EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION
LAKEHEAD WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
LAKEHEAD DISTRICT ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, THUNDER BAY ELEMENTARY UNIT
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS' COUNCIL, DISTRICTS 28 AND 29 -- OSSTF
PROSPECT SCHOOL PARENTS' ASSOCIATION
NIPIGON-RED ROCK BOARD OF EDUCATION
CONTENTS
Thursday 23 May 1996
Education Amendment Act, 1996, Bill 34, Mr Snobelen / Loi de 1996
modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation, projet de loi 34, M. Snobelen
Lakehead Women Teachers' Association
Sharlene Smith, president
Carolyn High, first vice-president
Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Thunder Bay district;
Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, Thunder Bay division
Jim Green, president, OPSTF, Thunder Bay district
Kevin Holloway, president, OSSTF, Thunder Bay division
Lakehead Board of Education
Dr Linda Rydholm, chair
Suzan Labine, vice-chair
Jim McCuaig, director of education
Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board
Joleene Kemp, chairperson
Kevin Debnam, director of education
Susan Soldan, superintendent of business
Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, Thunder Bay elementary unit
Eleanor Pentick, president
Tony Andreacchi, first vice-president
Marshall Jarvis, first vice-president, OECTA
Dryden District Women Teachers' Association
Shelley Jones, president
Lynda Pilipishen, executive member
Township of Emo
Brian Reid, reeve
Judy Klug
Dr Richard Staples
Ontario Secondary School Principals' Council, districts 28 and 29 -- OSSTF
Laurie Tulloch, principal, Northwood High School and Green Acres Alternative School
Brian McKinnon, first vice-chair; vice-principal, Northwood High School
Jackie Methot; Susan Gliddon
Concerned Taxpayers Group
Hugh Holmes, chairman
Prospect School Parents' Association
Anne McCourt, president
Anthea Kyle
Mariana Maguire
Gary McMahon
Nipigon-Red Rock Board of Education
Betty Chambers, chair
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Président: Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Agostino, Dominic (Hamilton East / -Est L)
Ecker, Janet (Durham West / -Ouest PC)
*Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
*Gravelle, Michael (Port Arthur L)
Johns, Helen (Huron PC)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Laughren, Floyd (Nickel Belt ND)
Munro, Julia (Durham-York PC)
*Newman, Dan (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
*Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
*Pettit, Trevor (Hamilton Mountain PC)
Preston, Peter L. (Brant-Haldimand PC)
Smith, Bruce (Middlesex PC)
*Wildman, Bud (Algoma ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
McLeod, Lyn (Leader of the Opposition / chef de l'opposition L) for Mr Agostino
Brown, Jim (Scarborough West / -Ouest PC) for Mrs Ecker
Grimmett, Bill (Muskoka-Georgian Bay / Muskoka-Baie-Georgienne PC) for Mrs Johns
Skarica, Toni (Wentworth North / -Nord PC) for Mr Jordan
Gilchrist, Steve (Scarborough East / -Est PC) for Mrs Munro
Clerk / Greffière: Lynn Mellor
Staff / Personnel: Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 0903 in the Victoria Inn, Thunder Bay.
EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR L'ÉDUCATION
Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act / Projet de loi 34, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation.
The Vice-Chair (Mr John Gerretsen): I'd like to welcome everyone to the public hearings on Bill 34. This is the third stop we're making this week. Having been in Windsor and Ottawa, we're pleased to be in Thunder Bay today.
I'd like to welcome to the committee today members who weren't here before: Mr Grimmett, Mr Brown and Mr Gilchrist, as far as the government members are concerned; as far as the opposition is concerned, Mrs McLeod and Mr Gravelle; and Mr Wildman is rejoining us today as well.
LAKEHEAD WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to first of all ask the Lakehead Women Teachers' Association, the president, Sharlene Smith, and the first vice-president, Carolyn High, to come forward please. Welcome to our hearings.
Mrs Sharlene Smith: Good morning. I'm Sharlene Smith, the president.
