, since it wasn't corrected, was it enabled certain

school boards to build up an abnormal number of teachers in surplus - in surplus

to our regulations for allocating teachers, I should say, not necessarily in

terms of a surplus of need as they perceived it. And we had a board with 20 per

cent more teachers than it should have received.

Consequently, that had to change, because every

indication tells us that our enrolment is almost on a precipice fall and going

to go down. We lost over 3,500 students this present year over last. That will

give you an indication of the decline of our population, and the projection is

just as dramatic for next year. So, something had to change with respect to that

formula.

The second component of it that we have to look at

is the small schools formula. We still have that, by the way. The troublesome

element in the small schools formula is that in this Province, with

multi-denominational schools, it protected the denominational component of the

system. Because the formula obviously was advantageous to the maintenance of

small denominational schools.

The third element is distance education. We've

moved significantly in the last few years to deliver the senior high school

course credits through distance education. Indeed, we now can deliver all of

them. The problem is, of course, getting funding to go to as many sites as we

would like to. That is costly. In this present year we have eleven teachers

employed by the department who are teachers through the distance education

media. We have to extend that because as the minister said, there will always be

small schools in isolated communities and that is what we have to look at. More

importantly, though, we have to define a foundation program for these schools.

Each child should be entitled to a foundation program. Once you determine that

then you have to determine the kind of resourcing, whether that is teachers on

site plus distance education, or what mix. That is where we are moving. Distance

education has the ability for us, particularly at the high school level, to

carry all of our high school credits. It is a very costly venture.

We will be looking at all three of these in the

next little while to see what mix makes most sense. To your question

specifically, we are monitoring very carefully the need in communities where a

school must exist. However, we cannot maintain regulations which would support

multiple schools in settings where one school would do.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you Dr. Williams, thank you

Mr. Hodder.

Ms. Young.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, I'm very pleased that I have the

opportunity to attend this morning. As a former educator, my prime concern is

that each and every student in Newfoundland is educated to the highest standards

that we can attain. I'm also very pleased to hear about the isolated schools

policy because that sort of covers off some of the concerns that we have in St.

Brendan's, where we currently have eight teachers in an all-grade Roman Catholic

school. They are also availing of the distance education program and from what I

hear, it is working very well. I want to congratulate the department on these

initiatives.

I'm also concerned, though, that teachers are

portraying a very negative image to students regarding curriculum and classroom

size. I'm sure you read the letter that I forwarded to you from one of the

students who had been given a lot of negative information. That is a concern of

mine, because that student was undergoing a lot of stress when she was

considering the courses that she would be enrolling in, in the next school year.

As a Kindergarten teacher, I would like to know

more about the Kindergarten program, if it is a full-year program. I'm quite

familiar with the half-day, but when we are going to a full-day curriculum I

would like to think that the curriculum is such that students are - I don't

know...it is a concern of mine that we have some kids being bused in. It is sort

of a long day when you consider the busing. I'm hoping that the curriculum is

varied enough so that it meets the individual needs of all of these children.

With regard to the dropout rate, I understand that

because the fish plants operated in a lot of communities before the collapse of

the fishery, many students went to work at the plants during the summer, got big

dollars and then dropped out of school. Is it too early to have statistics on

what's happening currently? Maybe I could also ask the question, too - there's

some talk in my district that there may be an all-grade school set up to

accommodate students from the Lethbridge - Musgravetown area. Is there any data

that shows that there's a higher dropout rate of students in an all-grade

school?

MR. DECKER: Thank you. I'm going to ask Dr.

Crocker to deal with some of these issues, and because these are his favourite

issues, I'll give him an opportunity to expound on them.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you.

MR. CROCKER: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I'll try

to respond specifically.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you identify yourself again

Dr. Crocker just so we know that - those people up there won't know you, you

see.

MR. CROCKER: My apologies, we keep doing that -

Bob Crocker.

I'll try to respond to some of the specific

questions but also perhaps range a little more broadly because I think the

questions in some ways had broader implications. On the question of whether

teachers were giving negative images of the current curriculum, that's not

something that I know anything about. I think it is fair to say, yes - I think

the minister referred to it earlier - that studies of the curriculum that have

been done hasn't been as comprehensive a piece of work as you might like. We

intend to do more on the high school curriculum. But studies that have been done

lead us to believe that the curriculum in itself, in this Province, is in

reasonably good shape. There are clear exceptions in the high school curriculum

- I won't get into that in detail unless you wish - but by and large, the

curriculum that we have in this Province is driven by - I'm sorry?

MS. YOUNG: Maybe I set you off on the wrong

foot by what I said. They were concerned about the courses that they would be

able to avail of in the high school because of, I guess, the 2 per cent clause

and changes in the overall structure in the education system.

MR. CROCKER: Okay, let me take a slightly

different tack, then, because of that. The hope is and the intent is as a result

of a high school review that we intend to conduct - the Royal Commission

recommended that this be conducted by the way, so we will follow it through;

we're just about ready to do that. The intent is to try to create a system in

which the difference in programs available to students across the Province is

much smaller than it currently is. That is to say, students in the smallest

schools, we would argue, ought to have access to a program which is pretty

comparable to what exists in the larger schools. The current high school program

is not built on that premise. It's built on a different premise and that is the

premise that there's a wide range of programs available but the assumption is

that only the larger schools can offer these although we would - I guess there's

an expectation that the smaller schools exert extraordinary efforts and that has

included, in many cases, putting into those schools more teachers than might

otherwise be there in order to offer the program. Now, that becomes extremely

costly. So the line of argument we would take is that there seems to be a sense

on the part of the public, and I might note, not just locally but nationally,

that the high school program needs a bit of tightening up, it needs a little bit

of narrowing, it needs greater focus. In doing that, what I would anticipate

would come out at the end of the day would be a curriculum that we would have to

identify as a foundation curriculum that would be available to all students in

the Province by whatever means and at whatever cost, I presume, and that the

difference between that curriculum which might be offered in say, St. Brendan's

and the curriculum that might be offered in Mount Pearl Senior High School would

be much smaller than it is now. We can hardly sustain a situation in which a

bare bones curriculum only is offered in small schools and a much greater, much

more varied curriculum, some of which may be questionable in character, is

offered in the larger schools. So it is a narrowing of the gap we hope to

achieve. Now, I don't know if that's a helpful answer to your first comment.

