HALIFAX, TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014

 

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

 

3:54 P.M.

 

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Margaret Miller

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The Committee of the Whole on Supply will come to order.

 

The honourable Government House Leader.

 

HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Madam Chairman, would you please call the Estimates of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

 

Resolution E5 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $1,220,027,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, pursuant to the Estimate.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I will now invite the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development to make some opening comments and, if she wishes, to introduce her staff to the members of the committee.

 

HON. KAREN CASEY: Madam Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Estimates for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. As you know, education has been identified by our Premier and our government as a priority, and I'm very proud to speak to what is in the Estimates Book, both what has happened in the past and our plans to go forward with this particular budget.

 

I would like to introduce staff who are here and thank them for their time. I have my Acting Deputy, Frank Dunn, here and Nancy Pynch-Worthylake who is a director of public schools. I also have the Director of Early Years, Nathalie Blanchet who is in the gallery and who may be called upon if there are questions related to Early Learning. As you know, that division has just moved over to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and since we are only allowed to have the two people on the floor, we have her here and if it's possible, through the Clerk to the Chairman, we would make that switch.

 

I would like to begin the conversation about education today by first of all acknowledging the elected school board members and chairs who are responsible for policy and for the delivery of education in our eight school boards across the province. I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the board staff, both teaching and non-teaching staff, who every day go to work with the determination and a dedication to make a difference in the lives of the students that they meet. They are the front-line people. They are the ones there in good days and bad and I would like to thank them for their dedication to our young people.

 

It's also important to acknowledge the partners that work with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and some of those partners include school advisory councils. A school advisory council exists in each school. It's made up of community members and that brings the voice of the community and parents into the decision making at the school level. Home and School Associations, which have been around for a number of years, are also there as partners, supporters and give direction to us when we ask for that and work on our behalf when we ask them. Parents for French is also a very active group and the minister meets regularly with representatives from these groups so that I can hear their voices and they can bring their concerns to me.

 

Another education partner, of course, would be members of the NSTU, Nova Scotia Teachers' Union and the NSSBA, the Nova Scotia School Boards Association, which again is an advocate for public education in our province. Another group that we often speak to and work with is the Association of Nova Scotia Educational Administrators, that would be your principals and vice-principals who have formed an association called the Association of Nova Scotia Educational Administrators.

 

I'd also like to acknowledge the parents and the guardians who send us the best they have every day. They have an expectation that we do the best for them that we can. When that is a positive working relationship, it is the kids who benefit. We all strive to make sure that it is a friendly, cordial relationship. We understand that parents have concerns and we have a responsibility to listen and to try to make things better so that at the end of the day it is the students who benefit.

 

Lastly, but certainly not least, would be the volunteers. When you go into an elementary school in particular, but when you go in other schools as well, you see the employees, the paid staff, the parents who are there helping out, and you see volunteers there who are not even parents but they have a love for what's going on in the school. They have some expertise and some time that they can give, and those volunteers, certainly, are a valuable component to our delivery of public education. When all of those people are working together, it is our collective responsibility to make sure that we provide our students with the very best opportunity, the very best support and the very best education, before they leave our public schools and move on.

 

I just want to share a little bit of the statistics, which some of you may know, but I think it's important to set the stage for what is happening in public schools in our province. We have about 120,000 students across Primary to Grade 12 in our schools. We have 405 schools, 39 of those are what we call P3 schools, and we have over 9,000 teachers and over 5,000 support staff. We have a lot of people who have made a commitment to be educators or to be supporters of students.

 

In the Early Learning Division of our department - and I'll speak a little bit about that later - we have in this province about 63,000 children ages 0 to 6. That's the generation, those are the cohorts that will be coming into our schools, and as a department that now has responsibility for early learning, we have responsibility and working relationships with those children, with their parents, with their guardians. It's important that we recognize that the state of readiness that we can have with those children before they come into our public schools, the better they will be to deal with the curriculum that is presented to them.

 

The move of the Early Learning Division came from Community Services. It had been a part of that department until last year and then it was moved over to become part of Education, and thus the change in name from the Department of Education to Education and Early Childhood Development.

 

We provide a number of services and supports for those students. In particular, we see our role as helping to have early identification and early intervention so that if there are concerns, issues, developmental delays that children experience, that we are able to get the right help, the professional help that they need prior to them ever coming to school.

 

We have 17 early intervention programs. When students are often referred - if they are identified at IWK, if they're identified at birth, or in their early years with some developmental delay, then they are referred to an early intervention program. The challenge that we have - and no one is to blame for this, but it's a situation that we have and really have to try to address it - is there are children on a wait-list to get services through the early intervention programs. I know the former minister was challenged with that when she was with the Department of Community Services and it does present a challenge for us. The wait-list in some cases is so long that children age out before they ever get the service they need, and then they start Primary. We really want to focus on what we can do in those six years or five years prior to students coming to school who have been identified to make sure that the intervention is there.

 

The interventions that are provided in those programs are free, the intervention is free to the parents. The professionals are there. We just have to make sure that we address the wait-list because children are losing out because of that.

 

As you know, yesterday we officially opened the Early Years Centres, there were three that were officially opened yesterday. Again this was an initiative, it was an announcement made by the previous government, and it looks at the needs in a community and brings the services together under one roof. Generally speaking, that will be schools - not necessarily, but the three that we opened yesterday were. It's important that we recognize the opportunities that exist for partners other than Education to be working with children and families prior to them entering school. There was an advisory committee that was looking at how we do that and where we do it and what services we provide and it was across departments, Community Services and Health and Wellness, and Education and Early Childhood Development in particular.

 

I had the opportunity yesterday to be at the official opening at Rockingstone Heights. When I went in, there were two ladies there who turned out to be physicians who, last February, decided that they wanted to set up a clinic in the school because they recognized that there was a need, that families and students had needs, and so they set up a clinic. They did not know that there would be an Early Years Centre established in that school, but when the boards were asked to submit sites where they felt it was important that they have an Early Years Centre, the community identified that area as well. So now here we have the two coming together, and it was great to welcome them to the celebration yesterday because everyone who was there was there for the right reason, and they were there for the kids. (Interruption) Yes, we had one of our MLAs there and you might know which one it would be. That support was great.

 

I think the message here is that there are needs in our community that we are trying to meet before students ever get into our public schools. The early intervention and the Early Years Centres are just two examples of how we can try to help meet those needs.

 

The mandate that I've been given as the minister is to deliver on platform commitments. I will be speaking a little bit more to that later. One of the things that our Premier said as soon as he became Premier was that he would honour the commitments of capital projects, and in particular schools, that had been made by the previous government. I think that was a very honourable thing to do because communities had been working with the previous government; they had identified a need for a school. The government of the day had approved those and so we were not prepared to go into those communities and change. When you saw the list of capital projects that our Minister of Finance and Treasury Board introduced in the Fall, you would have seen that about 10 of those schools had already been announced by the previous government, so we are keeping those commitments.

 

The other thing that we are committed to do is to work toward excellence in education. As you know, there is a panel receiving input about what we can do to make the education system better and what things we should continue. Some things we may have to stop doing, have to change, or we may have to continue. Part of that is because we know that we can never stand still. There are always ways and opportunities for improvement. So we are striving for excellence within the department. That certainly is a message that is shared and delivered amongst all boards and amongst the staff with the boards. We are intent on making decisions that are in the best interest of kids.

 

As an elementary teacher, I used to say that at the end of the day if you went home and you believed that the decisions you made were in the best interests of kids, you could rest at night. I'm still motivated by that same desire to do what is best for kids.

 

If you look at the budget - and I know we'll be talking in more detail about the budget and specific questions in that - but the budget for 2014-15 is $1.2 billion. That is an increase of $114 million over last year. I want you to note that in that, that does include $56 million that came when the Early Learning Years came from the Department of Community Services to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. So that $56 million is there. With that transfer there was also a transfer of 39 FTEs, so that is reflected in some of the budget numbers.

 

During this budget that has been presented, every board in the province will see an increase in the funding that they get from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. That is something that they are very pleased with. We know that hasn't happened in the last number of years and so every board will receive an increase. Those increases range from about 3.2 per cent to 8.3 per cent increase in their budget.

 

We also have stated that the model that we use to disburse the funds to boards is changing. For years that model - the Hogg formula - has been driven by enrolment. At the same time as we have been funding based on enrolment, we have also been experiencing declining enrolment. It finally came to the point where funding based solely on enrolment was a disadvantage to students because they were not getting the money that was needed in order for the programs and supports that they needed to be delivered. So this year we're looking at what we call a hybrid; it is partly based on funding by enrolment and it is partly based on program and needs-based funding. (Applause)

 

We have made some commitments and one of them, of course, was the $65 million. I think it's important to clarify - we think we made it clear but just in case it isn't clear - the $65 million that was committed to be reinvested back into public education was to be reinvested over our four-year mandate. So when we were building the budget this year, we were looking at how we could best use that money yet be prudent in how we used it and ensure that we had it so we could spread out over the course of the four years.

 

About $19 million of that has been invested in this year's budget. I want to speak to where some of that went. We introduced the class size cap, that is a Primary to Grade 2 cap of 20 and then Grades 3 to 6 at 25. That's $7.2 million of our money that went into that.

 

We're also looking at introducing a student support grant, $2.2 million into that. That's something new, and I'll tell you how it works. I mentioned earlier in my comments about volunteers and Home and Schools and parent-teacher groups. One of the major tasks of those groups is to raise funds so activities outside of the normal school funding can take place. I'm not sure that that's fair to the kids in a school, because some communities are more able to raise money than others. If you happen to be in an affluent community, you may well have all kinds of fundraising activities and a lot of funds generated to allow you to do some special activities.

 

But we don't all live in affluent communities. So what we did was look at what we call a student support grant. What it is, it's $5,000 that goes directly to every school, $5,000 plus $1 per student. That goes to the school for the school to use for activities that are not funded by the school board. For example, if somebody is having an Authors' Day and they want to bring an author in and they want to have a little bit of a reception for that person, there are some dollars involved in that and they may be small, but the school does not have to go out and sell cupcakes in order to do that. They will have some money that is at their discretion to do some of those things which we believe are important.

 

Another commitment we made was to put $3.5 million into a literacy strategy. I'm sure I will be speaking more about this later. We have recognized that if students don't have strong math and literacy skills when they leave our schools, then they are at a disadvantage and the opportunities that are there for them are limited.

 

We also recognize that students, as they are moving up from elementary into junior and senior high school, if they don't have those math and literacy skills, are often the people who become disengaged, don't see any relevance to what's going on in the classroom, are not having a lot of success, don't feel good about themselves and they may leave school. We want to make sure we catch these kids and that they have the literacy skills that they need before they leave elementary.

 

We've often heard it said that students should be able to read by the time they leave Grade 3. If they can't, then the content work that they face beyond Grade 3 becomes a challenge for them. So we've introduced a literacy strategy, the $3.5 million. Part of that literacy strategy will be reintroducing Reading Recovery, which some of you may have heard me speak about.

 

It's important to know that Reading Recovery is - thanks for the thumbs up. It's important to know that Reading Recovery is one of a whole menu of programs and supports that is available to teachers in our schools. No one has ever said that it is the only solution, but it's certainly one. It addresses the lowest 20 per cent of the students in Grade 1, and again, trying to catch these kids, give them one-on-one, give them some intense intervention so that they can get the skills they need and move on.

 

We're also introducing a math strategy. We have in this province, for as long as I can remember, struggled with poor math scores. Every government that has been around has tried to do something to support students and teachers. One of the things that we had in place, which was taken out, was math mentors. Math mentors were there to help teachers who were not comfortable and did not have the background that they needed in order to deliver the math curriculum.

 

We have done a survey of teachers related to their teaching assignment and their background qualifications and we recognize that in high school we have about 80 per cent of our math teachers who do have a background in math, but when you get down into junior high, it's only about 54 per cent. So you have teachers there who are looking for support to help them better understand the strategies that they should be using and how they can best help their students. Within the math strategy there will be a reinvestment and a reintroduction of math mentors to support those teachers.

 

We also have put $1.5 million into what we call special complex needs and those of you who are parents, or teachers, or grandparents, you know that the complexities in the classroom now are much different than they used to be. There are children who have many challenges and some of them are behavioural, some of them aren't; some of them are cognitive, but in the classroom, because of our policy of inclusion, they are there with 20, 25 other students. We need to make sure that we have put in the supports so that those kids can get the extra help that they need so that they can be on task, be attentive, and can learn.

 

We also, on the other end of the spectrum, are investing money into skilled trade centres. We have, over the last number of years, recognized that closing vocational schools was probably not the right thing to do, however, reopening a vocational school as it was is probably not the right thing to do either. What the previous government looked at, and I commend them for that, was to look at skilled trade centres, which are part of a high school; they are not separated from the regular academic programs, they are part of a high school but they do give students, who are inclined towards some of the trades, an opportunity to do that trade instruction at their school.

 

We have 10 skilled trades centres currently up and running in the province. We have two that under renovation and in the capital budget that was presented in the Fall, we announced four more skilled trade centres.

 

I mentioned the early intervention and we've committed $1.3 million to try to address the issue of wait-lists for students who are waiting for assessments and intervention in the early intervention program.

 

Something that is growing, and we'll hear more about it, is the virtual schools. We have $1.2 million that we're adding to the virtual schools budget and we have 77 schools where students can take courses online and we have over 900 students who are enrolled in one or more online courses. I think there are about 55 courses that are available for students.

 

What that does for students, of course, is because we are a rural province, because we have some small high schools, the ability to have a broad range of course selection there or course offerings is very limited. What we're trying to do is to ensure that the student in Advocate Harbour who wants to take calculus has an opportunity to take it in Advocate Harbour. You would never be able to staff a small high school like that with all of the staff you needed to offer all of the courses that students might want. We have 55 of those courses online and students are taking advantage of that, as I say, I think it's 900 some students that we have.