The Lakehead Women Teachers' Association represents over 500 women teachers teaching in the public school system in Thunder Bay. Our members can see the effects this government's cuts and other measures are having on the children and the women of this province. LWTA knows that the direction this government is taking will not be good for children, women, the poor, our communities, the economy and democracy. LWTA knows it does not make good sense to make these unrealistic changes to education.
All of these proposed changes in Bill 34 are made for the sole purpose of cutting costs quickly. However, no one has addressed how these proposed changes, made in isolation, will fit into the broader vision of what we strongly believe our educational system should provide and accomplish. LWTA strongly urges the social development committee to slow its pace and give serious consideration to all these issues. LWTA urges the provincial government to reconsider many of its decisions which have led to the directions proposed in Bill 34. We support and encourage the government to pursue better integration of services for children, which is found in section 34 of this bill.
This government's actions to make junior kindergarten optional for boards to offer is a myth. Offering JK is no longer an option for many boards because ending it is easier to do than find the savings imposed by the cuts in grants.
Here's what the government has done to date:
(1) It lowered funding for JK from 100% to the rate of grant for each school, approximately 45% on average.
(2) It cut $398 million from the grants to school boards in 1996, which really means $800 million in 1996-97.
(3) It introduced this bill which makes it optional for boards to offer junior kindergarten programs.
In fact, some boards that have had junior kindergarten for many years and recognize its value are struggling to keep it despite the government's manoeuvres to remove this valuable program for the young children of this province, but 26 school boards have cancelled it so far, affecting 30,000 young children and their families. In Thunder Bay, the elementary teachers within the Lakehead Board of Education made major concessions within their collective agreement to ensure that this sound academic program is offered to the young children of this community. We do not want our children of northwestern Ontario disadvantaged in their educational growth.
The mass of research, evidence and experience showing what a mistake it is to deprive children of early childhood education should be well known by now, but we feel we must outline it once more for this government.
(1) The 30-year Perry preschool study in the United States found that for every $1 you spend on early childhood education, $7 is saved in what has to be done in remedial social programs.
(2) The Alberta government has now reinstated its kindergarten program, saying, "There is a risk some Alberta children would be placed at an educational disadvantage."
(3) There is the commitment in Europe for early school education, and the statistics are there.
(4) The Royal Commission on Learning reported in volume II of For the Love of Learning that school readiness programs "make a substantial difference for children's ability to benefit from compulsory education at age 6."
Making early childhood education difficult to obtain is a mistake in other ways as well. It threatens the most vulnerable in our society -- our young children. High-risk children are already being hurt by the government cuts to welfare, municipalities, health care, child care and women's shelters. Now they'll lose the invaluable preventive and remedial effects of early childhood education.
The government should know very well by now that parents recognize the value of junior kindergarten. Last year, more than 110,000 children were enrolled, 85% of all four-year-olds in the province of Ontario. Locally, over 1,000 young children attend our junior kindergarten programs offered by the Lakehead Board of Education.
The junior kindergarten program has much to offer the four-year-old. For example, it provides opportunities for children to listen, to ask questions, talk about experiences and extend their knowledge of print. Through active play and designed activities children develop an understanding of the underlying skills of mathematics, science and technology, and have opportunities of personal, social and creative growth through various drama, music, dance and visual arts activities. Through planned physical experiences children enhance and develop coordination and motor skills. The programs also teach young children how to make decisions, problem-solve and complete tasks.
As experienced and caring professionals in the field of education, we believe we have a good reason to be worried about this government's actions so far. Early identification programs have proved beneficial to everyone. The kindergarten teacher gets a preview of student capabilities and can begin intervention early.
In September, the minister announced his intention to make junior kindergarten optional, a term rendered practically meaningless by the announcement in November of the massive cuts in grants and junior kindergarten funding. What most boards can no longer afford is hardly an option for them or the parents and the children who live there. Parents are now faced with the challenge of deciding which children will continue to receive a quality education. We have disadvantaged our younger children in smaller communities that cannot locally fund junior kindergarten programs. When did education become a privilege for some and not the right of all children within our province?