MS. YOUNG: Yes, thank you.

DR. CROCKER: Full-day Kindergarten, you

mentioned, and I'm not sure precisely what the question was there, whether it

was on the desirability or the intention to proceed or perhaps -

MS. YOUNG: No, you have developed a full-day

curriculum, haven't you?

DR. CROCKER: It's in the process of being

developed, yes, and in fact there will be an intensive effort this summer on

that. A committee made up of teachers, the primary consultant in the Department

of Education and a person from my own staff, of the Royal Commission

Secretariat, have been working on that now since about February. The intention

was to mount an intensive effort in the summer when we could get somebody to

come in full-time for a period of time. We have examples from other localities,

of this sort of curriculum, and I would certainly see no difficulty in putting

it together.

There are some arguments about the nature of the

Kindergarten curriculum, whether it should be primarily a kind of a broad

readiness type of curriculum or a much more focused, if you like, academic

curriculum. We have an example from New Brunswick at the moment, of which our

committee is saying: well, perhaps that one is a little bit too loose to our

liking, that sort of thing. That's being worked through and we would certainly

anticipate that by Fall we would have available to the schools an outline of the

proposed curriculum.

Now, since full-day Kindergarten will not be

implemented until 1995, that also gives a bit of time to work the curriculum

through the system a bit, perhaps even to have some schools that might want to

start it in '94, act as experimental schools; in fact, there are some schools

already offering full-day Kindergarten. So, we think we have room to manoeuvre

and we will have by the end of the day, by September 1995, a very good

Kindergarten curriculum.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Ms. Young, can you finish up with one more

question?

MS. YOUNG: I just want to know about the

dropout rate; I had asked about that. Are there any statistics available?

DR. CROCKER: On your specific question, there

is no evidence available, that I am aware of, that as a whole, all-grade schools

produce fewer or less graduates than the other kinds of schools. The question of

dropouts is fairly complex, it's related to a large number of factors; you

referred to the fish plants, as a very nice example. Well, fish plants may or

may not exist in communities where there are small schools or all-grade schools,

if that is a phenomenon, and again, we don't know that for sure either. If it is

a phenomenon, it wouldn't inordinately affect our grade schools, it would affect

schools that happen to be in communities where there is that kind of employment,

so I don't think we ought to make any inference with respect to all-grade

schools, the dropout rate one way or the other.

In general, there tends to be higher dropout rates

and lower performance in rural schools, not vast differences but differences

that are detectable, and that being the case, you might argue whether this is a

rural/urban phenomenon or a socio-economic phenomenon more broadly, rather than

simply saying it's an all-grade school issue or small school issue as such.

There would have to be a connection, of course, between school size in

urban/rural

areas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Dr. Crocker and thank

you, Ms. Young.

Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, I would like to get back to the 2 per

cent savings clause again, if I could.

In your response to Mr. Hodder, you referenced the

Appalachia School Board as being one of the school boards that has a large

number of teachers on holdback under the 2 per cent savings clause, and as you

would be aware, I was in the employ of that school board prior to becoming

involved in politics and I am quite familiar as to what the 2 per cent savings

clause has meant to that school board and certainly to the school where I was

Principal for a number of years, and what the withdrawal of that 2 per cent

savings clause is now, in turn, meaning.

First of all, very specifically, in terms of the

department's plans to withdraw these units, I understand a number has been set

for this year, that they have been asked to remove from the - Is it the plan to

remove all of the units that are currently on hold back?

MR. DECKER: Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Does Appalachia have forty-seven teachers on

holdback? Forty-seven. Now, in an ideal world, it would be perfectly acceptable

for Appalachia to have these forty-seven teachers on holdback, but the

Pentecostal system in Newfoundland and Labrador doesn't have any teachers on

holdback so we would have to make it available for - what's available for one

part of the Province has to be available for others unless there are some

extenuating circumstances, for example, a small, isolated school.

We looked at the Appalachia School Board and again,

as I told Mr. Hodder, we appointed to that school board an adequate number of

teachers to deliver the programs required by the Province. I don't have it off

the top of my head, I don't know if the deputy does, just how many teachers we

allocated, but you know, we are coming at if from a different way. We look at

the need in each board and we assign the number of teachers; as a result of

that, I suppose if you want to interpret that as being a loss because of the 2

per cent savings clause, Appalachia lost, how many - 20 per cent? twenty

teachers or something like that?

AN HON. MEMBER: At this point in time?

MR. DECKER: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Around twenty teachers.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are losing twenty-four this

year.

MR. DECKER: Twenty-four. The intent is not to

take them all. The intent is to provide the system with the number of teachers

that are needed on an equitable basis throughout the Province so that you don't

make chalk of one and cheese of the other. You address the small school problem,

you address the special situations, but you make it available on an equitable

basis to all the people of the Province. That is the intent.

I don't think at the end of the day we will have

fewer teachers proportionately than we have right now. I would think we will

have more proportionately. You have to remember, of course, that there is

declining enrolment, so in absolute numbers there will be fewer teachers, but

there is no intent to make the teacher-student ratio any smaller.

MR. SMITH: But the allocations to the school

boards will not be done on the basis of programs so that schools will be

guaranteed - for example, the school that I was Principal of in Lourdes, right

now has an enrolment of about 200 students. There will be no guarantees, not

right now, under this arrangement - parents living in that area, sending their

children to that school, don't have any other options - that they will have

guarantees to programs like music, phys. ed, and things of that nature. I mean,

that is not built in, it is at the discretion of the school board. They have so

many units and they have to be able to determine how that can be done.

MR. DECKER: Dr. Williams (inaudible).

DR. WILLIAMS: You are quite right in the sense

that at the present time the salary units are allocated to the school board, as

you know, and the board decides how it is going to deploy them - in that

particular case, if the board puts priorities around certain of the curriculum

subjects that you've referred to, then these programs will be on, and if not.

The unfortunate thing about the 2 per cent is that

many boards got into many creative initiatives, worthwhile initiatives, that

went beyond the school and into the community. In your area you would know what

I'm saying. Unfortunately, the resources just weren't there in terms of our

being able to maintain that. With respect to what programming will go on under

the present formula, it will be the determination of a school board.