 

The other commitment that we've made is toward guidance counsellors. With all of the recent conversation about students struggling with bullying, with their own self-confidence, needing someone to talk to, we felt we needed to make sure that every one of our boards and all of our high schools had sufficient guidance counsellors there to meet the needs of those students. There is a ratio for guidance counsellors of 1:500 - one guidance councillor per 500 students. Three boards were not up to that ratio, were not meeting that, so we are putting dollars into those three boards so that they can hire guidance counsellors and meet that ratio.

 

The last thing I would say has to do with how we fund. I've said we were looking at moving away from strictly by enrolment and looking at a hybrid model of programs and enrolment. We also recognize that there are a lot of programs that we believe are good for kids - "we" meaning, collectively, the principals, the parents, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development - and if we are going to use taxpayers' dollars to fund those, then I believe we have an obligation to make sure that the dollars we provide to school boards go to providing those programs.

 

Basically what we're saying is, if we're giving you $2 million to deliver a program in whatever, then there's an expectation that you do that. We call that targeted money. Boards may have some difficulty with that because it takes away some of their flexibility, but if I go back to one of my earlier statements, I like to be driven by what's in the best interest of kids. If the program is good for a student in Advocate, it's also good for a student in Halifax Citadel.

 

So we target some of the money, which means the boards get their money, but they must spend it on that particular program. I'll just go through some of the 16 programs that we have targeted, which means the boards get the money, but they have to spend it on those programs: International Baccalaureate, Healthy Active Living, Co-op Ed, Skilled Trades, Student Support Grants, Math Strategy, Class Size Cap, Student Support Workers, Early Literacy Strategy, Options and Opportunities, RCH Initiative, French Second Language, Information Economy Initiative, School Improvement, Autism, and Special Needs Supports.

 

It's to make sure that we are consistent across the province with the programs and the supports that we provide for students. Boards are working with us to make sure that they are able to implement the program based on the need and the funding that they do receive.

 

That's just a bit of an introduction, an overview of what we do at the department. I look forward to the questions and the conversation that will come from the members opposite, and I do appreciate and value your input.

 

I would like to say that some of the best conversations that I've had in this House, not recently, but 2006 to 2009 - I don't mind putting the dates out - were conversations that I had with the two critics of the other Parties, both teachers, so the three of us would talk about how can we strengthen a piece of legislation, how can we look at a program and determine the strengths and the weaknesses of that. I look forward to that conversation beginning again with the two critics. Thank you.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: Thank you for the comments, minister, and welcome to the acting deputy and the director of public schools and the department staff upstairs.

 

As the minister mentioned a few seconds ago, we certainly had many conversations over the years with regard to the plight of education, going back even further than 2006, when we were both members of the TCRSB and having administrative meetings at the board office in Truro in the administrative field.

 

I am very pleased to hear that education is a priority for the government. That is actually music to my ears because most of my career, of course, has been in education and it's also dear to my heart.

 

We may disagree, however, on certain things with regard to the way we have programs and commitments to programs, what types of programs that we use in the educational system but, again, we both want what is best for students in Nova Scotia.

 

Madam Chairman, I would like to mention a couple of comments about the comprehensive review. I am very pleased to see a comprehensive review across the Province of Nova Scotia and I certainly hope that the review not only addresses a lot of these changes that I feel should happen, but I think it's critical that this particular panel - and I think they are very capable of doing this - that they seek out, listen, analyze ideas, concerns, and advice from the front-line workers, and I think that's critical.

 

We can no longer afford to listen to people who are actually isolated from the real classroom. They lack recent classroom experience. We cannot be resistant to input from educators who spend each day in the classroom, Madam Chairman; they are the educators who should be models of good teaching.

 

Again, that is quite a task that they have, in the next few months, to look at the education system. It has been perhaps as far back as 25 years since the last very comprehensive study has been done. They certainly have their work cut out for them and I wish them the very best and I hope the outcomes are very positive.

 

Madam Chairman, the first thing I want to touch on, just for a few seconds and get a comment from the minister, is dealing with active, healthy living in our schools, the need for continued emphasis, of course, to be placed on educating students and social and emotional learning, practising healthy relationships, certainly in the curriculum that is continuously being updated. Social and emotional learning has certainly been effective in our school system, especially when it is integrated across the curriculum in various subjects and so on.

 

Again, I guess it's more of a comment, my question for the minister is just to comment on if there are any new initiatives in active healthy living.

 

MS. CASEY: Yes we were administrators in the same board at the same time and I believe we made lives better for the kids in Chignecto because of that.

 

Just to comment first of all about the review, the education review that is taking place, and I think it has been said that there has not been a review in public education for about 25 years, long overdue. That doesn't mean that good things haven't happened over those last 25 years but the graduates that we're bringing out of our schools now certainly are facing a different world and we want to make sure that they have the knowledge base and the skill set that they need in order to be successful when they do leave high school.

 

We put together a panel of very qualified people who will receive the information and the concerns and the ideas from the broader public. Their task is not to set the agenda for education but their task is to listen to what Nova Scotians are saying, to identify areas where we need to do more research in order to get more information to support a position that we may take, and they will provide me with the results of their analysis. That will form the basis for a go-forward action plan, which it is my hope will be ready to drive the budget for next year.

 

I think it's important to note two things and it is important, as the member said, to hear from the people on the front lines. The decision was made that there would not be an active teacher on the panel. That was a conscious decision because I believe the voices of active teachers need to be given to the panel.

 

What I did was to write a letter to every teacher in the province and invite them to give me, or to give through me to the panel, their ideas and their comments, what's working for them and what isn't. Some of the best suggestions that I believe we will get will be from people in the trenches, the people who are on the front line.

 

That immediately went out to every teacher and I know the responses are coming in. I'm not reading them, but I am checking to see if they are coming in and I know they are. When those are all in, of course that will help drive the action plan.

 

In addition to that, we recognize there were a lot of partners - and I mentioned some of the partners in my opening comments. We recognize that there are a lot of groups that do have a lot of good ideas and they need to be heard. So we put together what we called a partners' advisory group which represents those special groups, those agencies, those partners, those organizations which all have a vested interest and I'm sure all have some good ideas.

 

I just want, for the member's information and knowledge, to read that off. There are 15 groups that we've contacted. They are members of the partners' advisory group. There's a member from the Association of Nova Scotia Educational Administrators, from the Black Educators Association, from the Council on Mi'kmaq Education, from the Leaders of Today, from the Nova Scotia Federation of Home and School Associations, from the Nova Scotia School Boards Association, from the Nova Scotia Secondary Students' Association - we wanted to hear from students as well - from the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, from the Youth Advisory Council - there is a Youth Advisory Council to the minister, I want them to have a voice - from the Parents for French, from the Inter-University Committee on Teacher Education - it's important that they are involved in this because they are the recipients of our graduates. They have students that we graduate who are going on to university. We need to know how ready those students are, how well prepared they are when they go to university. If there are things that they see as weaknesses or areas of concern or deficiencies, we need to know that because that may drive some change in our curriculum.

 

The Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities is part of that, Nova Scotia Small Schools Initiative - those are some of the groups that are represented on that panel. So I think we've reached out. There will be many, many opportunities for people to bring their ideas and concerns. I have said this in public, the slate is clean. I don't want people to be bashful about - I don't know if I should say that, what about this, is it too radical, is it too far-out. The slate is clean and I want people to be comfortable putting their ideas and their comments forward.

 

The second part - I guess it was the second question - was about healthy, active living. We recognized a number of years ago that not all students have the opportunity, I guess, to have a good, healthy meal before they come to school. We all know what the research says about making sure that kids get a good, hot meal. So out of that came a decision to make sure that cafeterias in our schools were serving healthy foods.

 

Also out of that came the breakfast programs. If you've been in an elementary school in the morning - and I see the member nodding her head - if you're in there in the morning in an elementary school and a bus unloads and the kids come in, they make a beeline for the cafeteria or the gym, wherever this breakfast is being served.

 

It used to be initially that students went there because they were hungry. They either ate and then were on the bus for an hour, or they didn't have anything to eat at home, or they grabbed a bag of chips on the way out. Initially it was to meet the need of hunger.

 

What has come out of that is that it has become a social event. Kids want to be there to greet their other friends, to talk about what happened the night before and also to have a good healthy start to their day. I talked initially about volunteers, and most of the parents who come to those schools to have the breakfast programs for kids are volunteers, and it's not just elementary. I will use Tatamagouche as an example because when I visited the breakfast program in the elementary school, some of the volunteers said, well now we have to leave here because we're going over to the high school. Again, it's not just elementary kids that need that healthy breakfast.

 

Those are the kinds of things that we believe are trying to put students in a better state of readiness to learn. It's pretty hard to learn if you haven't eaten since six o'clock the night before - and who knows what you had then. We believe that that is one of the first steps to making sure that kids can engage.

 

We have a number of programs in our schools to deal with the healthy active living. As you know, physical education is a requirement. I think it's 30 minutes a day at elementary school and we've introduced a mandatory Physical Education course at high school. You hate to think that you have to make them mandatory, but some kids are not inclined and not interested in being physically active. But if they get in with a group of their friends and they're in a class where they have to be physically active, they enjoy it - but it wouldn't probably be the course that some of them would sign up for first.

 

We want to make sure that we have kids who, before they leave high school, have at least one mandatory Phys Ed class. In many cases after they've had that one class, they may sign up for a second class at high school, a second course at high school.

 

We work very closely also with the Department of Health and Wellness because we want to make sure that we - governments in the past have been criticized for being too isolated. If it's the Department of Health and Wellness you only focus on health, if it's Education you focus on education, if it's Justice it's something else. Breaking those walls down and working with other agencies and other departments certainly has helped to promote healthy living and healthy lifestyles.

 

I know as a parent, when my boys were in junior high, I would go grocery shopping, come home and put the stuff away and put it on the table for whatever meal - and the first thing they did, which I was highly insulted when they did it, was pick up the box of whatever it was and start reading what are the contents of this, how many calories am I going to get out of this and is there enough carbohydrates. I thought, don't you even trust your mother to go buy the groceries? But they were learning in school the importance of knowing the contents of the food that you're eating and they were teaching the parents at home - do you know how much fat is in that? They still do that and I still don't look at it, but it is, I think, one place where we as educators have helped students become more aware of a healthy lifestyle. Thank you.

 

MR. DUNN: Thank you for that answer. The next topic I'd like to bring up is - when I look at a couple of systems, particularly in high school, where Grade 9 students are entering high school and they have a certain number of credits and requirements needed to pass that Grade 9 year. However, it is my belief that it causes great difficulty in some schools, especially in small areas in Nova Scotia, for a school trying to juggle a timetable, trying to create a timetable, trying to fit teachers into the right schedules because of the Grades 10, 11 and 12 also in the school.

 

It seems like it would be a simple thing to do, if we could include Grade 9 into the high school schedule. That is, when they enter high school starting in Grade 9, they have X number of credits to achieve to get their Grade 12 diploma. Again, I just want to get a reaction from the minister with regard to perhaps that possibility in the future, or at least looking at it, and discussing it with the appropriate people.

 

MS. CASEY: The member has identified a situation that exists and it has been changing over the last number of years in our province. Traditionally, we had primary schools, then we had junior highs and then we had senior highs, and if the communities were small, you might have your junior and senior high school in the same school, but their program of study was different.

 

Over the years there have been studies done and Dr. Jim Gunn, who the member will know, did one of those studies about grade configuration in schools. It was evident that including Grade 9s in some of our high schools was perhaps a better placement for those students than in a junior high. So some of our schools have now become Grade 9 to 12 schools. I know in Pictou County there are a couple of those schools. I guess one is probably Grades 10 to 12, the other is still Grades 9 to 12 but will they both become Grades 9 to 12? I believe that is taking place there.

 

So if it is age-appropriate and interest-appropriate for Grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 students to be in the same building, then the question that the member asked is a very good one. Is there any way that we can make them feel more inclusive in that environment so it's not Grade 9 and then the 10, 11 and 12s are separate? A couple of things that we have done that I believe are tiptoeing into that, perhaps, would be in the - we've had the Options and Opportunities program in Grades 10, 11 and 12. We are now introducing Discovering Opportunities at Grade 9, so we're hoping there will be a smooth transition. Kids will get some exposure to those skills in the trades in Grade 9, and then when they move into Grades 10, 11 and 12, it won't be as big a change for them as if they had come from a Grade 9 where they've never even talked about Options and Opportunities. So introducing that Discovering Opportunities program is one way that I think we're recognizing that that population - Grades 9 to 12 - is an important population.

 

We also know that - I mentioned the virtual schools - there may be opportunities through the virtual schools for students at Grade 9 to be picking up courses that they can use towards their high school graduation. It will take some work - there's no question. It will really have to look at the course requirements for graduation. Right now we look at what you take in Grades 10, 11 and 12, and you have certain requirements over those three years. We may have to look at extending that to four years, at what happens if you get Grade 9s involved in some of that course selection and eventually have them begin their package of required courses at the beginning of Grade 9 instead of Grade 10.

 

I'm pleased to have the member ask that question. I think it's something we need to explore, and I think the more we get into Grade 9 to 12 schools, the more appropriate it will be to look at just how those programs are delivered.

 

MR. DUNN: As the minister mentioned, the two new high schools in Pictou County - Northumberland Regional High School certainly has the Grades 9 to 12, and in the Fall, this particular Fall, the Grade 9s will be moving into the North Nova Education Centre.

 

Madam Chairman, another problem I see at the high school level is dealing with credits. I believe it's 18 credits to graduate at the high school level. The minister can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if I can remember, approximately 14 may be the compulsory mandatory courses out of the 18. However, 18 courses is the number that one must achieve in order to walk across the stage and receive a certificate.

 

The problem I see with this in the high school level is that many students acquire their 18 credits by January of their Grade 12 year, so then they're in an area of what shall I do? Shall I stay at school and take some more courses? I have all the required courses that I need, so will I stay with my friends and graduate with them? Will I go out and work and come back for graduation, or will I just leave completely?