What is this government's plan for education? It's becoming clearer and clearer to us that there is no cohesive plan. There is no plan to improve the chances for our young children to succeed. There is no plan for parents who need to know their children are getting the best head start they can in an increasingly competitive world. There's only a plan to cut -- cut as much and as quickly as possible without analysing the real costs.
0910
The Metro Task Force on Services to Young Children and Families issued a statement on a commitment to children January 11, 1996:
"We believe that the best investment a community can make in its future economic prosperity and its social stability is an investment in its children. Scientific research has shown that the first three years of children's lives are critical in shaping their mental, intellectual, and social capacities. Without a loving and nurturing environment children will not attain their full potential and society must pay the consequences....
"We ask governments to make this commitment: Whatever budget decisions you make will improve the health, safety and life prospects of our children; any changes that you make to programs will not adversely affect the lives of children...."
We know a lot about children and how they learn. It is a serious mistake to make children, their parents and ultimately our whole society pay for a shortsighted, singleminded obsession with budget cutting. Please reconsider making junior kindergarten optional, which really equates to unobtainable for most children.
Mrs Carolyn High: My name is Carolyn High and I'm the first vice-president of the Lakehead Women Teachers' Association. The area I'd like to address this morning in Bill 34 is the part that refers to adult education.
The proposed legislation states that the ministry will no longer fund students over the age of 21 as regular day students. When we look at who this is going to affect, it's not just students over 21; it's also students who are attending school part-time so they are able to complete qualifications for graduation within the regular time lines, and their time lines may not fit that. It also affects students who leave school and then want to return to obtain their secondary school diploma.
I think we all can agree on the rationale for providing opportunities for adults to obtain an education, the concepts of the importance of individuals becoming lifetime learners and also the necessity for society's commitment to upgrading and that it's more important now then ever in a rapidly changing society for individuals having to adjust to the different conditions and developing new skills for today's job market.
The long-term investment of society in our human resources is very important, but how we go about this, as reflected in our policies and our legislation, is important. I'd like to use a quote that the Minister of Education and Training used, that this new legislation would "provide flexibility to school boards with respect to adult education by enabling school boards to direct certain adult pupils to continuing education credit courses."
In that the word "flexibility" is used and also the concept of the process of delivering a service. When we're looking at that, somehow the Lakehead Women Teachers' Association really doubts that it provides flexibility. In fact, it reduces the opportunity by narrowing the avenues by which people can obtain an education. This is particularly true in the north when we look at certain factors that impact on the process of delivery, things like the geographical factors, size of the school board, the number of students requiring a service, and the capacity for small communities and boards to have the range of necessary services available for people to upgrade.
I'd like to also look at a quote used by the minister, who said, "Our responsibility as leaders of the education sector is to create an education system that is both excellent and affordable." However, the minister in this quote has not included "accessible to all" in the list of his priorities. That's what this proposed legislation does: It decreases the accessibility, not only in location, but also of the cost factor to an individual. I think that's really important. We might think about this question: Do changes in the approach really improve the product, the quality of education or service, and thus the quality of the student?
Another area of concern for the LWTA is the changes to the sick leave provisions in the Education Act which entail removing of the longstanding statutory entitlements of teachers in Ontario to be paid up to 20 days of illness per school year, effective in 1998. Between now and then, collective agreements that provide a lesser benefit to teachers can take effect. After 1998, collective agreements will be the only source of income protection for teachers for illnesses both short-term and chronic.
When we look at this proposed legislation, we have to consider why it's happening, why the necessity for changing what is there now. There are basically two myths involved. One is that somehow or another the number of sick leave days available to teachers at present is out of line or out of whack with the public and the private sectors. But if we really look at it, nurses, for example, receive an average of 18 days per year and sick leave available in other occupations ranges from six to 24 days per year, and accumulate as well. Another myth for the necessity of changing it might be that teachers abuse the system in some fashion. The fact is that right now, in truth their absentee level is below the average in all industries and occupations, and that is also true here in the Lakehead.
Teachers, in their job or their field, have sort of an occupational hazard related to their health too, because they're exposed to a variety of illnesses through their daily contact with students, things like pinkeye or measles and all these kinds of things that go through the school system. We want to make it possible for them to make a good decision by not going to school at certain times because of financial reasons.