MR. SMITH: If I could just pursue that a little

further, because to me it is very relevant. I certainly can speak first-hand

from my own area. Having been in that position for twenty-two years, I have seen

a lot of things develop over the course of that time. I think, one of the things

that I find most encouraging about my experience in Port au Port was that we had

initiated a number of things that were proving to be very, very worthwhile. For

the benefit of those who might not be aware - and I'm not going to go into great

detail about the whole community education initiative, which I think is

something that the department really needs to pursue quite closely. Because I

know from my experience in the system that for years we were very frustrated, we

were trying so many things, and really not getting anywhere.

There were two things, for example, that were

happening in my school when I left there last year that I have great concern

about. They are quite unrelated in a sense but equally important. One of the

programs that was offered at the elementary school in Lourdes where I was

Principal, that we were able to do because we had that 2 per cent savings

clause, was an extended core French program. As you are probably aware, that

school is located within a bilingual district. While we have the French school

system at Mainland, which is a French first language system, we also have

recognized that in that area we have a quite a few people of francophone descent

who want to preserve their language and their culture. There has been a

tremendous movement in the last number of years to try to promote that. As a

result, because the school board had that luxury, one of the things we were able

to look at was an extended core program, where in the school that I was

Principal of, up until this year - I understand the program has now been dropped

- all children in that school did daily periods of French. Again, because we

wanted to try to allow these children as much opportunity as possible to get the

exposure to their language and culture so that they could possibly retain or

regain it.

The other program that was brought in a couple of

years ago - and it was brought in again in direct response to the efforts of

that school board to deal with the drop-out problem. Back in 1980 when we

started looking at seriously the drop-out problem in our school system - and I

submit that we were probably one of the first systems in the Province to start

looking at it in a realistic and comprehensive way, we determined that in the

Lourdes school system we had a dropout rate at that time of 70 per cent, and

that's not that long ago. From that time on, up until present, it was a constant

struggle devising ways to deal with it, and one of the very innovative programs

that was introduced and to me proved to be a real breakthrough, because one of

the factors that was identified as contributing to the dropout was

underachievement. In that area, for a various number of reasons, a lot of our

children do underachieve and, subsequently, if that continues then the

inevitable happens, and those of you who are educators certainly would be aware

of that.

This reading recovery program which was brought in

a few years ago - a tremendous success. Now, I understand that at my school the

decision has been made - they have made their choices - they are going to

continue with that program for next year. This again to me is a very, very

worthwhile program dealing with something that, if we don't deal with it, we are

just spinning our wheels.

The problem that I have, having lived in that

system and worked in that system is, if we don't deal with the problems

adequately there, what's going to happen, for example, if that program is

withdrawn, some of these students who can now be salvaged will be lost, and what

will happen is that we will pay for this down the road. We save now, but down

the road, ten years from now, these students are not going to graduate. They are

going to drop out and they are going to be the unemployed, the people to whom we

can't give the proper skills to go out and make a living and make a contribution

to society.

So the argument I've always put forward is that

we're going to pay one way or the other, and I would argue that I would be more

inclined to make the investment up front rather than be paying for twenty-five,

thirty or forty years down the road.

I guess it's at a philosophical level that I have

difficulty with it. To me, in terms of what we're doing and what's happening

with that school board I have grave concerns, and I would certainly like to

think that there was some latitude there, to ensure that some of these programs

do continue to exist. Because if you take out - if you have twenty-four this

year - if you go after, you're saying it's forty-six or forty-seven, I thought

it was around forty, but you would know better than I, so you are looking at

taking out the same number again next year, then I can assure you, in that

school in Lourdes, those programs are gone. In Lourdes next year at that school

you will just have the basics. Music will almost certainty be gone, physical

education will certainly be restricted. I have difficulty with that. That, to

me, is retrogressive. That's the kind of school system that I came through.

I recognize the economic restraints and everything

else. I am just wondering, in your deliberations and in your considerations, is

there some way that we can look at trying to guarantee some semblance of

comprehensive programming within these schools, because I would be terribly,

terribly disturbed if I were to go back to my community next year, to visit that

school that I left last May, and see just the classrooms, and the four classroom

walls where the children go in and that's it for the day - it's a three R's -

and there are really all these other things that larger schools in the Province

have access to that there's no way we can make them available to us.

Of course, with that sort of thing I don't see

distance education. I don't see, for example, in physical education, where

distance education is going to have a direct application there. The same thing

with music - maybe at the high school level it might, but I am talking about the

programming at the primary and elementary levels.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Smith listed some excellent

programs. The extended core program is a good program; attempts to deal with the

dropout problem is a good program; the reading recovery program which he

mentioned - these are good programs, but the dropout program is not confined to

the Appalachia area. The extended core program, albeit might not be specific for

French but there are places in the Province.

We, as a government, have to determine whether

we're going to make extra funding available so that all of our people, whether

they're in Appalachia or in Nain, can have access to these programs. The

inequity in the system has been that by the luck of the draw a particular school

board would end up with extra teachers and they could do all of this, but by the

misfortune of the draw, other schools, and I could name many in the Province,

other school boards did not get these extra teachers and, of course, they

couldn't go with the extra programs. So we have to deal with the needs and the

wants of our people on a fair and equitable basis.

You're a member of the same party as I, and our

argument has been from day one that we believe in fairness and balance and we

try to treat our people as equitably as we can throughout the Province.

We have to look at the Appalachia area, and there

are places where schools can amalgamate and be able to deal with these issues.

You talked about the unfortunate situation where a school in your area would not

have the same services as a school in a larger area. My answer to that - in my

own area where I live there are places where schools could amalgamate and come

up with the same services as a school like Mount Pearl Central High.

When we've used up all our opportunity to

amalgamate and bring schools together it is then we have to go into the public

purse to try to put the extras in place through distance education or through

extra teachers or what have you.

If you go around the Province you will find that a

lot of the school boards did go out into the community, and that's not a bad

thing, but we have to remember first and foremost that the Department of

Education is set up; our workers are with the schools. The extra things in the

community are good. Maybe we have to try to find extra money there for it, but

what upsets me is that it's happening just at the luck of the draw. It is not a

concerted - it might be a plan in a particular school board, but something is

happening in Appalachia, something in happening in the Strait of Belle Isle,

something is happening somewhere else, and there is no co-ordination. To me, it

has to be a public policy, except the pilot project where you run it for a year

or two, but you have to accept public policy which is applicable to all of our

people, and we can't depend on being just lucky enough to have a few teachers

left over. What would happen if, by the luck of the draw, you did not have any

teachers over and above normal? And there are people exactly in that situation

and we have to try to deal with them all in a fair way. Dr. Williams, is there

something extra you want to add to that?