 

What has happened in some schools because of this is that schools have witnessed the potential for disruptions in the schools, in classes, because students don't show up. Students know they don't really need the courses, so sometimes they don't take the courses seriously. Again, Madam Chairman, this is not all students, I'm talking about a certain percentage of students. So additional problems - skipping classes, a lot of things happen that cause disruptions for instruction in the classroom, and so on. Of course, teachers want their students to learn, and that's why they are in high school.

 

I guess my question to the minister is, why don't we consider increasing the number of credits in high school - and I'll throw a number out - perhaps to 20 credits? If a student is in a semestered school, they can come out with 24 credits. Would increasing that be any advantage to us?

 

Another question I'll ask further is concerning another compulsory course. I don't want her to answer right now, but I'll bring that up later. Anyway, it's the increase in courses. Will that be something that perhaps one should at least look at?

 

MS. CASEY: A good question, good ideas. I would ask the member opposite if he would please submit his ideas to the education panel that is receiving all of the ideas that are out there. If you will remember, in the early stages of the Education Review Panel, it was called a curriculum review panel. We recognize that curriculum had to be the focus, but we also recognize that there were a lot of things that were interconnected to curriculum, so we broadened it, but it did initially start as a curriculum review.

 

I think the question the member asks is important. First of all, we need to make sure that the courses we're offering are giving the students the skill set and the knowledge base that we want them to have. Oftentimes we add something to the curriculum but we don't necessarily connect it to what it is we want them to know. I am encouraging staff to look at what we want our students to have when they graduate, and then at what courses we need in order for them to have that. Then the next question is how many courses, and what are those courses?

 

I recognize that when you have students who have completed their course requirements by January, by the end of that year's semester, what do they do? Some of them will be very engaged and will pick up four more courses and be fully engaged and learning through that last semester. Good for them, because it does give them a broader base of knowledge. However, others may say, okay, I've finished what I need to do. I want to go on to university; can I start in February? No, so what do I do? They're kind of lost for a period of time because they have no place to go, and that's not a good situation for young people to be in. Not all of them can travel for four months and then come back.

 

What happens with the required courses when during the three or, if we include Grade 9s, four years of high school, do they pick up those courses and how can we make sure that those courses that they're taking are giving them the credit, the skillset that they need when they leave? I'm hoping that it will become part of the curriculum review, that people will raise that as a concern and a suggestion. I don't expect that the education system will look, in three years' time, like it does today. If we really want to make things different and better for kids, it will require some of those major changes. Course requirements, graduation requirements, semestering are all part of that possible outcome.

 

MR. DUNN: Thank you to the minister for that answer. I'm going to move on to another type of question, somewhat similar as far as what I consider a problem area in our schools. In this particular one, I guess, the bottom line is dollars and cents. I know money is scarce, but I'll explain the problem and I'll ask the minister for a comment on it.

 

It deals with the smooth transition with special ed students. When they turn 18 years of age and they walk across the stage at graduation and receive their certificate and they go home, all of a sudden sometimes reality sets in. The parents are somewhat in semi-shock, wondering, what do we do next? What's going to happen next year? I've had this support system since day one, Primary; now they're finished.

 

What usually happens, at least in my experience, is the students return to high school, to their special education class. They're 19, 20, 21. That, at times, can cause problems because of overcrowded classrooms and lack of resources and special education teachers and instructors. What I see as a potential problem is a school that is not prepared for an extra-large class. I'll give you an example - I believe I'm correct in saying this - the North Nova Education Centre. This particular school year, about seven grads returned to make the classroom somewhere approximately around 15. I'm sure that's a strain on resources, a strain on educational assistants and a strain on the system because there's not enough money to divide it into a couple of classes. Again, parents are perplexed as far as what is the next step for their child, and they decide to return to school.

 

There is a solution, but again the solution comes with a dollar sign. So I will mention a potential solution, at least one in our area where we live and in certainly other areas across the province. We have a situation where these students actually could transfer to a place very close to North Nova Education Centre, where the special ed class is. That's Summer Street Industries. Summer Street Industries actually has a waiting list of approximately 32 students at the moment and that's due to a lack of funding - students who want to get into these very worthwhile programs. Therefore, because they can't get into Summer Street, they decide, well, my other option is to go back to high school and stay there until I'm 21, but there's no funding for students after they graduate, for 19, 20 and 21. Therein creates the problem; there's no funding at the high school and this transition.

 

I guess there's a possible win-win situation. If the money was available, they could continue this - if the student funding was available for those three years for the students who finished that particular curriculum at their school, and if the student funding was available first and if it would transfer with them to this wonderful community organization. Summer Street Industries is basically an employment centre for adults with mental disabilities or those facing multiple barriers to employment, Madam Chairman.

 

I think we have to address this gap, a service program, perhaps school to community. I believe there's a centre in the Sydney area that is working on this or involved in this type of thing. I've had many talks with the people at Summer Street and they certainly would like to see something like this happening. Again, it comes down to dollars and cents and we realize that.

 

This type of transition program, Madam Chairman, would focus on independent living, personal management, community involvement and employment potential. Summer Street Industries in New Glasgow and other organizations such as this are well known throughout Nova Scotia for securing employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. They certainly are well known in our community of Pictou County. I think the minister is aware of this particular organization. They have accomplished wonderful things over the years. Their mandate is to promote and enhance independence, choice and employability of those whom they serve, but there is follow-through, some action to make the necessary changes required to place on the leading edge in educational circles.

 

Again, I think this would be a nice, smooth transition if it was possible for them, after they finish, to slide over to a place like Summer Street Industries and continue their development. So again, I'd like the minister just to comment, actually, on that concept.

 

MS. CASEY: Thank you to the member for the question and the suggestion. It's true that students, when they graduate, have to be out of school a year before they are eligible to go into some of the adult programs, and parents do wonder what meaningful activities and what opportunities they can have for their young adults during that period of time.

 

I think we should also remember that students are able to stay in public school until they are 21 and if they are in public school, they are funded. So I guess the question is, if they leave public school, could the funding follow the student to another workshop-type of environment where they are gainfully employed and feel productive and confident and good about themselves?

 

I know we said earlier that sometimes we're so isolated in our own departments that that conversation between Education and Early Childhood Development and Community Services needs to be had, because at the end of the day it's provincial dollars - the dollars are following that student, and if that student was in a high school the funding would go to a school. Why could it not go with the student to another like Summer Street Industries? I am familiar with that, because it is a sad time for kids and parents - kids who have been engaged in a social environment, who have been involved in activities where they feel good, who have some life skills that they have learned, some skills that they want to practise, and would be great in a workshop environment, an adult workshop environment, and would be productive. But they have that year that they have to either go back or not get engaged in that activity.

 

Funding following the student is an initiative that we need to look at, and it would not cost the government any money, because we would be paying that funding if the student was in a school. So I make a commitment to you that I will look at that.

 

MR. DUNN: Just one last comment on that particular question or scenario is that perhaps it could be cost-shared with Community Services, with Health and Wellness, with Justice, because they all sort of fit into that particular area, as opposed to dropping it all on the educational budget.

 

Madam Chairman, just moving on here, the next item that I would like to discuss with the minister is the one to four assessment tool. I've talked to several administrators and guidance counsellors, and I'm finding that the majority do not want this evaluation in high school. At least, that's the ones that I've been talking to - the one to four assessment tool. I guess the reason why they don't is that there are no percentages in this evaluation, and I believe that guidance counsellors are sending out transcripts and information to universities. Basically what I'm hearing is that the universities want percentages, but this evaluation that is called the one to four assessment tool doesn't offer percentages.

 

I think I might be right, and Hants North and Pugwash might be using this particular assessment tool. Most schools are not, Madam Chairman. Again, I'm just asking the minister about her opinion with regard to this type of assessment. Does she think this assessment might be moving on where all high schools may have to be involved in it? Again, there are going to have to be some changes occurring with regard to the transportation of information from schools to universities, and so on.

 

MS. CASEY: If I could just go back to the earlier question about funding and following the student, it is about $9,300 per student that we give to school boards, so if in fact the funding was going to follow them, and it was in co-operation with the Department of Community Services - the funding that is allocated now, if that followed, would be about $9,300. We do have some numbers that we can look at, and some real numbers, and as I said, the cost to the province would remain the same if the funding of $9,300 followed the student. Just for your information and for something for us to build on.

 

Your second question was about report cards, I believe, and how we assess students and how we report. Am I correct on that?

 

MR. DUNN: Yes.

 

MS. CASEY: As you know, the one to four that you're speaking about does not include the percentages. It is one of the common complaints that I've heard about how we report to parents. There was quite an outcry last year about report cards, what they did or didn't tell the parents. There was probably as loud a cry from some teachers who were filling out the report cards. You are probably aware that we have now asked parents, teachers and students to tell us what they think of the report card.

 

I will tell you this, and no offence to my colleagues who are on either side of me here, but when I made the decision that we would go out and do a review, do a survey to get people's opinions about the report card, I mentioned that to some staff and I said that we need to hear from teachers and parents and students. I had staff very promptly come back to me with a list of people who would be on the report card committee, and they were from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. I said no, this is about parents and teachers and students. And so, we put together a Report Card Committee made up of parents and teachers and students, because if you have built something and you believe it is the right thing to have and I ask you to evaluate it, chances are you'll give it pretty high marks. I wanted to hear from the users how they felt about the report card.

 

Those surveys are out now and we have asked students. The last time I checked, we had well over 1,000 responses. That is encouraging because that, I believe, will drive any changes that may come about in the report cards. We will be making decisions based on how users feel about the instrument that we're sending out.

 

I've made this comment as a former teacher - I shouldn't say "former" because once you are a teacher, you are always one - as a teacher: a report card is only one means of communicating with parents. It is sad when we think it is the only means for some families, that the only communication they have with their teacher is when their student brings home a report card. Reporting to parents is ongoing and should be an ongoing process. But the actual written report that goes to parents has to be meaningful, it has to have language that the parents understand, it has to give them a clear picture of the progress their child is making and it also has to point out clearly where the child may need some more help. If it doesn't send those three key messages, then it's really meaningless.

 

I've heard stories and I will tell you one. A parent had twin girls; the little girls brought home their report cards and they presented them to their mother. If it wasn't for the name on the report card, you would never know Suzie from Sally. They were absolutely identical. The mother was saying, but my kids are not absolutely identical. So I think there's lots of room for us to personalize the report card, for us to make sure that it speaks to progress and to make sure it identifies strengths because every child wants to be able to say look, the teacher is really happy because I did this. But it also has to identify areas - parents need to know if there's a concern and the report card is one way to do that.

 

The short answer: the review is out, the responses are coming in and they will be reflected in the report card. I have said to staff we have cut the timeline so that information is back by the end of April, because if we want to make any change in the reporting mechanism for next year, we have to have that really soon.

 

MR. DUNN: Anyone connected with education has certainly heard a lot about report card reporting across the province. Any time you have a chance to talk to teachers in a school setting or outside a school setting, often the topic of report cards come up. Again, I may touch on that at a later date; maybe as we continue to do this over the next four or five days, we'll come up and talk about report cards.

 

The next item that I'd like to quickly bring up and get a comment from the minister is with regard to the hours that are in the classroom throughout a school year of 195 days. Talking to some people, they will suggest - not all - that we probably should have maybe additional hours in the classroom, building these skill sets and so on. They're not saying this because we have in-service days and we have storm days and so on, because - I think I'm correct - back a number of years ago I think we perhaps added 10 days on to the school year to sort of make up for that. I think over the years it has balanced out. This may be a different year.

 

But again, I think I can remember reading once where Alberta has approximately 100 hours of additional instruction over the number of hours that we have in our school system. Of course there are other areas around the globe that certainly spend more time in the classroom during the school year. The comment I want to hear from the minister is just an opinion about what she thinks with regard to additional hours in the classroom.

 

MS. CASEY: As the member would know, the maximum number of hours of instruction per day is six. There are not many schools that go the full six hours, but that is the maximum number. That's instructional time; if we were going to lengthen the school day, in some communities that could make a long day.

 

I think what I may hear you saying is the amount of instructional time may not be a lengthened school day, but a lengthened school year. There are some things that are contractual that we work with the Nova Scotia Teachers Union on. It's part of their collective agreement with respect to professional development days. Right now, we have boards that are struggling with - what do we do because of the days we've lost because of storm days?

 

Really, there is very little that the boards can do without the co-operation of the union if it involves professional development. I think there are eight days that are written into the school year, part of the contract for professional development. Those are non-instructional days and those could not be changed unless it was changed within the contract.

 

I know that some boards had talked about taking one of those days and using it as an instructional day to try to make up some time they'd lost with storms. The union was prepared to grieve that. So there really can be no taking of those eight professional development days without the co-operation of the union.

 

The question is, I think, more of quality than quantity. We could extend the school year or the school day, but if the quality of instruction was not the very best that we could provide, then the learning probably would not improve. So knowing that there are limitations with what we can do, I'm more inclined to focus on quality.

 

I know what some boards are doing within their days now to try to make up for the snow days is if it's a school trip that they are in control of, they can cancel or they can shorten the trip. If it's an assembly, if they're used to having an assembly every Friday afternoon, maybe they don't have those assemblies on Friday afternoon, maybe they use that as instructional time.

 

I think boards are looking at ways they can increase the instructional time within the parameters that we currently have. I don't think it's a bad exercise for boards to be going through. We can't control the number of storm days we have and we can't be critical of boards when they close because of unsafe conditions. But we have to deal with the reality of that and how we can ensure the instructional time for students is not compromised because of that.

 

MR. DUNN: I thank the minister for the answer. The minister mentioned earlier some information dealing with the math curriculum and the teachers who are teaching at the high school and junior high and I will ask a couple of questions in a few minutes. The question is really not about the math curriculum, it's just an idea that was triggered when she was talking and thinking about high school elective courses as possibilities. We're always trying to think about courses that can be offered at the high school level and thinking about elementary schools sometimes not having, in some cases, teachers trained in mathematics to teach mathematics in the lower grades and even up into junior high school.