In changing this policy, the government is intruding in the area of local collective bargaining between school boards and teachers. Teachers are determined to retain this provision in their collective agreement. As in all negotiations, success in one area involves compromise in other areas. Sick leave has often been maintained at the cost of compensation increases and other valuable working condition areas.
The vast majority of collective agreements across the province contain language providing adequate sick leave and teachers remain determined to preserve these necessary protections. Changing it at this point would create a crisis, where the parties so far have been able to live with their negotiated commitments.
I'd also like to comment on the section that relates to cooperative activities with other public agencies. Currently, the Education Act does permit school boards to enter into agreements with other school boards or municipalities, hospitals, universities, colleges to do joint ventures with investments of money. The proposed legislation adds to this things like transportation, administrative support services, equipment, facilities and so forth. There's also a reporting procedure.
These measures reflect many of the current practices that already exist with boards. They are already going out and trying to do cooperative partnerships with communities. The LWTA really encourages cooperative measures where they do not detrimentally affect the education of children. The LWTA is concerned, however, when decisions are made solely because of severe fiscal restraint, restraint that has been unnecessarily imposed on school boards.
0920
We have strongly advocated for the last five years for the integration of children's services. I'd like you to note a quote on page 8 from a presentation done by the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs:
"FWTAO believes you cannot isolate out the different aspects of a child -- the social, physical, emotional aspects -- from the child you are trying to educate. An integrated approach recognizes that all aspects of children's family requirements need to be understood, acknowledged and considered simultaneously."
In the same brief, FWTAO encourages this government to "provide the opportunity for cooperative approaches to providing services." The LWTA commends this government for acting on our recommendations. We hope this government takes the leadership role needed to be a positive catalyst for change. A positive catalyst is one that does not starve the existing system before mandating cooperation. A positive catalyst would ensure that the goals of the education system and the needs of all children are realized. I'd like to use a quote I saw on a workshop outline in the last couple of days, and that is, "Making sure plans create, not just change."
Mrs Smith: In the area of equalization payments, we have serious concerns that the legislation intrudes on the use of the property tax base. School boards have the authority to raise funds locally. Within certain limitations, how much money is raised and how it's used is the responsibility of the elected officials in the communities they represent. This means these elected officials are accountable to their communities for where these tax dollars raised for education go.
To have a portion of these dollars diverted to the provincial treasury and away from the purpose for which they were originally intended is an unjust intrusion into local decision-making and an infringement on the rights of property taxpayers to have revenues collected locally serve those local communities. It is also an intrusion by one level of government, a level that also has taxation powers, into the resources of another level of government. This is just another mammoth tax grab by this government. We find it very odd that a government that places so much importance on local flexibility and local accountability should be taking both away from a selected number of boards and taxpayers.
In conclusion, Bill 34 once again makes us concerned about the direction this government is taking. It raises our fears of this government's lack of understanding of the education system and the needs of the children of this province.
LWTA strongly opposes the cuts to education funding that have been made, fearing that these cuts will damage not only the education system but the children of this province. Lakehead Women Teachers does not believe that such cuts are conducive to positive change. School boards are acting very hastily in trying to meet their budgetary dilemmas. This is not the way to ensure a positive, cooperative atmosphere that will provide a vital education system to Ontario's greatest resources: the children, our future.
In introducing this legislation, the Minister of Education and Training indicated that the savings realized would be based on three goals: Classroom funding should be protected; opportunities should be provided for local decision-making and negotiated solutions; and local taxes should not be increased.
We ask how a school board can protect classroom funding for junior kindergarten when the provincial government has cut funding for junior kindergarten programs. We ask how a school board can protect classroom funding for adult education programs when the provincial government has cut funding for this program. We ask what opportunities the government sees for local decision-making and locally negotiated solutions other than further cuts; that is the only option available. Clearly, we understand that the goal of this government is to cut programs and to cut jobs.