DR. WILLIAMS: I know the programs you refer to

and they are excellent, there is no doubt about that, but it raises the broader

question of what kind of personnel do we need in the school system, and this is

a major issue that we are going to have to face. At the present time, all

personnel is defined by salary units, meaning teachers, and I think we are going

to have to look to a redefinition of that; we have social welfare needs in the

system where a certified teacher and the allocation of a teacher-salary unit is

just not the way to address it.

We are also going to have to take a look at the

responsibilities of teachers. We are one of the few provinces in Canada, for

example, where we have specialists in music, which you referred to, in the

primary and elementary systems. In most provinces, and certainly in England and

in other countries, that particular discipline or subject, if you like, is part

of the regular teacher's responsibility, integrated within the curriculum for

primary and elementary. We went the specialist route which is a very costly

route, to the point now where, when boards begin to cut back because of this

kind of response, the first thing that would go would be that which stands out,

meaning the discreet music unit, which means the total music program, which

doesn't make sense, because music should be an integral part of the curriculum,

just as art, and that's the other one you hear about. So we have to take a

broader look as we approach the next decade: what kind of personnel do we need?

It may not be certified teachers; there would be

other kinds of personnel, and you mentioned the reach to the community, and I

use it in terms of social work, not necessarily social workers as graduates of

the Faculty of Social Work, but new kinds of personnel to address new needs that

are in the school. Now, that's going to have to be worked out in collaboration

with boards and with the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers Association, but if

we are going to deal with the problems in the school system, in relation to the

kinds of resources that are going to be given to us, we have to rethink the

resourcing of the system in terms of personnel.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is now 10:31, so your time has

elapsed, Mr. Smith, but you will have another chance if you want it.

There is coffee prepared now in the government

members' common room for the benefit of the officials who are with the minister;

I am sure he knows where the government members' common room is and he will lead

you to that. For the rest of us who know, we will get there and I will like to

have us back here if we could, at 10:45, because we have an interesting morning,

it is going too fast, as a matter of fact, and we hope to clue it up today.

Thank you.

Recess

MS. VERGE: As I am next on the list of

questioners, I will take my ten-minute turn and I will trust the Member for Port

au Port to hold me to my time limit.

The Chair's list of speakers is: Verge, Langdon,

Hodder and Smith. I would like to switch to the topic of public libraries for

which the Department of Education assumed responsibility in December, I think it

was. The government received the report of the Saunders Committee on public

libraries last summer; I asked for it month after month after month, and eight

months later I managed to obtain an expurgated version of the report and get it

out to the public. Now, I would like to ask some questions about the

recommendations in the report, at least in the public version of the report, we

will never know what's in the private, confidential version.

The recommendations include eliminating twelve local

libraries with an indication that the particular twelve libraries had previously

been identified as targets for closure. What is the government going to do about

that recommendation, and what are the twelve libraries under the gun?

MR. DECKER: Didn't we table the list of the twelve

libraries?

MS. VERGE: I didn't see them.

MR. DECKER: I'm sure it was given out.

MS. VERGE: Oh, good. Well, let's have them now,

then.

MR. DECKER: It's no big secret. Some of them were

within two kilometres of each other. Some of them were underutilized. Do you

remember the names of them all? Does anybody remember what they were? I know

there's one in St. Lunaire-Griquet up in my district; there was talk about the

one in Windsor; there was one somewhere out around Spaniard's Bay; but I will

provide the full list, that's not a problem.

Dr. Williams, do you want to speak to the libraries

board?

DR. WILLIAMS: I don't have the list in front of

me, but I would like to speak to that report.

First of all, the Saunders report came to the

department with the change and had to be referred to Justice - there were

individuals identified, and whether or not we could make that public, and that

sort of delay. Then, when it came to the department, it came with a directive

from the government that the department would put a short-term and long-term

plan in place to deal with libraries, and that's what I would like to speak to

for a moment, because we did go to work on that immediately.

We have to blend the traditional concept of library as

the centre of books with the information age and the information technology age

that we're moving into, or we're now immersed in. We have to look at the thrust

of the libraries with our thrust in literacy, and again, with our thrust in

education, and try to bring those three thrusts together.

In the past, we have had multiple libraries spread out

in communities, many of them with very little usage. Having said that, we had to

try to get a profile of who the users would be, and generally they fall into two

categories, these being school-aged children and older citizens of the

communities.

Some of the initiatives that we are now into with the

library board is with respect to trying to see where it makes sense to blend the

thrust of libraries with schools and with other information centres in the

community. In some communities we had the community library housed in schools,

and we're following through in other areas, because of the profile of users, to

see if it makes sense and what the constraints would be on moving these

libraries into school settings or community college settings. Now, you would

recognize that in some cases we're dealing with physical facilities and all

sorts of problems in terms of external access and timing and that sort of thing.

Another thrust we're looking at is to give a high

profile to the concept - and it may make sense, for example, in a particular

region, of closing six or seven small libraries bordering on a regional mall and

begin to look at housing an information centre, a library information centre, in

one of our malls where most people go back and forth, spend a good deal of time

these days, and make that a focal point.

In addition to that, we're trying to blend it, as I

said, with literacy, with our literacy initiatives, and what kind of reading

materials should the libraries be looking at. What kind of linkages should we

have with schools? On a number of occasions now when we've had superintendents

together we've had the director of the library board down and we're sort of

talking to see what kinds of projects we can move on with that.

Within a few years, there will be a different library

system. That is not to say that there will not be a stand-alone library in some

communities, but there will be considerable initiatives to blend, as I said,

information through technology, be that career information coming from one

department of government now, or from the Federal Government, with the library

and the school system. When I say `the school system' here, I really should

include the college system, because we have to think of the libraries as an

essential component of the educating of our people.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

One of the recommendations of the Saunders report is

that the Public Libraries Board and the government begin planning for a library

system that will eventually become the responsibility of municipal governments,

somewhat similar to other provinces of Canada.