 

The idea I have is to have an elective course for very competent Grade 12 math-science students. They could take an elective course and the elective course would be where, perhaps, if the arrangements could be made, they could help mentor students in the early stages, in the early grades up through elementary, or maybe even in high school Grade 9 to Grade 12, Grade 9 students who often struggle with the math curriculum, to have these students - not all year long, it would be a semestered course and it would be an elective course. I think perhaps something like that would be very beneficial both ways, for the student involved in it, the Grade 12 math student, and the student receiving this assistance. I would like the minister to comment on that idea.

 

MS. CASEY: Something that I did mention and I know you picked up on is teachers teaching outside of their subject area. Back in 2006 or 2007 there was a study done to determine how many teachers were teaching outside of their subject area and it was driven by the fact that we had poor math scores and that's what drove that study. What we have found since 2006 until last year was that we have made significant improvements in the junior high with the numbers of teachers teaching math who have math as a background. But we're not there yet.

 

What you get in small schools are teachers, you don't have experts in every field; you have teachers who are teaching several subjects. I often think of a small school like Advocate Harbour where they have about maybe 8 or 10 students in Grade 12 and the teacher who is teaching math in Grade 12 might also be teaching science, maybe physics, maybe economics, maybe physical education in order to cover the courses that they need and want to offer, so students have the required courses to graduate. It forces teachers to teach outside of their area of expertise.

 

As I said, what we have found is that at high schools now, most - 80 per cent - of the teachers who are teaching math have a background in math. I think it is 54 per cent at junior high. I'm not sure if you're talking about a co-op course or a course where it's taught - it's a student teaching another student, basically. Is that what you're talking about? If you have a really good math student in Grade 12, they may work with a struggling student in Grade 8, is that kind of what you're looking at? I'll sit down and you can talk.

 

MR. DUNN: I was referring to a Grade 12 student working with a classroom math teacher and helping out with the students who are struggling in a particular grade.

 

MS. CASEY: Thanks for the clarification on that. You know, I believe that already happens in some of our classrooms. I think we have students who do excel, they want to be engaged, they want to be busy and someone else in the class is struggling. The challenge, of course, that you get is, if I'm struggling and my parents don't want you teaching me, they want the teacher teaching me, so you would have to deal with some of those dynamics within the classroom. But in many cases, that student who excels can be a great aid to the student who is having trouble, who is needing a little bit of support.

 

I'm not sure - we have a number of courses in math at high school that kids can choose from. If a student is excelling in pre-calculus, for example, and they finish that course, then they're going to go on to the next most rigorous course there is for them in math. Those are the kids who are always looking for a challenge. We believe that we have a broad enough course selection in most of our schools that they can get that challenge.

 

But always, you know, you go into a school and you have Grade 6 kids going down and reading to their little Primary partner. So that model, I think, is what you are talking about, done within the confines of a class. As I said, I believe it's happening. I hear people tell stories of - I guess it would be my grandmother's generation - P to 12 in one classroom, and the Grade 12 kids were teaching the Grade 7 kids, and the Grade 7 kids were teaching the Grade 2 kids. So, I guess, what is new?

 

MR. DUNN: I hope what didn't get lost in that was the fact that I was looking at a chance for a Grade 12 student just to pick up another elective, like at the same time.

 

MS. CASEY: We do, at high school, have what we call challenge for credit. This might be a new twist on that, where a student who is able to take on that responsibility and can prove that they do have the background and the teaching skills and the ability and there's somebody to supervise and monitor that, that may be a credit that they could challenge for, or it could be through a co-op course that they would be able to work with another student.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The time is finished for the honourable member.

 

The honourable member for Chester-St. Margaret's.

 

HON. DENISE PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I would like to thank the minister for her remarks and also certainly the staff for all the work that goes into preparing for Budget Estimates and for the work they do each and every day, year round, to make a difference in our education system here in the Province of Nova Scotia.

 

The focus that I'm going to take in our questioning is from a parent's perspective. I'm very proud of my son, who will be 22 years old this summer, and it doesn't seem like it was even that long ago that he would have been in the category of the early years. For me, I know that family and friends would hear me say over and over - oh, this stage is the most wonderful stage. Then the next stage of his life would come along and I would say, oh my gosh, this is the most wonderful stage.

 

Having only one child and being so blessed for that miracle, I have been an overpowering mother and a worrywart most of the time, and still am. I'll never forget when I always had to be there to walk him to school, and when he was in Grade 5 how I walked him right into his classroom. The teacher quietly came over to me and said, "Mrs. Peterson-Rafuse, do you think perhaps you could leave him at the door outside?" I kind of looked around at the other kids snickering because mom was taking him right to his desk. Bless his heart, he wouldn't say anything to me about it.

 

So I think I have an understanding as a parent and also as a mom of the importance of our education system and how critical that is to what our children become as adults and how they give back to our society and the influence that education has on our children. That's why it is such a very important department for us to be talking about certainly here in Budget Estimates.

 

First I'm going to speak a little bit about the early years, as we've defined from birth to six years of age. I know that the minister said that there were about 63,000, I believe, in our province that would go into that particular age range. We all know that, for decades of research, that the scientists and the advocates have said how important those early years are in terms of a child's development - not only their physical development as they're growing, but also their intellectual development, and that if we focus our resources on a child from the time - and there are even people who believe before birth, because I know of a lot of moms who will actually, when they're pregnant, will read to their unborn child and there have been studies that there is a rhythm in the mom's voice that the child would recognize, or the dad's voice if he's reading a story to the unborn child.

 

I think there can even be arguments that even before birth, how important it is to have that relationship and develop that relationship with your child and also focus on the educational component. Education, as we know, is not just for our education system, but for us as parents that we play a significant role in that. That's why I want to stand in this House during Budget Estimates and talk from a parent's role and what I've experienced in the education system as my son grew up and is now actually in the university system.

 

The first thing that I want to mention is that's why it fit so well for me, having the opportunity to be elected in 2009 and represent Chester-St. Margaret's and the rest of Nova Scotia because I know it is one area that the NDP were very passionate about. We had the opportunity to form government for four and a half years, and the members on the government side will see how quickly that time goes by and the amount of work that it takes just to take something from - like my grandmother used to say when she was making her cakes - from scratch, you didn't take it from a recipe mix that was available, that you must make your cake from scratch.

 

I think that's what we, the NDP, did in terms of the early years for the Province of Nova Scotia. There was no strategy in terms of the early years and focusing in an overall plan. I think, as we always say, we need to give credit where credit is due. It may sound like I'm tooting our own horn, but I think it's very important for people to recognize - and I know that the minister did recognize that here today - that it was the NDP who actually focused on the early years, brought a panel of experts together that created a plan and a pathway for those early years for the province, no matter what government came in, and I'm very pleased that the Liberal Government has adopted our philosophy in terms of the importance of the early years and will be carrying that through.

 

As we know, there was a lot of work to lay that foundation. Those things do not happen overnight. I know from a public perception they don't always see what is taking place internally and that when an announcement is made, it almost sounds like that just happened a month ago, that you just put it together. But often it is months and months and months of work and the first thing that you need to do is bring the key players together and have a consultation process, which was done with the early years.

 

It's like when you're getting married and you're trying to do the guest list. That is one thing that is really challenging for any minister when they are putting together a panel or to bring together a consultative process because of the fact that everybody wants to be involved. That's nice that everybody wants to be involved, but there is a point when you're trying to move from that process to actually developing a strategy and plan and putting that plan in action.

 

As many of you know, and as kindly as the minister said here today, that one of the first steps after the panel came together and a plan was formulated was moving the early years from the Department of Community Services, which I had the honour to be the minister of, to move that into Education. There was a great deal of work around that because there are a variety of philosophies on where early years can sit. Some provinces, like for example Quebec, will have the early years and the family and even seniors all encompassed under one department because the philosophy is that it's your whole life and you have a continuum of life and life stages, so it is good if that is all encapsulated in one department.

 

Putting the early years in Education is the direction we went and there is also, as you know, a great deal of support across Canada and throughout the world. The importance that we identify that a child starts learning from day one, when they're born, and that the educational component is absolutely critical for their development. It is a legacy that certainly I am very proud that the NDP brought to this province and will actually very much positively affect our future generations because of now having the early years sitting in Education and Early Childhood Development so that educational lens is focused on those early years.

 

We also announced, as the minister had mentioned, pilot projects throughout the province that would look at the early years component and how you can have a more collaborative approach and have it integrated into the education system. I know that that was one of the stressors for me when I first came on in Community Services because the government of the day that we replaced was not going in that direction.

 

You can look back at what was taking place and what was happening throughout the province. A lot of money was - because of federal government funding - a lot of money was being put towards opening up new daycare centres, which was very important and we needed those throughout the province. The disconnect was that there were new schools being built and even existing schools, but there was no pathway or encouragement for those daycare centres to be attached to the school. That was one thing that we couldn't take back because if you built a new school - you'll see throughout the province there are many very nice daycare centres that are a mile or two or five miles from a school. They usually try to locate as close to a school as possible because of the children. But there was a real disconnect, that money was invested in these new daycare centres and they were not connected to a school. I'm very pleased to see that this government will continue with the pilot projects that we announced.

 

I know that we originally had four, we were going to have three, but we did announce there would be four different sites and I know in the announcement that was made yesterday that there were three. Could I ask the minister what the fourth location was, to remind me again, and the particular reason that wasn't part of the announcement and will it be?

 

MS. CASEY: Thank you to the member opposite for the question. Yes, there were four that were announced and we are following up with all four. We're at various stages of preparedness and the fourth one was in Yarmouth. Our goal is to try to make sure we have one up and running, with all of the i's dotted and the t's crossed, and learn from that.

 

Three of them were ready, set, go for yesterday; the fourth one, the community is working together with the Department of Health and Wellness, with the child care sector and with our department so that certainly is still part of the plan. We're hoping to have that one up and running soon, but it has not been forgotten.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you minister for that answer. With respect to the pilot projects, do you have a time frame that pilot project will run? I know that it is important to have pilot projects because lots of times you can work out the kinks in the system and have an opportunity to really live and breathe what that project is all about and identify what the barriers and challenges may be to go forward. A pilot project is a project that should have a time limit on it so you can move forward to be able to address the challenges and the changes that need to be made and then take the next step in the plan, which would be to start developing more throughout the province.

 

My question is what will that time frame be for those new pilot projects?

 

MS. CASEY: It's an important question because we recognize that a pilot is intended to help work through the growing pains, learn from mistakes, learn from best practices and then move forward. Part of the money that has been received from the McCain Foundation will be used to do an evaluation of the pilot projects as we are working through them and to ensure that we learn from those. We expect that we will move from a pilot into a permanent program within the next year. That monitoring and evaluating of the current sites will be done, and once all of the components are up and running and we believe they are effective, then we have put in this budget an operational grant of $125,000 per site. We are moving forward with every intent of the pilot becoming permanent.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: In response to the $120,000 per site, is that what you have analyzed as the cost factor to run - I do understand that if you're going to say within the year, are you looking at six months and so that $120,000 actually reflects six months of operational costs for all four of those pilot projects? That's my question.

 

MS. CASEY: To the member, if I could just speak to the - there are start-up costs for furniture and for resources, for materials and those do not come out of the $125,000. That money has already been spent, I think about $600,000 has been spent to make sure those three sites have the furniture they need, have the materials they need. So the $125,000 will be their ongoing operating costs and that is for the budget year 2014-15.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: So could the minister tell me, then, what are the actual costs, after the pilot project is running for a year? You said that $125,000 will be operational, so is that what you're looking at for operational costs, approximately, for each of the centres after that?

 

MS. CASEY: As the member would know, this is bringing together a lot of human resources that already exist in the community, whether it is from family resource centres or whether it is from the Department of Health and Wellness or whatever, so if those resources are already in place in a community but they move into the early years centre, they bring that with them. For example, when I was at Rockingstone Heights yesterday, there are two physicians who are in a clinic there. Any services they provide would be from them, as the members of the clinic, not out of the $125,000. Am I clear on that?

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Looking forward into the future, from what the minister said - and she can correct me if I'm wrong - it looks like around a year period is what you're giving for the pilot projects to get up and running and sustaining themselves in the community. One of the issues that I discovered as Minister of Community Services was that we have a lot of inconsistencies in the province and I'm sure you've identified that, too. That's in a lot of different departments because over the years there wasn't a lot of talk about strategic planning. If there was a need in a community, the community would come together and they would create the resources and provide the services that they needed.

 

To reflect back to my introduction when I said that there are going to be some very challenging areas where you have very new daycare centres and you have schools, they're not together, how do we ensure that communities throughout the province have an opportunity to have this type of project in their community, that that will be the way of the future? It is a two-part question: how do we ensure that we are able to work on those inconsistencies, going forward, and how do we ensure that that opportunity is available to Nova Scotia communities? Is there going to be criteria, I guess is what I'm asking. If you have X number of population and they want a similar type project, will there be criteria to say no, you don't qualify for this? What's the criteria-base, for example, if I'm saying I'd like to see one of these in the Chester area, what would be the criteria in order to go forward to be maybe fifth on the list or sixth on the list of a pilot project or a new centre?

 

MS. CASEY: One of the commitments that we have made and have already acted on is to go out to the other four school boards, because we have one in each in four of the boards now - Cape Breton, the Strait, Halifax and Tri-County. The letter has already gone out to the other boards to say we want to have an early years centre in your board. You look at the needs within your community, you look at the partners that can come with you and you come back to us and tell us if you are interested, what you have to offer, and then we will sit down and work with them to develop the centre. There is every intention in this coming year to have four more identified and to start working on those.

 

I know they were introduced as pilots, and I know we've used the word "pilot", but I believe we're getting past the pilot stage and they will become sites that we continue to build on and expand across the province.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: I'm going to move my attention now to early intervention. The minister, in her introduction, talked about the challenges of the wait-list for early intervention and how important it is to provide that service. Once again, during our period in government, I was very proud that we had the opportunity to focus on autism and to be able to provide autism support for every child, not have it as a lottery system like it was before.