Ontario's public schools are the expression of our society's commitment to provide members of the next generation with the opportunity to learn about our world, develop to their full potential and find the resources within themselves to shape their future. These are the goals of education, and they've nurtured a school system in which Ontario can take pride. These goals have helped to fashion a society that is tolerant, caring, generous and prosperous. But these goals for education are now in jeopardy. If we aren't careful, we can leave our children with a very different kind of province, one where narrow self-interest comes at the expense of the collective good, a society of the privileged few and of the many who live on the margin. We're already seeing signs of that kind of Ontario, and that's why we're concerned.
Increasingly, you hear education being talked about as just another commodity, something that should be opened up to the marketplace and purchased by consumers. Would a market-driven approach to education, based on competition, produce a better student, a better product? Let's take another look. The marketplace has little to do with equity. In the competition-based market, the people who have the most resources are the people who can afford to buy the best products and services. In the marketplace, the poor, the disabled and the disadvantaged make do with what they can afford or they do without.
A marketplace approach to education is bad news for a society that is intent on making the best use of its human resources. Should children be denied equality of opportunity because they have disabilities or because they come from low-income or middle-class families? Is this the way to optimize the talents of all our citizens?
Canadians have traditionally rejected the idea that market forces should be the determining factor in areas such as public education and health care; rather, they see both as areas of collective responsibility. Canadians have chosen to provide broad-based, equitable funding to public institutions that have a mandate to provide quality services for everyone.
Our schools can be improved, but these improvements need to be based on a common commitment to the common good. They need to be based on fact, not myth. They need to be sustained with a broad-based, equitable funding system that reflects the fact that public education is everyone's responsibility and that having access to a quality education is everyone's birthright.
If we begin to treat education as a commodity or a product, as opposed to a process that is essential to the wellbeing of our society, we run the risk of losing control over our future. The responsibility for educating our young children is a collective responsibility. We all have an interest, and a say, in seeing that our schools reflect our society's values. We all have an interest in making sure that the next generation has a sense of community, a sense of commitment to one another and to Ontario.
It is the sense of common commitment that binds this province together. Ontario has invested heavily in its public school system, and that investment has made us the envy of others. Schools are ours, open to everyone, serving everyone, giving us a sense of belonging to a community that's rich in its diversity. Schools are a reflection of our commitment to one another. Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We have only six minutes left for questioning, two minutes per caucus. We'll start with the government caucus today.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I will be very brief. On page 1, you talk about there being unrealistic changes to education. What realistic changes can you offer to find savings in education, or is the status quo fine?
Mrs Smith: We should have the funding necessary for every child to have an education in the system. I do not see reducing funding in any social program as a benefit for the province, its children and its citizens.
Mr Newman: So no savings can be found in education?
Mrs Smith: Education should never have been touched in the changes this government is making.
Mr Newman: So no savings can be found?
Mrs Smith: I don't see any.
Mr Newman: Okay. Was this prepared before the budget came out?
Mrs Smith: No.
Mr Newman: No? Because in it you talk about cuts to health care and child care, and we actually increased funding to health care, to $17.7 billion; that's an extra $300 million. We increased child care to $600 million; that's a $50-million increase, the highest it's ever been in this province. That's why I asked if it was before or after the budget.
Mrs Smith: You've just reinstated some, but there have been cuts in there. We've seen the effects.
Mr Newman: But you would agree that overall there is more money now in health care and more money in child care than there was?
Mrs Smith: But we're talking about the effects we've seen. There had been changes in the cuts, and now you've reinstated them.
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): All the experts we talk to find early childhood education one of the primary tenets of bringing up children. It's interesting, though, depending on who is making the representation, whether it's called "early childhood education" or "junior kindergarten."
If quality can be maintained, how do you feel about alternative sites and alternative educators for early childhood education?
Mrs High: First of all, instead of just looking at alternatives for saving dollars, we have to look at what we want to accomplish with what we're doing.
Mr Preston: I'm saying if the level's maintained.