Now, as the minister would appreciate, there are major

differences in the split in revenue-raising powers and service delivery

responsibilities between provincial governments and municipal governments in

this Province and in most other provinces of Canada. Therefore, assigning to

municipal governments here responsibility for libraries when municipal

governments, in many cases, can't even afford to pay for light poles anymore

would simply accelerate the demise of the public library system.

Does the government accept that recommendation for the

transfer of responsibility of public libraries to municipal governments, or is

the government going to continue to accept responsibility and discharge that

responsibility through the Department of Education in co-operation with school

boards and community colleges?

MR. DECKER: Ms. Verge, you are quite right, there

is a recommendation that we would put it to the municipalities. We have not made

a decision. To make an observation, it is highly unlikely that we would put it

over to the municipalities anywhere in the Province.

I want to address the libraries, and the deputy

touched on it. I don't want to put in stop-gap measures. The whole thing, in my

opinion, has to be reformed. We are looking at the community colleges and we are

looking at other ways to deal with it throughout the Province. We have to bear

in mind that they are no longer libraries in the traditional sense, they are

information centres, and when you talk information centres you must have some

sort of a computer network in place. The libraries boards themselves don't have

any number of computers. They have no network. In the school system we have

STEM-Net which is interconnected to practically every high school in the

Province, and within two or three years every single school in the Province will

be interconnected in the network system. The community colleges are looking at a

network. Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador has a network.

We want to put something in place so that those

centres - libraries, information centres - will be interconnected throughout the

world and get out through the Province and, of course, get into the information

highway and all that. That is extremely important. Now, the question is, how

best to do that? In the recommendation they talk about closing a library here

and a library there, which really is meaningless when you look at the big

picture. They talk about closing up libraries which are less than two kilometres

apart. They talk about closing a library - and I will give you an example: Out

in my own district there is a library in St. Lunaire -Griquet which is sixteen

kilometres from St. Anthony. And the recommendation was that you close it so

that the people could go into St. Anthony and get their books or whatever. It

might be a good idea.

However, the reality is that there are communities

like Roddickton, Englee, Bide Arm, which are 150 miles from St. Anthony with no

library. If you go throughout this Province you will find that we have 130

libraries, but there are places which are fifty, sixty, seventy, a hundred miles

away. So when we address the problem we want to - we have $7 million that we are

spending there. I believe, if we took that $7 million and spent it differently -

instead of going into spending a large amount of money with a computer system

for the present libraries board, I think there is a possibility that we can tie

it into some of our existing structures, be it the community colleges or the

high schools.

If - and it hasn't been decided - if, for example, we

were to take the five community colleges as the regional libraries, then each

campus could be an offshoot from these centres. In communities where there are

no community college campuses, then we could go into the high school. We

recognize we are going to have to put up extra doors in the high school, we are

going to have to make the high school available on certain hours and all that.

The intent is, rather than go after the $500,000 or whatever we are looking for

in the libraries board - rather than do it piecemeal, we want to put in place a

program to make more available the services that the library, the resource

centre, will offer, throughout the Province. Take advantage of the networks

which are already there rather than spending a whole lot of government money

into putting extra networks in place.

I'm not overly hung up over the ten or twelve

libraries that are going to be closed. Maybe some of them, where they are two

kilometres apart, might indeed be closed. I'm more concerned with making library

services available to every single community in the Province.

MS. VERGE: Do you foresee a continuing role for

libraries boards made up of volunteers? In particular, do you foresee a need for

public libraries boards, local boards, regional boards or whatever, raising

money?

MR. DECKER: There will always be a place for local

input, there's no doubt about that. I can't see a time when ever government will

refuse any money which has been raised by the public.

MS. VERGE: What incentive do you propose to give

volunteers on libraries boards to raise money?

MR. DECKER: Well, I don't think it's a matter of

giving incentive. The people who are involved as volunteers are not looking for

any incentive. I mean, they want to make available a service to our people and

we don't have to get out and give them candy for doing that. They do that quite

willingly because they have a commitment to the people of their community.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Before I recognize the next speaker, I'm going to

welcome to the gallery nine Level I students from St. Anne's School in Conne

River, in that great district of Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir, accompanied by their

teacher, Lynn Tobin and bus driver, Dan Jeddore.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now, Mr. Langdon.

MR. LANGDON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to go back and revisit for a moment that

2 per cent savings clause. As you know, in the area that I represent, in Fortune

Bay, are some of the smallest schools and isolated schools that we find around

the Province. I don't share the ideas of my colleague, the Member for Waterford

- Kenmount about the 2 per cent clause gutting the rural areas, because in that

particular board, the Fortune - Hermitage - Bay d'Espoir Board, I think there

are three teachers in excess of what is allowed. When you look at many of the

small schools that are not in the communities - there is only one school in each

community anyhow apart from - there might be some shared services probably

between Seal Cove and Hermitage eventually because they're in close proximity.

Then you have students being bused from Belleoram, St. Jacques, Coomb's Cove and

I taught for a number of years in the Grand Falls area

and that particular board - even though you talk about the rural area, it is, in

a sense, an urban area. On the West Coast of the Province, I think around the

Stephenville area pretty much is where the other large number of teachers are on

holdback. I have had compliments from the superintendent and people of the board

there saying that this particular 2 per cent thing should have been addressed

years ago and they are glad to see it happening at this particular time.

However, I want to commend the minister and the officials in the department,

because the minister has said that in many of these small schools and isolated

schools, there is a possibility of extra personnel to man these schools so that

certain benchmarks can be met as outlined by the department. Also, the distance

education - I have distance education in the areas of Terrenceville, Rencontre,

Seal Cove and Gaultois. These particular areas are doing very, very well with

the distance education and I have to commend the department again for doing it.

I know it's expensive but I'm hoping that you can expand and go further with

that. So, two points on that.

The other point I want to raise again this morning

with the minister and with the - primarily the minister, I guess, has to do with

the facilities report. I want to find out - I think I know, but just for the

minister met with the people from the area only recently and I congratulate

again the government, through the Williams report, on the initiative of having a

provincial board to identify schools that need to be built on a priority basis.