 

Now with respect to early intervention, what I saw as Minister of Community Services was once again that inconsistency, that we have a variety - I believe the minister said 17 sites throughout the province - and that they have worked diligently to be able to provide a service and struggle with the wait-list and struggle with the dollars.

 

I'm just wondering if there are any plans that she has before starting to invest public dollars in the early year intervention centres that there is a coming together of the centres and the whole service of early intervention to identify the weaknesses in some areas, the strengths in others, to bring back to Nova Scotians a consistent service, so whether I live in Yarmouth and I have a child that needs early intervention that I do not wait longer than somebody who perhaps lives in Halifax. That is exactly what is happening now.

 

So I'm just wondering if the minister can tell me a little bit about her future plans and how we're going to resolve that inconsistency. Part two of the question is what kind of investments does she feel need to be put into the early intervention centres to bring them all up on an equal basis?

 

MS. CASEY: I think the member certainly understands that there are inconsistencies within that program, there are wait-lists within that program, and what we have started to do is to - in fact one of my first meetings was with one of the groups, the early intervention groups. It became obvious that we are really kind of all over the map with how we deliver and what we deliver.

 

We've started a review, an internal review by our staff to look at what services are available, what kinds of wait-lists exist at each individual site, and are there efficiencies within the 17 sites collectively - are there any areas where there's duplication that there doesn't need to be? We've already started that, and we did make a commitment of $2.6 million in our platform, but we're not going to spend the $2.6 million until we know what we can do to make the service more efficient and to eliminate the wait-list. We believe we need to do that scan, that review, first. That's underway right now. That will allow us to determine what changes need to be made.

 

It's heartbreaking when you think of kids who age out before they ever get the intervention they need, and to know that that intervention could make a change in their life. I'm pretty passionate about that. I recognize that we have an opportunity, but before we start throwing money at it, we're going to make sure that it's going to help get those kids off a wait-list.

 

That review is ongoing, done internally by staff, and that will give us the direction as to where we put that money. We're not waiting long, because we don't want any more kids to age out.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you to the minister. I know it's a Catch-22 situation, because as you said, you don't want to have the children age out, yet at the same time, you want to make sure that the money is invested where it needs to be to bring this system up to par. Do you have any idea what time frame you are looking at for that internal review? Are you talking about - it sounded like this budget year. Is your goal six months or eight months in order to identify what those needs are and then to be able to roll out the funding where it is necessary?

 

MS. CASEY: The staff within the department are meeting with the directors. Actually, I've been told they're meeting with the directors on Thursday of this week to look at communication with parents, to look at how we move forward with the review. We don't want any surprises. People think you're doing a review, and they may read something into that. The timeline for the review to be completed is early summer. That's our timeline now.

 

You would know that when you have meetings and consultation and you want to make sure you have all the stakeholders there, that takes some time, but that meeting with the directors is Thursday of this week.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you, minister. Do you have a list of those who will be involved in this process, in terms of - I know you're talking about the early intervention centres themselves - will you have, for example, medical professionals involved in giving their recommendations in terms of how to reduce the wait-list and encourage what type of efficiencies and what kind of supports may need to be there or may not need to be there, that are there now - not only with the medical professionals, those who are professionals with mental health? I know it also has to be difficult for parents who are dealing with their children who are having these particular issues and the supports that parents also need. I know the child needs support, but the parent, too, going through this process. I'm just wondering, have you identified who those key stakeholders will be? I know you said you are doing an internal scan, but there will be that external involvement in this process - also family resource centres, because they're often in the community. They're the ones who have their fingers on the tip of information and know who is in the community, what community needs or individual family needs are, the school system.

 

As I stand here and talk, as you can see, there are many that would have influence and be able to provide input into the scanning process. So if you can elaborate a little bit more on that group.

 

MS. CASEY: As the member would know, there are three key departments that are involved here and working together - the Department of Community Services, the Department of Health and Wellness, and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. So we recognize that they are the key partners in all of this. But to be specific, those who will be involved in the review will be family resource centres, as you've mentioned; the EIBI program directors; the child care sector itself; the IWK; and student services staff from the school boards. Those are all the partners that are coming together to be part of this review.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order. We have reached the moment of interruption. We will now recess.

 

[5:56 p.m. The committee recessed.]

 

[6:30 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Committee of the Whole on Supply will resume.

 

The honourable member for Chester-St. Margaret's has 28 minutes left.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: I was just going to ask you that, Madam Chairman. Thank you very much. I'm going to continue along my journey with the Early Years Branch. As I mentioned at the beginning, I'm looking at this through the eyes and the lenses of a parent who now has a 22-year-old son, but still can finely remember all the stages of his life to date.

 

We spoke a bit about early intervention. I want to now focus on the daycare system in the Province of Nova Scotia and how important that is. I know it is something that we really focused on as a government in order to increase the number of seats and the subsidies in daycare. We did a lot of work in that area. We also invested $64 million towards increased salaries and benefits for childhood educators.

 

I do know - and I'm sure the minister also understands - that one of the major issues with our child care educators - and that's how I'd like to refer to that sector, as educators, because of the fact that we have a newer philosophy now in the province because of the NDP looking at the importance of the early years and putting the Early Years Branch under the Department of Education. It goes hand in hand with one of the struggles that the sector has had for many years, and that is with respect to their salaries and the importance and the value of the work that they do and the need for them to be put on a pathway to have salaries that equate to the teaching profession.

 

So my first question to the minister with respect to the daycare system in the province is, what are her future plans and the time frames around those plans to start to work on the deficiencies with respect to salaries of the early-year childhood educators in our daycare system?

 

MS. CASEY: To the question about calling these professionals "early childhood educators", I think it is an important step towards recognizing that they are professionals, that they've gone through a training program and that some of them have degrees. They deserve to be recognized for the value that they add to our system.

 

We also recognize that salaries have been an issue for a long time in that they feel that they're underpaid. We currently have about $18 million in grants that goes towards daycare early childhood educators. I indicated earlier that we were looking at doing a review of the early intervention programs. We're also looking at how that $18.4 million is being used, and is it, in fact, going to the early childhood centre? It is going to the centre, but is it all going into the pockets of the early childhood educators? I think it's important that we follow through on that. That is the intent.

 

I don't think we can say without question that it is, but part of our review will be to determine if, in fact, that is happening.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you, minister. I'm wondering, can you tell us how many child care practitioners we now have in the Province of Nova Scotia? Second to that question is, how many licensed daycares and family home daycares? That would be three questions in one.

MS. CASEY: It's my understanding that we have approximately 2,000 early childhood educators, and we have about 390 licensed child care facilities; 194 are the family home facilities, where I think the maximum number of children is six, but that is an opportunity for parents who, for whatever reason, are not in an area where there is a child care facility to have their children looked after in a family home licence situation.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: I would just like to follow up on what the minister mentioned about a review. We do know, and we have identified for many, many years in the province, that our early-year childhood educators are not getting comparable salaries - also very low on the list, if you look across all of Canada. I know it has been a challenge to move along the spectrum to be able to get the salaries to a more acceptable level.

 

I'm just wondering, because I know that the sector has heard over and over again that we're studying it, we're reviewing it. I do appreciate the fact that any of these things should be reviewed, but we do know that there is quite a gap. We know it's not in this year's budget, but how will the minister approach this? Will it be put in the budget for the following year or the year after that, or will it be on a scale system? Is there a full commitment from the Liberal Government to ensure, in the next four years, that the daycare, the early-year childhood educators will be brought up to par, in terms of the teaching profession and what they offer, especially now that it is part of the Education and Early Childhood Development Department?

 

MS. CASEY: When the Early Childhood Development Division was moved from Community Services to Education and I had a chance to look at some of the details and some of the facts that came along with the program and the staff, I was appalled to see that we are the lowest-paid in Canada. That is unacceptable, and that didn't just happen.

 

We have to deal with that. We have to look at, as any government should, how we can show the early childhood educators that they are qualified, that we do value them, and that we want to look at how we can move that salary up for them.

 

I have met with and am meeting again with some of the early childhood providers. As I go back to that $18.4 million that's going out in subsidies or in grants, before we put any more money in, we want to make sure we know exactly where that $18 million is going. So I think it would be foolhardy to throw more money at something until we knew for sure.

 

It's not a long study. It's not something that is going to go on. I don't want to be the person who, at the end of four years, stands here and says that we are still in last place. But that's where we are now; the only place we can go is up.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: I'm able to assume that actually what will happen - because the minister is speaking about the fact of doing a review to be able to analyze where the money is going when it goes in the hands of a child care facility. Am I correct in assuming that the department will actually be doing a financial audit of each and every daycare centre in the Province of Nova Scotia to be able to identify where those dollars go? I would think that may be the only way that you find out truly where the investment is going.

 

MS. CASEY: I mentioned earlier that I had met and would be meeting again with them. I want them to be part of the solution and I think they need to know what the problem is that we're bringing to them. I'm not prepared to say what we're going to do until we have talked to them. I do believe it's important that, before we begin to do any kind of an audit, we give the people who are involved in this early childhood program and facility an opportunity to be heard. That conversation will be the first step.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Does the minister know what kind of questions she will be asking the centres? I know in my time as Minister of Community Services that we had many discussions in the Department of Community Services with respect to the child care facilities and I know that staff have been wonderful in terms of their communication and keeping on top of things with the child care facilities.

 

The conversation will be very similar in the sense that it will be things they've said before. I know there is extensive reporting that is required by the child care facility sector, so a lot of that information would already be available. I'm inquiring about what types of questions, which may be different than what we would already know, will be posed to the child facility sector.

 

MS. CASEY: As the member would know, the enhancement grants that we're talking about were developed in co-operation and collaboration with the centres and there were certain outcomes that were expected. The question that will be asked is, have those outcomes been realized? That would be one of the first questions we would be asking. Based on the answer, based on their response, if in fact what was intended has been realized, then we need to clear that first, and then we will look at sitting down with them to say okay, if we've met these criteria, these outcomes have been reached, we're still the last in the nation, lowest in Canada - what can we do to try to change the grant system or what can we do to ensure that we can address the salary issue?

 

Because they were part of developing that, it's a courtesy to involve them and to look at the outcomes, look at what was expected and where we are and then where do we go.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Do you have a statistical analysis of what the difference would be in your budget if you were to bring the child care educators up to par with respect to - even if it's an approximation, is that going to cost $10 million, $20 million to be able to make sure that those 2,100 individuals are at the pay scale that is equitable to the teaching profession?

 

MS. CASEY: I do not have those figures with me. We have not costed that, but that certainly will be part of the process as we move forward once we've determined that we are comfortable, that the outcomes that were set have been met and then if we are going to enhance and move this sector forward out of last place, then we would have to do some analysis of when and how and what path we would follow for that. Until we are guaranteed and comfortable that what we're spending is doing what it was expected to do, we would not be moving forward.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: From your response, is it safe to say that we can expect in the following budget, the 2015-16 budget, that there would be monies allocated to bring those salaries to the level, or at least be working towards that, bringing those salaries to an equitable level?

 

MS. CASEY: To the member's question, I think if you look at our initial budget, our 2014-15 budget, we recognize that there were a number of places within the Early Years division that needed to be addressed. The first one that we picked for this budget was the $2.6 million to go into early intervention. I'm not going to predict what we'll put in the next one, but I do believe that the work that we do as we find out more about what's going on in the sector will help drive our next budget.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Madam Chairman, through you to the minister, I am wondering in the 2014-15 budget, is there any new money for the early years? That is totally new monies not being taken or transferred from Community Services or any other department, but that would be seen as new dollars?

 

MS. CASEY: As I mentioned earlier, the commitments that we have made, two really: one to the early intervention programs and one to establishing the early-year programs. Both of those are new monies in our budget, not transferred from Community Services, but new monies that we've put in to move those two projects forward.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Through you to the minister, would she be able to give me those figures again, what those two commitments - what the dollar amounts are for those two commitments?

 

MS. CASEY: It's $1.1 million for the early interventions and $920,000 for the early years centres.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: I would like to ask the minister what her position is on universal daycare.

 

MS. CASEY: Two years ago I had an opportunity to go to Prince Edward Island to visit some of the early years centres that were there, recognizing that it's something we needed to move on in our province. One of my observations and one of my disappointments there and here is that what is in place is not universal. We recognize that there are many families and many children who could and should have access to, and be able to benefit from, some of those services at the early years centres and because it's not universal, they are there. Quite often they are the ones that we are most anxious to support but because of family circumstances, because of geography, because of work schedules, and for a number of other reasons which the parents have no control over, they and their children are not able to access those centres.

 

One of the flaws, I would say, is that it's not universal but I think it's important that we get our foundation here and get our centres established. As I said earlier in my comments that we have asked other boards and we are going to begin to move forward, go beyond the four that were announced, have four more, and see where it goes. We are hoping that we'll have many more sights around the province but the whole question of universality is one that troubles me because I believe, as I said, that we are denying opportunities for some kids who could well benefit from that.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Through you, Madam Chairman, could the minister give me her position on profit verses non-profit child care and the funding of profit child care services?

 

MS. CASEY: I want to remind you and all members of the House that this division coming into Education is really in its infancy. The last transfer was completed the first of April so we are very early on in this. There is an advisory council that I have relied on and have met with and I certainly will be continuing to rely on them, but I think it's premature to be making statements about programs that we have just inherited and we are just learning about them. My concern is do we have adequate spaces for the children who need them and are they accessible and can we ensure that they are not cost prohibitive for parents?

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Still in the same vein with respect to profit and non-profit child care, there are different philosophies with respect to that. I know its early days but I'm just wondering if the minister isn't able to comment from a departmental point of view - what is her government's point of view on the non-profit versus the profit daycare?