0930
Mrs High: We have to look at what we want to achieve as far as student learning. We have to say what is appropriate for what we hope for the children to be learning. Is it an educational focus? What are the skills that the professionals need to have who are going into that particular program? It's not that easy to say just change it to early childhood education and change the location. It depends on how you're going to gain the learning outcomes, and we have to actually look at that before we look at the dollar. That might be one of our problems that we see happening with Bill 34: What's driving the process? Is it the dollar or is it what we want to achieve as our outcome and what kinds of qualities we want within society and standards?
Mr Preston: I think you missed something.
The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry. We'll have to leave it at that, Mr Preston.
Mr Preston: Never get the answer to that question.
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Leader of the Opposition): Just for the record before I place my question, it will take two years before the government's dollars in child care make up for the $100 million it cut when they first came into office, and it will never, ever make up for the dollars that have been cut out of junior kindergarten, which will increase the cost for child care and the need for access to child care for a great many families in the province. So the comments about cuts to child care stand as valid in my view.
The question I wanted to place to you is that you know that the Lakehead board, as a result of the agreement you've reached with the board, will be held up as one of the boards that's managed to protect junior kindergarten. There were also significant tradeoffs in terms of being able to at least keep a junior kindergarten program. I'd just like to ask you to comment on the tradeoffs: higher class sizes in junior kindergarten, higher class sizes in other elementary grades and perhaps special education, if there's time.
Mrs Smith: I'll let Carolyn answer, who's on the negotiating team.
Mrs High: Actually, I think the tradeoffs that we did to retain junior kindergarten are short-term solutions. They did not happen without a certain amount of impact on the educational system, as you mentioned, in class size and so forth.
Mrs McLeod: You might, just for the record, say what they are. I think it's 25 --
Mrs High: Twenty-five to one within the junior kindergarten classes was the tradeoff for junior kindergarten. So there is an impact that is a negative impact on what is happening. It is something that is possible over the short term, but in the long term would need to be looked at. We did it for the benefits that we saw of early childhood education and the fact of our belief that it is equalizing, an equity issue and accessibility to education that we think is really important at that age level.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): I'd just like to comment on your encouraging the committee to slow down. Just for your own information, the committee's time -- we had four days, which amounts to two and a half hours each day, which is 10 hours in Toronto and we've had some time in Windsor and Ottawa, today here and in Sault Ste Marie tomorrow. Then that's it. Next week we go through clause-by-clause of the piece of legislation with the amendments that each party puts forward, and then we report back. The time the committee has in working this through is predetermined so I would urge you to follow through and see what happens with your comments, with the suggestions that you made, how they're dealt with, the recommendations and the amendments that are put forward by the variety of people and whether in fact the government has responded to those.
Mrs Smith: We will.
Mrs High: Definitely.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): I want to thank you for your presentation and commend you particularly on page 10 in your conclusion where you point out the basic contradictions in what the minister is doing in saying that classroom funding should be protected when in fact he's cutting junior kindergarten and adult education programs; that there should be opportunities for local decision-making and negotiated solutions; and local taxes should not be increased. If one of the local options is not to increase taxes, then what you are negotiating are further cuts.
Mrs Smith: That's right.
Mr Wildman: That's basically what's --
Mrs Smith: That's what we've had to do locally.
Mr Wildman: My question really is, if we see junior kindergarten made an option and the removal of provincial funding for the program, adult education funding being cut and concentrated in continuing education, this is going to hurt very vulnerable people: welfare mothers, for instance. It's going to make it more difficult to have early identification of kids' problems. Would you agree that this is part of a concerted attack by the Conservatives on the vulnerable in our society: women and children?
Mrs High: Absolutely. It's an equity issue and it's an equity issue because in early childhood education, for example, or for junior kindergarten, the wealthier of our society can afford to walk up and purchase services. Junior kindergarten is free and at one point was accessible to all, and it's being cut back. The same thing when you look at adult education training. It is now not as affordable, at a time when our human resources should be our biggest commitment within this country.
Mr Wildman: It would seem that the government's own approach is to try and assist people or to encourage people to become more productive. If you cut adult education programs at the same time you're also cutting welfare benefits, it's contradictory. People will be trapped in the welfare trap, and at the same time if you cut junior kindergarten programs, some of the kids of those families are going to be in double jeopardy.