I spoke about it in the House here only recently, that there might have been

some politics played within the Integrated system itself, where the school did

still no school there and from every indication the minister has given me, it

some agreement; and yet, we have in Grand Falls - and I understand it to be

correct - 400 empty spaces between the Catholic and the Integrated system. The

government cannot do anything to impede the Pentecostal board from building a

school for 300 people, attaching the school to their church at approximately $1

million. It is these types of things that have been allowed to accumulate

through the system and it has to be addressed. If we don't address it, then

obviously, the system itself will not be able to survive, just by sheer economic

things.

With that, Minister, how do you see if there is an

agreement with the churches over the next little while - and let's hope that

there is, because the government has moved, I guess, along with the churches to

Harbour West area of seeing a new structure within the foreseeable future to

take care of these kids who come from all communities? The integration or

interdenominational system is really not going to affect the area because you

have all communities, all churches, in representing that one school. Obviously

it is not going to be one that is going to become redundant within the next year

or so.

MR. DECKER: As you know, Mr. Langdon, with the

non-discriminatory distribution of funds, government has to give 56 per cent of

our money to the Integrated, 37 per cent to the Roman Catholic and 7 per cent to

the Pentecostals. As a result of that you see three sets of priorities drawn up,

and the Pentecostals' worst school might not be near as bad as the Integrateds'

worst school or as the Roman Catholics' worst school, or what have you.

Under the proposed system that we are putting in place

there would be a provincial committee made up of three people appointed by the

churches, three appointed by government, and the chairperson would be mutually

agreeable to both the churches and government. That committee would no longer

have a Roman Catholic list and an Integrated list and a Pentecostal list and a

Seventh-Day Adventist list. That committee would have a list of all the schools

in the Province, and the one which is in the most need of being replaced would

be replaced first, regardless. The worst three schools in the Province could be

Catholic, and that wouldn't matter, it would be done simply on the basis of

need.

In my opinion, there has been some abuse in the

system. I was invited to an official opening of a school in Bonavista two years

ago. The school cost almost $7 million. It was a beautiful structure, glass,

brick, and I mean it was - there were extra rooms in it. It was probably one of

the best schools in the country. But while this school was built for a cost of

almost $7 million, there is a school out in Brigus that is falling into the

through the windows. There is a school up in Hopedale - I was up there in the

middle of the winter, and the furnaces just could not keep the heat there. You

would see the snow drifting in.

So, you know, that can't go on. Yes, we would like to

have $7 million schools in Bonavista, but maybe we should be looking at the

possibility of dealing with maybe two schools for $3 million each. We want to

try to put some sanity into the way schools are built, recognizing that we are a

province that doesn't have all the money we would like to have. Hopefully, this

provincial construction board, which would look at the big picture, would be

able to address that.

opinion, that school is indeed one of the worst schools in the Province, then it

would be the first one to be built. If there are schools that are worse, of

course, they will be first. The problem we are having right now - for a few

years there, we would say to the DECs: You have $10 million, $20 million, what

have you, but you can pre-assign for next year. So, this year with $10 million,

if we were to allow the DECs, they could probably start ten schools, but our

concern is, where will these ten schools fit in after the reforms have taken

place? Will you have a Catholic school and a Integrated school side by side, one

of which will disappear?

That is why we are being very cautious and not saying

to the Integrated people: you can start this and that and the other thing. We

are anxious that they only start schools that we think we will need, but we

don't have the authority to stop them. If the Pentecostals want to build a

school in Windsor,

whereas you are quite right, there are 400 empty spaces in

the other two schools - 454, I believe, to be exact - and they're building a

school for around 400 when there is sufficient space there, under the present

system, we have to give them the money, there isn't one thing we can do about

it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have about a minute, Mr.

Langdon.

MR. LANGDON: Okay. Well, I'm not going to be able

to do what I want there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, maybe if the committee wants

to give leave we can let you clue up.

MR. LANGDON: Just one more question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. By leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. LANGDON: This one should go to Mr. Crocker, I

guess. Where are we now at this particular stage with the implementation of the

report? How far along are we? When can we expect to see some tangible results of

the planning and so on that you have put in place?

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, that's a good question

but he's not going to be able to do it in a minute.

MR. LANGDON: No, I have leave.

MR. CHAIRMAN: He has leave.

MR. DECKER: It's a good question. I think it

should be dealt with. Dr. Crocker?

DR. CROCKER: I will proceed, Mr. Chairman. You

obviously will cut me off as you see fit if I take too long.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Try to make it as brief as you can,

please.

DR. CROCKER: I will try to be concise.

In terms of time, we're almost half-way through the

mandate. In terms of the agenda it's not quite so clear. There are a large

number of things on the go. I am confident, and I do expect that within the two

years most of these things will settle down and we'll be able to say that we've

made the necessary progress on virtually all fronts pertaining to the

commission.

Up until now we've focused on the structural changes,

as we all know, and at the staff level at least, the level of the secretariat

and so on, we've now completed our work in redrafting the Schools Act and the

Department of Education Act to reflect the reform proposals that were made in

the commission and in the two Adjusting The Course documents, so at that

level, I guess we can say we're finished; it's now in the hands of Cabinet and

the Legislature ultimately.

There is one other act that will require some further

work, and that's

an act called the Teacher Training Act. We expect to do the

work on that one over the next number of months and have it ready over the Fall,

so at least that aspect of it, from our end, is complete. It now goes through

the political process.

In addition to the legislative agenda we have

established working groups in a great variety of areas, some of which are well

along, some of which are nearly complete, and some of which are just beginning,

some of which haven't even started yet. Just to use a couple of examples, and I

won't elaborate here, we have, for example, a total of seven curriculum

committees, all headed and organized by a member of the staff in the commission

secretariat, the person that we have seconded from the school boards.

These seven committees range from the one dealing with

the primary program in the full day Kindergarten all the way through to a

committee dealing with the question of the revision of the high school program,

the foundation program and so on, so there are seven of these altogether. They

are just about finished their initial round of work at least. We expect, by

June, most of that will be done, but there will be work that will follow from

that. For example, on the full-day Kindergarten, we expect the committee to know

where it wants to go at that point, by June, and then we expect to hire someone

in the summer to actually do some leg work in putting the curriculum on paper,

so by September that will be done. Now the various curriculum committees are at

these kinds of stages.

We have the Teacher Certification Committee, which is

a Standing Committee dealing with matters of teacher certification. They are

dealing with the whole issue of teacher certification, proposals, that are in

Adjusting The Course , and also with teacher professional development.