 

MS. CASEY: I will repeat what I just said that my ambition is to make sure that we are able to provide spaces for all children who require child care. Whether it's profit or not-for-profit, that's not the determining factor for me. It's - do we have those spaces available? Are they regulated? Are they safe spaces? Our goal will be to make sure that that happens. How we get there, whether it's profit or not-for-profit, is not the question. Right now we're driven by getting the spaces for our children.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Can you tell me how much time I have left, Madam Chairman? Two minutes? Okay, so I'll maybe get this last question in. Can the minister give me her point of view on the big-box daycares?

 

MS. CASEY: My philosophy, my belief, on big-box anything is what kind of service can we provide to the clients, whether it's daycare, whether it's schools, whether it's hospitals? I think the quality of care that we can provide is what should drive the decision about where and how we deliver that service.

 

We have, as you know, in this province many communities that do not believe that bigger is better when it comes to schools. We have others who believe that having the options, the economies of scale that you get in a large school or in a large daycare would be something that they would appreciate. It really depends a lot on the community that you're serving, on the people who are taking advantage of that service, and again I go back to - if it's quality, that's what we want. We want availability. We want access. We want quality. Those are the questions that need to be answered first. I do connect it exactly, directly to the same argument that we have in our communities about schools. You can make an argument for both large schools and small schools - the same as you could make an argument about large daycares and small daycares.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Could the minister tell me what her definition is of a large daycare that she would define as a big-box daycare versus a medium-size or smaller daycare?

 

MS. CASEY: I don't have any number that I would say is the right number for a large or the right number for small. As I said, I believe it depends on the quality that you can provide, the access you can provide and the accessibility that you can provide. I don't think that we can judge whether something is good or bad, acceptable or not acceptable, because of its size.

 

I think too many times we have said bigger is better, and it has been proven wrong. I would not judge a facility based on anything other than the quality, the accessibility and the spaces that we can get.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: Once again it is a pleasure to stand here in the House and have the opportunity to ask questions and talk about concerns in education in Nova Scotia. The first couple of questions that I will have will be concerning social media. Both of them are very similar. Then I will go on from there and talk a little bit about childhood development and perhaps move on to some other areas. So that perhaps helps clarify, regardless of moving of the staff, it probably would be helpful.

 

Acting ethically online is certainly a phrase we often hear in our province and across the country and across the globe. It is very important for parents and teachers to prepare young people to be engaged digital citizens who contribute to their communities in a very positive way. My question to the minister is, how do we go about supporting students and assisting them with the process of developing ethical decision-making skills? It's just sort of, will this be a commitment or is it a commitment of the government? Once again, how do we go about supporting students and assisting them with the process of developing ethical decision-making skills?

 

MS. CASEY: Madam Chairman, through you to the member, we have both grown up in a society where there were a lot more face-to-face contacts and communications, both adults with adults and children with children, than we have now. If you were feeling some anger or some emotions of some kind, you would display them. The person you were talking to would know. So if I was angry at the member, he would know; if I was sad, he would know; if I was disappointed, he would know, because facial expressions and language tell people that.

 

However, we're now in an age where people can communicate without ever having any face-to-face. They have no one to be held accountable to. They can say what they want, and they can press "send." There's no emotion involved in that, and that's extremely hard to identify and to control.

 

In our classrooms we have ideal places for that to play itself out. We were just talking at break time about on the school bus, for example - who is there to monitor what somebody is texting to somebody else? Nobody. Technology is with this generation wherever they go. It is part of them, and it is their means of communication. It's great that they can have instant communication with their friends or with their family, but it's very difficult to monitor it.

 

We see a lot of these social problems playing themselves out in our schools and in our classrooms. What happens at home or in the community, kids bring it to school with them on Monday. Teachers are challenged to try to monitor and correct and report inappropriate behaviour or inappropriate use of the Internet. It's very difficult because it can be done so discreetly.

 

Personally, I believe that it begins at home, with the parents educating their kids about what is right or wrong, that what they would say to you over the Internet or in a text should be what they would say to you to your face. Somehow there's that air of no identification, no need to be careful about what you say, and you're not held accountable for that.

 

I think it's a challenge for parents to know what their children are doing. I think it's an equally troubling challenge for teachers in the schools to know and to monitor that. We have put in place some codes of conduct, some reporting mechanisms, some ways to try to follow through, but that's if somebody is found to be using the Internet inappropriately. It's a process that you can follow once it has been identified, but the challenge is to identify it.

 

Can we be teaching something in our schools? Absolutely. We expect parents to be doing it at home and we expect to be doing it in our schools, to make sure that people know what is socially acceptable.

 

MR. DUNN: Thank you to the minister for that answer. I agree that with the additional demands in our school system today, that is just another one, the social media distractions. I think it's a job for all society to pitch in and do whatever they can, be it parents, grandparents, friends, relatives, teachers and of course schools, school personnel, including administrators.

 

Canada's Centre for Digital and Media Literacy has launched a series of digital citizenship resources. Its name is Stay on the Path: Teaching Kids to be Safe and Ethical Online. Young people face moral dilemmas every day online: cyberbullying, online hate, privacy, and Internet safety. Canadian children and teens are more connected to the online world than ever, through a variety of portable devices, and more connected to others through social networking.

 

My last question dealing with social media for the minister is, is the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development reviewing social media to determine if today's students can be connected more easily with the expectation of meeting curriculum outcomes?

 

MS. CASEY: I will confess that the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the schools are playing catch-up with the kids right now because they're one step ahead of us all the way. They're one step ahead of their parents; they're one step ahead of the teachers, and they're one step ahead of government. So we have already included some components in the curriculum that speak to digital citizenship. We are constantly monitoring that. We constantly have to change and add, because as I said, we're playing catch-up. I hope someday we can get ahead of the game, but we can't stop trying to inform and educate. I do believe that part of our challenge is educating the parents at home.

 

MR. DUNN: I'm going to switch over to a few questions dealing with early childhood learning. I'm going to have the member for Pictou West ask the first question and then I'll continue with questions after that on early childhood.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou West.

 

MS. KARLA MACFARLANE: Madam Chairman, I know earlier the member for Chester-St. Margaret's asked a lot of questions with regard to early childhood intervention. In New Glasgow we have an organization there, met with them recently, and they indicated that during the election, in the Liberal Government's platform, they had indicated that there would be $2.-some million going towards that organization.

 

I just want to know - they had met on February 17^th with the minister and were very grateful and were pleased with the steps that were being taken. Unfortunately they were told that there would be no increase in the budget right now. My question is, is the budget $18 million, in hopes that the $2.6 million will be added, and when? Will this include any type of funding salary for these employees who have not received any government funding for the last 10 years?

 

MS. CASEY: We did make a commitment to early intervention programs in the campaign. That is a commitment that we are honouring. We recognize - I'm not sure which one it is that you are speaking of - there are 17 centres that provide the early intervention programs and I did meet with them. It is the program that I mentioned that we were going to do a review of because we need to make sure that they are efficiently run.

 

When I met with them, they knew we were going to be doing the review. They know we've made the commitment and they know that our commitment is to reduce the wait-list - to eliminate the wait-list if we can - and our money will go towards that.

 

We also recognize that some of those are one-person operations, so out of the 17, I think there are - actually, I have it here - I think there are three or four of them that only have one person operating them. We have to look at, is that efficient, is that effective, is that delivering the program? There are a lot of questions that need to be answered there, but the financial commitment is there once we know how we can put that money in so that we can best begin to reduce the wait-list for kids, because that is our priority.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

HON. PAT DUNN: Thinking of early childhood learning, the name Margaret McCain comes to the forefront. I'm just curious to see if the minister ever had the opportunity during her administrative days or as an Education Critic or as a minister to have the opportunity to speak to Margaret McCain.

 

MS. CASEY: My most recent conversation with Margaret McCain was yesterday. She was here to participate in the official opening of the early years centres. She and I were together at the Rockingstone Heights School where we opened that early years centre. But I've had a conversation with Margaret McCain several times over the last two to three years. Her foundation, the Margaret & Wallace McCain Family Foundation, was instrumental in those centres in Prince Edward Island that I visited. I've met with her personally; as I said, I was at the official opening with her yesterday.

 

She is a person who is so committed to enhancing early learning opportunities for kids that she has made that one of the priorities for the foundation. She has committed $500,000 to this province for the early years centres. She is interested in - and I was happy to tell her that we had invited the other four boards to submit to us a site that they believe might be a good site for another centre.

 

I know that she is interested in the research, but she is also interested in that component - and I mentioned it earlier - about how we monitor, how we do evaluation as we're moving forward with the establishment and with the implementation. She is active in provinces all across Canada. She is a Maritimer, she is from Nova Scotia, and I'm sure that her heart is here. But I'm also sure that she wants to make sure that we invest those dollars wisely.

She made a comment, which I will repeat here. She said: you know, more money is not always the answer. I think she is very prudent in the decisions she makes and she will be watching and monitoring how well we do here in the province and what commitment we make to support our early learners.

 

MR. DUNN: I believe you may have mentioned - and I may have been tied up with another commitment - about the different sites in the province. There are four sites. Could you mention again where they are and perhaps what they actually look like?

 

MS. CASEY: I'd be happy to answer that question. There were four sites that were announced; three of them were officially opened yesterday. One of them was at Jubilee Elementary School in Sydney Mines, one was at East Antigonish Academy in Monastery, one was at Rockingstone Heights here in Spryfield, and the one that is not yet open is in Yarmouth.

 

What the centres look like - we have a requirement that they provide that there are three main components of services that they deliver: there's a 4-year-old program; there are programs for supports for families, for parents; and there is a before- and after-school daycare component. So our goal is to have those four components all come together in that centre.

 

As I said earlier, we have not yet developed the site in Yarmouth to the point where we can officially open that but what we have done, there are partners that work together here to determine the services and supports and it's the family resource centres, it's the district health authority, it's school board staff, it's the Department of Health and Wellness and it is the early interventionists. Those are the advisers, those are the partners and those are the resources that we use.

 

I will mention again what I experienced at Rockingstone Heights. I met two physicians in the hall who had set up a clinic in that school in February of last year. They did that because there was a community need. Here you go into a school and you have a clinic with two physicians who are there providing service and support to the community.

 

They did not know that there was going to be an early years centre established there, but when they realized what was happening and that there would be one, they were ecstatic because they again saw all of these services that our young people and their families need and want coming together under one roof. So in those centres, you have those three components, you have a variety of services, and to date we have spent about $600,000 to get the furniture and the materials and the resources into those centres.

 

If I could, Madam Chairman, extend an invitation to the member, I would like us to visit one of the centres. I think it's important for every MLA to know what services are available, what they could have in their community. I'm hopeful that as we move forward, we will be able to take this all across the province. There are four boards. Chignecto is one that has yet to submit a site, so I would encourage the member to talk to his board member and who knows, it could be in New Glasgow.

 

MR. DUNN: The more sites in the province, regardless of what board they are in, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

 

The curriculum for early learning education, is it consistent throughout the various sites? Is it the same curriculum that is being used for early learning education or does it vary from site to site?

 

MS. CASEY: One of the reasons we're moving slowly with the implementation of these centres is to make sure that we have consistency. The 4-year-old program may unfold differently in different places but it will be based on the same foundation. It will be a play-based program for four-year-olds, it will be delivered by an early childhood educator and it will have the same components in all of the sites. One of the things that the McCain Family Foundation and what Margaret McCain is prepared to fund is the whole monitoring and evaluating of the programs and the implementation of that.

 

To answer the question, there is consistency and all three components are requirements in each of the centres. The 4-year-old program is play-based, it is research-based and the same program will be delivered in all sites.

 

MR. DUNN: Often in various readings, one will find out that after Grade 3, there's no concrete evidence that really matters; the key years are from zero to the Grade 3 age. Other readings you read, it's a critical stage up to Grade 6 with regard to making that positive intervention so that when students start to come into the elementary grades, they are better prepared with the intervention that is provided for them.

 

Again, I am just asking an opinion from the minister with regard to that. Again, I've read where up to Grade 3 is the critical stage; I've also read up to age 6 is the critical stage for youngsters.

 

MS. CASEY: I made the comment earlier about children learning to read and the importance of children being able to read by the time they reach Grade 3, but the research and the studies show that so much learning takes place from birth and I think the early learning research says birth to age 8. However, I think we all know from what research has been done, that the earlier the intervention, the better the results.

 

My concern that I expressed here tonight about the early intervention programs where kids are wait-listed, they've already been identified as having some challenge - whether they are autistic, whether they are hyperactive, whatever the challenge is - the sooner there's intervention, the more likely it is to be corrected or at least strategies developed so that they and their parents can understand and live with that. The research for early learning says zero to age 8; the statistic that I was quoting for reading was the end of Grade 3.

 

MR. DUNN: Some experts claim the EDI is the best tool in the world to test kids to see if they are prepared to begin school, if they are actually ready to learn, of course the EDI being the Early Development Instrument.

 

The investment in early learning will increase the numbers, I am sure, eventually in post-secondary schools. My question is not actually to do with the EDI, it's to do with the fact that investments in early learning will see more schools heading into post-secondary schools. Is the government spending enough money on early childhood development?

 

MS. CASEY: I think it would be folly to say that any government ever spends the full amount of money that they could or should, but I think we have to spend the money that we have wisely. That's why I think we need to move slowly, carefully, with a proven, research-based, evidence-based program so that we know that the outcome has been identified, it can be achieved and we're prepared to put the money in to make sure we reach that.

 

MR. DUNN: Perhaps I'll complete my questions dealing with early childhood by saying a dollar spent on early childhood learning will give a greater, full return on investment than any other area.

 

Madam Chairman, I'm going to move on now and ask just a few questions on the math curriculum. The minister had mentioned earlier that 54 per cent of math is taught by math teachers in our middle schools, and we certainly have a great need for math and science teachers. That has been quite evident all through my years in the school system and I think it still is. Again, it was mentioned that 80 per cent of teachers who are teaching in the high school are actual math teachers.

 

However, often I have found that when math and science students who have achieved great success in these subject areas leave high school and go to a post-secondary school, often they go on to other careers. I often though that perhaps we should be trying to persuade them to go into education, back to our schools and teach our youth.