Mrs High: Absolutely.
Mrs Smith: Disadvantaging the children.
Mrs High: We're not enabling individuals in our society. We are putting blocks in front of them and hindering.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate it.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION, THUNDER
BAY DISTRICT
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION, THUNDER BAY DIVISION
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Thunder Bay district; Jim Green, president; and Kevin Holloway, the president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, Thunder Bay division. If you could come forward, please, gentlemen. Welcome to our hearings. As I stated before, you have a half-hour for your presentation, but that includes any questions and comments there may be. If you could identify yourself as you start for Hansard.
Mr Jim Green: I'm Jim Green, president of the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Thunder Bay district.
Mr Kevin Holloway: Kevin Holloway, president of the Thunder Bay division of Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.
Mr Green: We've decided to present jointly because our concerns are very much similar.
The Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Thunder Bay district, and the Thunder Bay division of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation consist of over 1,300 educational workers. We include eight bargaining units representing elementary and secondary school teachers, special education support persons, continuing education instructors and elementary and secondary occasional teachers working for the Lakehead Board of Education and professional student services personnel and student support persons working for the Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Our members are still reeling from the impact of the social contract and the devastation it wrought upon our systems.
Although deficit reduction may be a real goal for government, deficit reduction at any price cannot be permitted. It is unfortunate that this government has failed to consider both edges of the sword in its attempt to cut this deficit. Expenditure reduction may be one of the tools, but income enhancement must also be implemented. Under the current single-edged attack on the deficit, the tax cut proposed by this government is ludicrous.
Mr Holloway: Our presentation will focus on some of the effects of the situation with the Lakehead Board of Education. To give you a picture of what's happened over the last few years, the Lakehead Board of Education has been downsizing and increasing efficiency for many years. Prior to the social contract, our staffing was among the lowest in the province and programs were cut to the bone already. Programs and teachers such as subject coordinators, system support and itinerant staff, instrumental music, family studies and industrial arts had already been eliminated in order to keep the tax burden down. Small schools were closed and students bused to larger and more efficient facilities. We had developed innovative leave programs and other methods of retaining young teachers, so that senior teachers could make room for younger teachers by taking an unpaid leave -- not a paid leave, an unpaid leave.
With the coming of the social contract, staffing was reduced by 4.75% for the elementary teachers and 5% for the secondary school teachers and more schools were scheduled for closure or amalgamation. Class sizes were increased with that and students received less service. Our programs are no longer capable of retaining our young teachers and we expect that many of our youngest teachers will have their teaching contracts terminated. As an example, last week we had a meeting with over 53 secondary school teachers who are facing getting their termination slips, and this is unprecedented. We have never had that many people at this stage of the process facing unemployment and possibly leaving the city.
0940
If the cuts to education spending continue, the teachers may never return to the classroom, at least not in Thunder Bay, and this is a significant loss, because these are our future teachers.
The $400-million reduction announced by this government is really an $800-million reduction over the school year. Since about 1% of the students in the province attend Lakehead Board of Education schools, the Lakehead Board of Education will suffer about 1% of the cut, regardless of the fact that the system is already leaner and more efficient than many others. Contrary to the government assertions, because of the past actions, the Lakehead Board of Education has nowhere to cut but at the classroom level. Our concern is that sometimes the comment that it won't affect the classroom doesn't take into consideration what has been done over the past 10 years to reduce costs.
The Lakehead and District Roman Catholic School Board serves basically the same area as the Lakehead Board of Education. The public board has a higher local tax levy than the separate board. It is an interesting anomaly of this government's program of cuts that the separate board would receive supplementary funding while the public board will receive none. Therefore, public ratepayers will be forced to pay more to keep the systems comparable. There seems to be an inequity in that.
As the cuts force the Lakehead board deeper into the staffing complements, the number of principals and support staff has been reduced by a new concept of amalgamating schools and treating two buildings separated by significant distances as one school. Two schools are in effect sharing one principal and a reduced allocation of teacher-librarian and special-ed resource teacher time.