In addition to that, we have just completed a

feasibility study on the establishment of a provincial professional development

centre for teachers, and the report is in our hands now. We haven't yet decided

whether to adopt the model they're proposing or whether to make some

modifications, but that will be available reasonably soon and we expect to have

a clear picture on where the professional development centre is going by

September of 1994.

We have a group working on school councils, and

fortunately there we have reached a collaborative arrangement with a group at

Memorial University which, in turn, has been funded by the Human Resources

Development Secretariat. They're moving on a series of pilot projects on school

councils. In the meantime, the committee is working on questions of the

structure of school councils and how they should function. I might note, by the

way, on school councils, the basic structure will be addressed in the

legislation so that they will have official status in that respect. We expect,

over the next school year, 1994-1995, we will have a number of substantial pilot

projects going in the area of school councils, so that will be well along.

Again, by, I say, the 1995 school year we expect the school council thing to be

fully into place.

We have, as the minister mentioned earlier, an ongoing

project on indicators and that all ties in with the issue of accountability and

the issue of achievement. Again, I won't elaborate on that but that is well

under way.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have about a minute, Sir, to

finish it up.

DR. CROCKER: Okay, that will be long enough, I

think. That is well under way. In fact, that predated the establishment of our

Secretariat so I don't see any problem with that one moving along.

Finally, I just note in passing three areas that we

are only beginning, and they are three difficult areas. One is the complete

revision of the high school program. The commission made a recommendation that

that be done. We have the commission of study. The committee has now made terms

of reference for a study and we have the commission of study in that area which

we will do imminently.

The second area is very controversial and very

troublesome. It has to do with classroom issues: Issues of discipline, issues of

management, issues of disruption of classrooms. The NLTA and government have

established a group under the collective agreement that has been working along

on that one. They are just about finished their work, and when they are finished

we intend to pick up and pursue the classroom issues and policies in that area

in some detail over the next number of months. The final area that I will

mention is special education where again the commission simply recommended that

that one be studied further. It is a very controversial and troublesome area and

we are just to commission a study in that area.

We expect those three studies, by the way, and other

areas to yield policy statements perhaps by the end of this year. Perhaps we

will call them `Adjusting the Course -

Part III,

Part IV.' I'm not sure what we

will call them yet. That is what we expect to come out by the end of this year.

If all of these things fall into place and the structural things fall into

place, by the end of the two-year mandate we expect to have a pretty complete

set of reforms in position.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MR. LANGDON: Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: Some issues that I was going to raise,

the special needs study, the difficulties of disruptive students, have been

touched on by Dr. Crocker in the last few minutes.

I want to return to an area that I've had some

interest in for a long time and that is the issue of teachers teaching in those

subject areas for which they have training, and the difficulties, in particular,

of being able to focus our training in the core subject areas, of being able to

ensure that all children who are being taught in the core subject areas at

junior and senior high school levels, in particular - because the primary and

elementary we can deal with these on a separate kind of question. I will ask the

minister and, I guess, through him, probably Dr. Crocker: What are we trying to

do, or what is the progress being made, to ensure that teachers are teaching in

the areas of their expertise, particularly at the junior and senior high school

levels? What arrangements are being made with MUN to ensure that junior high

school training becomes a distinctive part of teacher education?

DR. CROCKER: Thank you, Mr. Hodder. It gives me an

opportunity perhaps to elaborate on the teacher certification and professional

development element of this, which I didn't have a chance to do earlier.

Let me mention three sorts of things. As you would

know, in Adjusting the Course -

Part II a reference was made to a

complete overhaul of the teacher certification system and changing the basis on

which teacher certificates are issued. The basis would move from a strictly

University course basis - as you know now, you can move from Grade V to Grade VI

to Grade VII just by taking University courses of various sorts. It intends to

move from that to a system based on professional development which is

job-related and to a system of certificates which is tied in with that,

furthermore, a system of certificate endorsements which would recognize the

specialties.

At the level of certification you can control the

kinds of programs that people take in order to achieve a certain certificate or

a certain endorsement of a certificate. The actual assignment of teachers to

specific duties is, of course, a teacher hiring and teacher assignment function

which the school board would have. What we would hope is that the revised

certification system would convey a message to the school boards of greater

emphasis on specialization, of achieving a greater balance in the teaching force

with respect to the areas of specialization that are emphasized, and so on. Then

we would hope that the school boards can act in accordance with that to assign

teachers in a way that is more closely aligned with their areas of

specialization than is now the case. Although we have to recognize, of course,

at the level of the Department of Education we couldn't dictate these

assignments to school boards. We hope that common sense would prevail once the

certification system is in place.

As for MUN, we have had some discussions with MUN with

a view to ensuring that one of the major problems of the system over the last

twenty years is addressed. That is, that we have created a tremendous imbalance

in the areas of specialization of teachers because we haven't tended to

emphasize specialization in the core areas. We've tended, interestingly enough,

to emphasize specialization in areas such as music and phys. ed and we've turned

out, through these specialized programs, a substantial and very strong core of

teachers in these areas. These teachers, as it happens, as the minister, I

think, said earlier, typically are not assigned to classrooms. They are

additional to the classroom complement and that causes problems in its own

right.

With that aside, in not emphasizing the core areas,

what we have tended to do, quite inadvertently, is allow prospective teachers to

choose whatever area they wish, and virtually all of them choose one area,

teachers with majors in other areas, most notably mathematics and science.

We are engaged in some discussions with the

University. In fact, having come from the University, I can say that in the high

school program that one has already been addressed by clear areas of

specialization in a revised high school program that has come into force this

year. Revisions are now under way in the programs for primary and elementary

school teachers, and I haven't yet seen the outcome of Memorial's deliberations

in that area. I would hope that they would reflect much the same thing, so that

the future generation of teachers will be a much more balanced group than is

currently the case and their certificates and their job assignments will reflect

this greater balance. So, over the next decade, as the teaching force changes

substantially, we hope to be able to redress many of the problems that have been

created over the last couple of decades in teaching.

MR. HODDER: If I could move to another area. Going

back to something we said this morning about school busing and the

implementation of the Royal Commission report on restructuring the school

boards. Did I understand the minister to indicate that school busing will not

be, in the future, a contributing factor to the maintenance of

uni-denominational schools as opposed to interdenominational schools?