 

So the question is are we putting enough emphasis within our guidance departments across the province in our high schools with regard to putting more emphasis on students that excel in math and science to actually go into the education field and come back and help our youth?

 

MS. CASEY: I remember not that many years ago when we were challenged with low math scores in the province and we were looking at math teachers and we were looking at graduates coming out of university, the greatest percentage of students coming out of a B.Ed. program in all of our universities had teachables in language arts and social studies, and we were trying to hire math and science teachers.

 

The supply and demand was completely reversed and that has continued. Unfortunately, math and science - I wouldn't say "unfortunately" because for some it's great - but math and science are very challenging; they're very demanding, and we try to encourage students to take courses that would give them job opportunities. I remember sitting down with teachers who had graduated, who had teachables in language arts and social studies, and they were so disappointed that they did not have the information before they chose their majors and minors that they had after.

 

I believe the guidance counsellors in our schools do have an important role and I think they need to look at what the demand is and try to encourage kids to take - if they're looking for a teaching job, and they're looking for a job in Nova Scotia, the demand at high school is math and science, the supply is not there but the demand is, so encourage them to take that. I think our guidance counsellors do have a critical role to play but they need to know what the demand is before they guide their students into their post-secondary choices.

 

Unfortunately all you can do is guide and that's why they are called guidance counsellors, they guide. They can inform, but eventually the student or their parents make the decision. I just believe that arming them with as much information as possible is important, so a decision they make is an informed one.

 

MR. DUNN: Madam Chairman, dealing again with high school math curriculum, it is my understanding that Mathematics 10 has expanded from 110 hours to 220 hours for the school year 2013-14, and I'm very happy to see that increased. Mathematics at Work 10, I believe, has replaced or will replace Mathematics Foundations 10 which is, I believe, a 110-hour course required for graduation or intended for graduation.

 

Again, it has been my experience that a lot of students struggle through the years in junior high and high school. My question to the minister is, do you think we're paying enough attention in the very early years and should we pay more attention in the very early years like we do with literacy and so on? I know we are, but is it enough with the attention, the resources and so on?

 

MS. CASEY: Just a couple of comments. We did increase Math 10 from one semester to two. I believe that will have benefits for students. We also have looked at, in this budget, dollars in part of our math strategy to support what we're calling credit bridging. As the member would know, we have high school students who are struggling in math and if they don't achieve a passing grade, they have to repeat that course.

 

What we're hoping to do with our new strategy is to identify those kids before they write their final exam - and the teacher would know them - identify them earlier on in the semester and provide some one-on-one support so that we can get them better able and better prepared to take that examination and have success.

 

We also know that we have students who, by the time they reach Grade 10, have been so disengaged with math that they don't have the foundation that they need in order to tackle the rigour of the Grade 10 math courses, so the member is absolutely correct. Early intervention in literacy and reading is important, but so is it in math. We have adopted in this province a new math curriculum, the western protocol, which was adopted - I believe we're into the third year of a three-year implementation - but the focus of that is supposed to be a more narrow and concentrated curriculum rather than a broad-sweeping curriculum.

 

The member would know that sometimes we try to do too much in the course content and we end up with a curriculum that is, as I say, a mile wide and an inch thick. I think we need to concentrate it and get back to some pretty basic skills so that our kids have a good foundation, so when they move into Grade 10, they're not going to struggle from the get-go because they have a foundation that they need.

 

MR. DUNN: That's my final question dealing with the math curriculum. I had some other questions dealing with the report cards, but we had some dialogue earlier in the evening and I received some answers that were certainly very satisfactory. Perhaps before I leave report cards, I will ask one question because I often receive questions dealing with this from teachers in my community and outside my community. It's sometimes their frustration with what they say is a pass/fail with regard to students advancing to the next grade level: that they're going to pass anyway, that you have to pass them, that they can't fail regardless of meeting the outcomes or whatever.

 

I guess what I'll do is ask you to comment on that from your experience. What have you seen in the school system and so on with regard to the frustration of teachers experiencing that type of behaviour?

 

MS. CASEY: A couple of comments. I know your question wasn't about report cards, but I did want to finish that conversation off by saying that April 11^th is the deadline for people - teachers, parents and students - to let us know how they feel about the report cards, so if you haven't filled out a survey yet, please go home tonight and do so.

 

With respect to what we sometimes call social passing, I think the math strategy and the literacy strategy that we are putting in place are designed to catch - I hate to use that word - to identify and help kids before they get to the wall and before they experience failure. We have often heard that kids who don't measure up do move on, with the hope that they'll be able to catch up. I think we have learned that that doesn't work very well.

 

The bridging that I talked about is our first attempt to try to identify those kids early on and give them the supports they need so that they do have the skills in place and can move on with more success. Having students in a classroom where they are disengaged, where they are not able to cope with the rigour of the work, leads to a lot of problems in the classroom, a lot of distractions for kids who are there and who are trying to get engaged. It does not make for a very positive and constructive learning environment.

 

MR. DUNN: The next couple of questions are going to be dealing with ratios. The minister mentioned earlier that the funding for students in Nova Scotia, I believe, was approximately $9,300 per student. My question to the minister is, is it true that our funding per student in Nova Scotia is the second lowest in Canada?

 

MS. CASEY: I can't give you a definite answer to that as to where we are on the scale. I know we have been low. I know that our funding per student this year is higher than it was last year, but where that puts us on the national scale, I can't tell you. But I will find out and I will get you that answer.

 

MR. DUNN: Thank you to the minister for that answer. The next question I have is I am looking for the average teacher-to-student ratio in our schools in the province, if you happen to have that information available.

 

MS. CASEY: We've often debated in this House how you determine a student-teacher ratio. The member would recognize that there are teachers in our system that do not have daily, face-to-face contact with a class of students, so what's important is that we pull those people out before we do the math. We've done it both ways, but it's important to note that the real number that makes a difference is the classroom teacher to students. If you include all the administrators and those people who are not face to face with kids, it would be 13 to 1; if it's classroom teachers - no, I've got this reversed. It's 15 to 1; if it's classroom teachers, 13 to 1.

 

MR. DUNN: My question again to the minister is, how does that compare to the national average?

 

MS. CASEY: I'll have that answer for you tomorrow.

 

MR. DUNN: I was going to go to another somewhat similar question. What is the ratio of full-time teachers, excluding principals and vice-principals and so on that the minster was alluding to, those who actually don't give instructional time in the classrooms?

 

Mr. Chairman, there is an increase of just over approximately $18 million to front-line services in this particular budget. What funding levels are needed in order to address all the issues that we wish to address in the educational field?

 

MS. CASEY: I believe the member is talking about the $18 million. Are you talking about money that has been invested in new initiatives or the $18 million out of the $65 million?

 

MR. DUNN: I was referring to most or all of the $18 million that I believe is going to go to front-line service, as opposed to where it has gone in the past. I guess my question was stating, what funding levels are really needed to meet the requirements to adequately address the issues that we have in our schools?

 

MS. CASEY: What we attempted to do when we built the budget was look at what we could do within the financial envelope that we had, recognizing that if we are going to - and I'll use the class cap as an example - our goal is to extend that cap into Primary to Grade 6 but we had to do what we could afford, which was Primary to Grade 2 at this point, and then we will add to that.

 

The question, what do we need? There is no number big enough to tell you what we need to provide all of the services to our students but we try to phase it in so that we are able to learn from the implementation that we're doing but also recognize what our goal is and spread it out over a number of years. Any of the initiatives that you're seeing there are designed to be ongoing and to be enhanced each year as we move forward.

 

For example the early learning centres that we talked about, we can afford to do four. We are inviting four more; that will be eight. We will invite more; that will be 12 or whatever, so it continues to grow. It's very hard to predict what that cost will be but we believe if we take it gradually it will be something that we can sustain.

 

MR. DUNN: Going back to the $18 million that is going to front-line services, the money going to the various school boards, my question is how do you determine how much money goes to each individual board across our province or do they get equal funding from the $18 million?

 

MS. CASEY: As I mentioned earlier we are looking at a kind of a hybrid model for funding the distribution of dollars to school boards, and in the past it had been distributed based on a formula driven by enrolment. This year we have changed the focus. Instead of being driven solely by enrolment, it is driven by both enrolment and program needs. I believe there were 16 or 17 programs or services that we are targeting the money, so what goes to a board for targeted money is driven by their enrolment, but the amount of money that we have collectively to use is driven by program.

 

I know that sounds confusing, but for example, let's take guidance counsellors. We have, I think it's about $900,000 that we're putting into guidance counsellors. We're looking at 17 FTEs, but we recognize that there are three boards that are not meeting their ratio for guidance counsellors, so that money is targeted to those boards to meet that need. It is a combination, but it is designed to support programs, not regardless of enrolment but as a priority over enrolment in those 16 areas.

 

MR. DUNN: The NDP cut the Education budget by approximately $65 million and you plan to repay the funding over the next four years. Is that correct?

 

MS. CASEY: We recognized - as did most Nova Scotians - that taking $65 million out of the public education system would have harmful effects on our students. We're seeing, unfortunately, that that has happened. However, we are in a position where we can try to reinvest that money, and so in our platform commitment we said that we would reinvest $65 million over the course of the four-year mandate and we have begun to do that.

 

About $18 million or $19 million of that $65 million has been used this year to fund those initiatives that we spoke of earlier. But it is our intent to make sure that we keep our commitment to work away at that $65 million until it has been reinvested. We know that some of the investments will give us the desired outcomes and we will be monitoring that. But to answer your question, $65 million will be reinvested over the course of four years. The first $18.-whatever million has been invested this year.

 

MR. DUNN: My question to the minister is, looking at the $65 million coming out over the next four years, including the $18.6 million starting this particular year - if inflation is about 2 per cent, what would the cost be simply to index the current expenses?

 

MS. CASEY: One of the things that we have made clear to the school boards is that the 3 per cent wage increase that will be going to all teachers does not come out of the $65 million, and we will be funding that 3 per cent. If you're looking at what the overall investment is in Education, I think you have to recognize beyond the $65 million that we are covering the 3 per cent wage increase and that we are continuing to provide the funding to the students, to the boards, based on a combination of enrolment and program.

 

I don't know if I have answered your question or not but if I haven't, I'll try to find an answer.

 

MR. DUNN: Going back to that 2 per cent - inflation approximately 2 per cent - what would the cost be to index the current expenses? If I trust my math, it might be around $24 million. Does the minister believe that increasing funding by $18 million, when inflationary pressures are $24 million, to be a returning funding to the cuts that were made by the NDP?

 

MS. CASEY: When we looked at the wage increases and the new programs that we're funding, I think it's about $40-some million that we're putting into education this year. That's additional dollars. So if you are looking at the 3 per cent wage, plus the $18 million or $19 million, that would be our investment of new money in the budget for this year.

 

MR. DUNN: Again, putting a lot of faith into my background in math, what effect does inflation have on the benefit of a dollar when the minister increases the budget to schools by about $18 million and inflation eats away approximately $24 million? The schools are left with less than when they started due to inflation. I wonder if this is true.

 

MS. CASEY: I'm not sure that the member was a math teacher, but anyway - I think he was an administrator. I am probably not answering the question or giving the member the information he wants or needs or is looking for, but we have recognized that we have not changed our funding formula based on enrolment decline. That would translate, if we did, into about $16 million. So we are not clawing that back. We are paying the 3 per cent wages and we are adding the $19 million, so if the member can do the math on that, we'll know where we are with our indexing.

 

MR. DUNN: I want to let the minister know that I have two or three calculators over here so I'll be okay. I guess sort of where I was headed - I didn't use it yet, Mr. Chairman, but I'm planning to.

 

In effect, you are not returning the money the NDP cut, is sort of where I was heading. Perhaps you are not even keeping up with inflation. The value of the money that was provided during this budget is worth less than a real dollar, in real-dollar terms, than the previous government's budget.

 

Moving on, Mr. Chairman, the question I have for the minister is dealing with the $18.6 million that is going to help out education across the province in this particular fiscal year. I guess I want some comments from her dealing with incremental costs, like she mentioned wages already hovering, I believe, maybe around 80 per cent of that budget. But there's a lot of fixed costs - fuel, electricity and other cost pressures, maintenance of buses and schools and so on. Are there any dollars going over and beyond the $18 million to take care of these cost pressures, or do the school boards have to find that money somewhere else?

 

MS. CASEY: When we looked at ensuring that boards had more money to work with than they had last year, we made some decisions. When we looked at the enrolment decline, we did not penalize any board for having enrolment decline, so we allowed them to keep that money. We did not penalize them for the retirement - the gap when someone retires and you hire a younger - a different - somebody retires with a high licence which you replace them with a lower licence; we did not pull that back from them.

 

We paid for the wage increase of 3 per cent that had been negotiated and we paid for all of the new initiatives that we were introducing. What we left the boards with was more money than they had had before, and out of that money all we were asking them to pay in addition to their ordinary operating costs were their inflationary costs. So at the end of the day, the boards will still have more money to put into the classrooms in their schools.

 

MR. DUNN: I thank the minister for that answer. The previous government did not account for inflation. Although I may not have been in the House during that particular time, I was certainly paying attention to what was going on. We all know cost pressures eat up a lot of dollars and a lot of school boards are phoning the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development looking for extra dollars for cost pressures and so on. I can remember, when it was on the government side, the PC Party provided extra dollars over inflationary costs. This made a huge difference in programs, classes, children with needs and so on.

The $18.6 million the minister, I believe, mentioned earlier, all of it is going to . . .

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I'm sorry, time is up.

 

The honourable member for Chester-St. Margaret's.

 

HON. DENISE PETERSON-RAFUSE: I want to start with the story around the $65 million supposedly cut. We know that's not factual. I'd like to ask the minister where she got the $65 million as a figure and if she could actually table any kind of documents that actually show that $65 million as direct cuts to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development during the mandate of the NDP.

 

MS. CASEY: I do not have the document here tonight, but I can table that information. Thank you.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Could the minister be more specific of where she got that information and what it correlates to?