MR. DECKER: Let me clarify. The busing is not one

of the things which is protected by the Constitution, as the hon. member knows.

What we have said is we will not bus past a viable school. The illustration: We

were busing a few children from Holyrood past twelve schools before they reached

a school in St. John's. We don't foresee that continuing. If the parents want to

bring their children to a uni-denominational school, let that be their choice,

but the public purse will not pay to bus students past a viable school. That is

the way we look at it.

MR. HODDER: If I can just interject there, go back

to what my colleague said a few moments ago, about the proposal to build a new

school out in Grand Falls - Windsor. You know that to make this new school

viable, students had to be transferred from Leading Tickles, Point Leamington,

Botwood - these are at the high school level - to make this new school viable.

Because, if not, the student population won't be there. Does the minister

propose that in the future students from distant places - we have students being

bused today as many as thirty-five, forty kilometres - that that will not be the

case in the future?

MR. DECKER: That is certainly the intent, for many

reasons. One reason - it is happening in the Province, where because children

are being bused from a particular community, then the school that was left there

was made unviable. Pouch Cove, for example - it is quite conceivable that there

are enough children being bused out of Pouch Cove that you could, indeed, have a

viable school in Pouch Cove.

Now, surely goodness, the inconvenience of having to

put children on a bus outweighs the desire that you go to a particular

denomination and, you're quite right, there are children being bused thirty-five

miles. Now that's bad enough, but what makes it worse is that they are being

bused past schools that are perfectly viable.

If there is no way other than to bus them thirty-five

miles, we would have to look at doing that and the Province would have to pay

for it, but it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to bus children past viable

schools to get them to a school of a particular denomination, and we don't

intend to do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have about a minute, Sir.

MR. HODDER: Okay.

Could we go back to this facilities report. I was

going to make a point, a caution. I know there has to be changes to the

decision-making system that's there now. We all agree that there are problems in

My caution is to say that at the moment we at least have three groups vying for

decision-making rights. My caution to the minister is to say that if we're not

careful we will have fifty-two people sitting in this House here who will be

putting a lobby forward, we will have fifteen Cabinet ministers, in their own

right, putting forward their criteria - we all know from experience how the

political system works - there will be ten school boards putting forward their

criteria, so instead of having three decision-making bodies we will have

seventy-seven, and in the absolute, practical world of reality politics, and

having been involved for many years, as people know, we know what happens when

you get regional councils out there, maybe even add these in, all of these

various authorities. How are we going to assure, in the future, if we change the

system, that it becomes absolutely depoliticized?

MR. DECKER: Your point is well taken, Mr. Hodder.

If there is a good thing about the present system, it is that the party politics

does not interfere.

MR. HODDER: We need to protect that.

MR. DECKER: That's right, we protect that.

If you would excuse me for a minute, I would say this,

that in the Strait of Belle Isle district, which for seventeen years held out

and supported the Liberal Party, we had the worst roads in the Province, we had

the worst government services in the Provinces, because of the sheer political

nature of it, but our schools, believe it or not, are no worse than the schools

anywhere else in the Province, because that partisan politics was not involved.

That is why we are so insistent that this body that we put in place will be

arm's length from government.

The Premier, the Minister of Education, the Minister

of Works, Services and Transportation, the Opposition House Leader, the

Opposition Leader, whomever, will not dictate to that construction body, as now.

You, as a member, can go to the Integrated Education Committee and lobby, if you

wish - you will be able to lobby this committee - but the intent is that it will

operate arm's length by legislation from government, and it will have a criteria

which dictates that they build based on need.

Now, that need is going to have to be an absolute

standard because what you can perceive as a need and what Oliver Langdon

perceives as a need might not be the same. Therefore, we have to put absolute

standards in place so that when we say that the worst school in this Province

today is in Brigus, then you use a certain criteria to determine that is indeed

the worst school.

Your caution is well taken, Mr. Hodder. I don't want a

system where we build schools depending on how people vote. We have to build

schools based on need, and your caution is well taken.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thank you,

Mr. Hodder.

Before I recognize the next speaker, I point out that

we are into the last half hour of this session if we are to clue up at 12:00

noon.

I know that we have a bunch of questioners who are

knowledgeable in the trade and could carry on for a long time. Ms. Verge and I

are the innocents in this group here this morning - we are not teachers, you

see. We have two more speakers right now, Mr. Smith and Ms. Verge.

The other caution that I would give you is, if we

don't pass the heads of this committee at 12:00 noon today the chances of this

committee ever meeting again in this session, because the time - we've heard in

the House that the time is going to run out sometime within the next couple of

days. The best we will ever get to do is call the heads sometime before we come

back to the House. If the questioners would have short snappy questions and the

respondents would have short snappy answers we might get through this by 12:00

noon and get the heads passed.

I now recognize Mr. Smith.

MR. LANGDON: Mr. Chairman, I will forego my

questions for the Opposition if that would help.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Does that mean

I don't have to give snappy questions now since Mr. Langdon is not going to ask

any?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: I would like to reference, first of

all, the situation with the full-day Kindergarten. There has been considerable

debate since the government announced its plan to proceed at some point in time

with full-day Kindergarten. Despite what the Chairman (inaudible), I should

mention that fifteen years ago I was advocating full-day Kindergarten. Today I'm

not so sure that is the best route to go, because I've had some experience in

the last five years in developing and implementing a pre-school program. I'm

just wondering, in that whole debate - I'm sure there must have been some

concern or some question or deliberation or consideration to looking at

lengthening the junior Kindergarten program as opposed to full-day Kindergarten.

I would just like to know why we opted for full-day Kindergarten over the junior

Kindergarten.

MR. DECKER: I'm going to let Dr. Crocker go into

the benefits or the pros and cons of full-day Kindergarten, but I just want to

make a point, Mr. Chairman, about one of the things I've noticed in this

Kindergarten debate.

One of the major problems we have in the school system

is a lack of expectations. You don't expect a ten-year-o

Document details

Collection	Newfoundland and Labrador — Committees
Citation	1994-05-02
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	committees_standingcommittees_socialservices_ga42session2_1994-05-02_ssc-edu_.htm
Language	en
Format	html
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	ff59ffe6b0504eb2888a9d4a9b2f33739c4293c4

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