 

MS. CASEY: I believe the two components were something like $32 million and $33 million perhaps. Part of that was direct cuts to the funding to school boards, and the other was asking boards to pay for the wage increases and the total, but I can table that.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: I know that the wage component is a component that goes into the school board budgets anyway but I would like to actually table this, which is an article from The Chronicle Herald and I think this is where the reality comes because there was absolutely no $65 million cut to the Education budget, it was one of those public relation perception games that was thrown out and used over and over again, along with the impression to the electorates that we were going to see that money reinvested immediately, which now seems to be different.

 

This particular article is by Frances Willick - and the minister actually was interviewed and they talked about the school board funding. It says right here and I'll read the one little paragraph. The minister said, "The NDP cut funding to school boards by about $13 million during its mandate . . ." - I heard laughter on the other side and as I said, this is from the minister herself in an interview.

 

"The NDP cut funding to school boards by about $13 million during its mandate, but school boards have said that when other costs were considered, the cut was closer to $65 million. School board funding is presently based on the number of students enrolled."

 

I'll table that because the point is that often the way it works is that when there is a reduction in a particular department, you do not recalculate in what the cost of living will be at that time and that there are other pressures. I know that, as a former minister doing the budget process, we look at the actuals and we look at what the cuts need to be in a department or a reduction, and most of us never want to do that, but we look at those factors.

 

We are not throwing in additional numbers that are not even realistic numbers at that point in time. That is where the difference of opinion comes from in the terms of using $65 million versus the actual cuts that were made, or reductions, in the education system. One of the areas that was very challenging for us, and the minister has even mentioned it in her speech, is the fact that we're dealing with enrolment decreases across the province and the funding formula that has existed in this province has actually been based on students.

 

For example, each of the school boards would get a dollar amount figure for each student who was enrolled in their school system under the auspices of that school board. That was the funding formula that we've had in this province for many years and so when you look at that funding formula, the Hogg formula, then you look at the reduction - I think it was 30,000 students - that would equate to that reduction in the budget of $13 million.

 

The $65 million is actually a made-up figure that the minister herself, in an interview that I just tabled, has said that it wasn't actually that. The remaining amount that equalled that $65 million was indeed other cost pressures that the school boards were forecasting. When you are doing budgeting and you are looking at the reduction, you do not look at what is being forecast.

 

My question to the minister is, could she please provide us with the actual data that shows us where this imaginary $65 million actually comes from in terms of not what is predicted as cost pressures, or what may be cost pressures at that time for a school board, or the school boards across the province, but the actual reduction in the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development budget? The department would have that information readily available. Now that she is a minister, she is there and can ask for those dollar figures. So what are the actual cuts that took place, or reduction, in the budget, during the mandate of the NDP? Is that what she is going to table tomorrow that we'll be able to see?

 

MS. CASEY: I think the member opposite has made it very clear why we needed to change the way we fund our school boards because with declining enrolment, you are giving fewer dollars to the boards and you are asking them to take the few dollars they have out of the classroom so they can pay wages, which is one thing that we have made sure this year that we gave them the money to pay those wages, so they would not have to take it out of the classroom.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you to the minister. I appreciate her explanation and I also appreciate the fact that this is what she is doing, going forward as the minister, that she has recognized that there are additional costs there that would be assumptions or knowing, going forward, but they are not actual cuts. That's exactly the point that I have been making: the NDP did not cut - and I will repeat, did not cut - or reduce the Education budget itself by $65 million. It is, in fact, around that $13 million.

 

If the minister, tomorrow, is able to table another document that shows a line-by-line reduction, because I do know, as former minister, that's how we would be looking at our budgets, Madam Chairman. We would be looking at okay, here are a number of programs that are offered, or here are a number of budget items that we provide to this particular sector in the province, and in that we can go line by line and we could say okay, we're going to reduce the budget for this particular sector by X number of dollars. We can itemize that and that is what I'm looking for. I'm looking for an itemized list of each and every item that would have been reduced from the budget in Education, during the NDP mandate, because it does not equate to this supposed $65 million.

 

We can stand here today and talk about many of the investments that have been given by governments over the years and we can talk about the many cost reductions also but we're not talking the airy-fairy of other pressures around that. When we go to budget, we do take items that we feel are pressures on us as a department.

 

Once again, I think we need to clearly define - and I also would like to ask the minister if she has any documentation that she can table for us that explains to Nova Scotians that this supposed $65 million reinvestment in education was going to be made over a four-year period, rather than immediately upon becoming government.

 

MS. CASEY: Well, there were many questions in that question but if I can start from the last and move forward, let's talk about the wages, first of all. When boards are asked to take the wage increases out of their budget and they are not given the money to pay those, then they find them somewhere. It's the boards themselves that told us that that translated into about $30-some million less that they would have to spend on students in the classrooms.

 

The other comment about the $65 million - it has always been our position that the $65 million would be reinvested over the course of the four-year mandate.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: I don't believe that is the public's understanding of the reinvestment but as I have said a couple of times, when it comes to the budget itself, we are looking at an approximately $13 million reduction in that particular budget over the mandate of the NDP. It has also been supported by the minister herself, in conversation with the media, as I've tabled here this evening.

 

My point is it's very important that when we are talking about reductions in budgets that we are all on the same page in terms of what those definitions are to the people of Nova Scotia, and we do know that it did not include these other items that the minister is addressing and the figure that was brought forth to the Province of Nova Scotia.

 

Once again I look forward to receiving the documentation that the minister said she would be able to provide and to be able to see if the actual reductions equal the $65 million because I will say, standing in this House this evening, that it does not in actual cuts.

 

We do know that the Department of Education would be able to provide us with those line-by-line budget reductions that took place from 2009 to 2013, and I want to be on record that that is what I'm asking for. I'm asking for the actual department line by line, what was reduced in the Education budget from 2009 to 2013, line by line, item by item, and I've been told this evening that I will receive that.

 

I'd now like to ask a few other questions, if I may, and the first one - Madam Chairman, can you tell me how much time I have, please and thank you?

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: You have about 16 minutes.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Thank you. Madam Chairman, this evening I'd also like to speak about another issue that people have differing opinions on, and that is in respect to Reading Recovery. What I'd like to talk about and ask the minister, as we know there is a great difference in opinion about Reading Recovery. First of all I'd like to ask the minister if she could give me a little history about what Reading Recovery is, where it started, who started it and when it was started.

 

MS. CASEY: My knowledge and experience with Reading Recovery is that it is a researched-based, evidenced-based program that is designed to address the lowest 20 per cent of a Grade 1 population reading below grade level, and it is intense. It is one on one in most cases, sometimes it is a small group, and it is about a 16-week program that is designed to help close the gap so that those students who are struggling have an opportunity to close the gap and move on with their regular reading strategy development.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Through you to the minister, for her information the Reading Recovery was actually implemented, initiated, and created in New Zealand by Marie Clay in 1985. Although it is a program that is utilized in different parts of the world, there is a great deal of controversy over the program. Some of the issues in particular - and I know this. As I mentioned earlier, I was going to talk from a parent's perspective. From a parent's perspective, my son initially had reading issues, so I'm very aware of Reading Recovery and what it can or cannot do.

 

One of the issues that I faced as a parent, number one, is that this is very focused on just a certain grade level - Primary - and so there were a lot of students who were actually missing out on the opportunity of having one-on-one tutoring for their reading challenges. That has been an issue for a very long time about the Reading Recovery program and its focus on just a particular group in the school system.

 

The other issue was the availability of the program and having enough teachers available - persons who would offer that program. You were fighting a wait-list to get in, and very much like the early years that we spoke about with a waiting list and aging out, that was happening to many students.

 

I think it's important to note that there are very strong opinions on both sides. I will certainly admit to that. But we also know that there are those worldwide who do not agree with the results, that there are not really strong statistical results. I would like to table this, Madam Chairman. This is a conversation in a column called "Experts Say Reading Recovery Is Not Effective, Leaves Too Many Children Behind". Just like I had mentioned, that there's such a focused group which creates more inconsistency in our province, Reading Recovery was picking and kind of choosing who got support. If you miss out on that support at that time in your child's life, they didn't get it, so then they were way behind the eight ball because of the fact that they had a little window of opportunity.

 

I think this really puts it into perspective. I know you can take any issue and you can argue on both sides. That's why we have great debates in this House. But I also believe that when you're making arguments that it's important to have statistical information and evidence to back up what you're saying and what your opinion is.

 

This one here says, "In this open letter, more than 30 international reading researchers" - so these are researchers - "expressed concerns about the continued use of Reading Recovery. These experts urged policy makers, educational leaders, researchers, and federal research organizations to acknowledge the weaknesses of Reading Recovery. They concluded, 'Reading Recovery leaves too many students behind.'"

 

That's exactly the point that we were making as a government when we came in. That is why we felt that the program needed to be replaced with a more extensive program that gave more students opportunities.

 

I believe that the minister is trying to do that, because I've heard her talk about putting in other supports, I believe, so perhaps she can answer that for me. Where she's bringing Reading Recovery back in, what about those other students who are being left behind as said in this documentation?

 

MS. CASEY: I would perhaps clarify for the member that it is not a program for Primary; it is Grade 1 - Reading Recovery, the lowest 20 per cent in Grade 1. I'd also remind the member that Reading Recovery is one part of a literacy strategy and it is - I take my information and make my decisions based on what the people who are working with the program tell me, what the parents who have seen the results tell me, and we had an overwhelming outcry from both teachers and parents when this program was pulled out of our schools. It was effective. It was working with some students in Grade 1 and it was part of a broader literacy strategy, a literacy framework. No one ever said that Reading Recovery was the only program, and no board would ever use only one program. They use a variety of strategies, a variety of programs. Reading Recovery was one that worked.

 

I know it has been said that you can take any kind of an argument to support your position. The argument that we're taking is an evidence-based, research-based program. There was a survey done in the U.S. of 95 programs for intervention for young people. Reading Recovery was ranked first in that list of 95. So I don't think that all of the others could have been wrong.

 

I do want to also mention that when we are looking at a strategy in our budget, we are focusing on Reading Recovery; we're also focusing on Grade 3 students. I would remind folks that the Grade 3 students whose reading scores and literacy scores are extremely low in this last assessment, those who were assessed in September 2013, happen to be the cohort that has missed out on Reading Recovery in Grade 1. They are now in Grade 3 and we are having to put extra supports into those schools to try to bring those Grade 3 students up to a grade level so that they will not leave Grade 3 going into Grade 4 - and as we talked earlier with the member for Pictou Centre - leaving Grade 3 and not having the reading skills that they need.

 

We're trying to capture and help those students who have suffered because of the lack of focus and lack of attention on language and literacy over the last two or three years. We recognize that it's not their fault. We recognize that they need support and we recognize that we do not want to have students leaving Grade 1 and moving on to Grades 2 and 3 if there is any possible way for us to get a program to them that will help close that gap.

 

It is interesting that when the whole issue of removing Reading Recovery came to the floor of this House, it was initially part of a cost-saving venture. We had school boards who asked the minister of the day, in fact, they put their request in writing, I believe, asking if they funded the program, could they still use it because their teachers were recognizing that there was a void that would be hard to fill if Reading Recovery was no longer delivered, and even if the board wanted to cover the costs for that program themselves, the government of the day said no.

 

Now here we have educators out in our schools who know best what programs work. They know better than any politician in this room knows because they're working with these kids every day. They know the program works. They wanted to continue. Parents were coming with testimonies saying, my child has had success here and I'm afraid that they will not be able to keep up if they don't get that gap closed.

 

We had all kinds of people coming and I believe that they were sincere. I believe that they were basing their comments on their own experience, either as a teacher or as a parent of a child who had experienced success with Reading Recovery.

 

What we are prepared to do is to give boards that option again. If Reading Recovery will work, and if teachers believe it is part of a literacy strategy that will work, and if we believe that kids will benefit from that program, then our commitment is to make sure that's available; teachers have it.

 

Parents will be able to judge whether they believe it's going to work for their child or not, but we believe we should give them the opportunity. They're the experts. They're the ones who can make the decision, and that's what we've done with reinstating Reading Recovery.

 

MS. PETERSON-RAFUSE: Madam Speaker, I want to first correct the minister. It was not a proposed cost-saving cut or reduction for the NDP Government. What we were looking at was the statistical research and the fact that it was focused on just - at that time, it was really the main program in the school system. It was not an extensive program.

 

I know the minister has said that they're going to make it available as optional. At that time it wasn't. It was a program that was put in for all those who needed it, that lower 10 per cent or 20 per cent who were having reading issues. So at that time it left many, many students without having the support they needed, and they continued throughout the school system without the support.

 

From the perspective of the NDP, it was not a cost saving. What it was was to look at a program that was not widely available. Whether it was cost effective or not wasn't the prime concern; the prime concern was those students who were not receiving any type of reading support.

 

Yes, certainly I appreciate and we appreciate the comments that come from parents and come from teachers. I know that it is very difficult to make change and to bring in something new. It's human nature to resist that and if you did have a situation where a student was successful in it, that you would feel like something was being taken away.

 

We were looking at replacing it, which we did, with a program that was an in-house program that was not paying for the service to more of a profit organization as Reading Recovery. The Department of Education did a tremendous job in bringing in Succeeding in Reading and doing an in-house program, putting a Nova Scotia provincial touch on that.

 

I'd like to continue with this article because this is some of the statistical research that we had based our decision on. As I mentioned, it talks about it being an international group of researchers. It says, "We are an international group of researchers who study reading development and interventions with struggling readers. This letter" - and this is what they're talking about in the letter I'm reading from - "responds to a number of questions that have been raised by educators, policymakers, and parents about the effectiveness of Reading Recovery, a tutoring program designed for struggling first grade students. We hope the following summary analysis will be . . ."

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The time allotted for the consideration of Supply today has elapsed.

 

The honourable Government House Leader.

 

HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Madam Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise and report progress.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The motion is carried.

 

The committee will now rise and report its business to the House.

 

[The committee adjourned at 8:28 p.m.]