Such a reduction in administrative and support staff is potentially harmful to students, teaching staff and other school staff and the community. School safety can be compromised as fewer adults are available to provide appropriate supervision and teachers lose the backup which the onsite administrator has provided in the past. Principals of an amalgamated school have less time to ensure effective operation of the school, to adequately evaluate staff, oversee program delivery and to liaise with parents and the broader communities that they serve. These cuts will affect the classroom, and the government should abandon its mantra that cuts to education can continue to take place outside the classroom. Even when you're reducing administration costs, what your effect in this version is doing is affecting the classroom because of the support that's not there to those teachers and those students.
In order to meet its goal of a 0% tax increase this year, the Lakehead Board of Education will reduce its staff complement by approximately 135 full-time equivalent positions, of which 51 will be elementary teachers and about 38 secondary school teachers. Coupled with the agreed-to reductions for the next year, the 1997-98 year, the elementary teaching staff will be reduced by almost 13%, and of course, the majority really will come from the classroom and that will affect the classroom.
Mr Green: Junior kindergarten is a very grave concern of ours. Bill 34 will make junior kindergarten optional, which in the eyes of many boards means ending the program, as it is an easy way to deal with the reduced funding. The government proceeded with this initiative despite the evidence that has proven that early education programs are essential preparation for students entering primary education. A draft report of the Ministry of Education and Training clearly indicates that the ministry is well aware of the importance of these programs, and to quote from the ministry report of November 3:
"Research consistently indicates that high-quality early childhood education experiences are important for later achievement, especially for disadvantaged children. It further indicates that academic gains are higher when early childhood education programs provide a stable, consistent environment, have well-planned curriculum led by highly trained professionals, promote high levels of interaction between adults and children, and have high levels of parent involvement."
That describes the program we ran this year.
Regardless of having the knowledge that junior kindergarten is an important program, the government has continued with actions that will lead to the elimination of the program in most, if not all, boards. In its haste to cut expenditures, the government neglected to consider the effects on children. Junior kindergarten provides the foundation for future academic growth. One very important function of junior kindergarten is to give teachers and educational support personnel the opportunity to identify children with behavioural and learning problems at an early age. Without junior kindergarten, it will become increasingly difficult to identify in a timely fashion children who are at risk. The longer these children remain unidentified, the less likely and the more expensive remedial programming becomes.
Teachers with the Lakehead Board of Education have made dramatic changes in staffing formulas to save the junior kindergarten program. Class sizes will rise in every division in order to free enough staff to operate the junior kindergarten program, albeit with much larger class sizes also. We expect both junior and senior kindergarten classes to operate only with 25 or more students in each class. Most classes in grades 1 through 8 will operate with more than 30 students and many will operate with more than 40. We have no fat to trim; every cut made by the board will hurt kids.
We recommend that section 6 of Bill 34, which makes junior kindergarten an optional program, be deleted and that junior kindergarten be returned as a mandatory program that will ensure that all children in Ontario, especially those who are at risk, have access to the program.
We also recommend that school boards continue to employ only qualified teachers in junior kindergarten classes and that the government abandon any consideration of differentiated staffing for this program.
Another item of concern is the teacher sick leave. Section 10 of Bill 34 repeals the provision of the Education Act which establishes the annual sick leave provision for teachers and leaves the issue to be negotiated between teachers and their employing school board. The proposal to remove sick leave provisions for teachers is not made because there has been abuse of this benefit on the part of teachers or because teachers have an unreasonable entitlement.
Unlike most occupational groups, except for health care providers, teachers are constantly at risk of contracting any and every flu bug and cold. Children are sent to school when they are not well or in their most contagious state, leaving us constantly susceptible and at risk of infection. The common cold may not require a lengthy recuperation time, but the average teacher suffers from more than one of them each school year. Ontario's teachers are an aging lot and under unprecedented pressures from numerous sources. They are finding themselves with more serious illnesses and in need of surgical procedures in greater number than ever before, with weeks of recuperation time frequently necessary.
Teachers' sick leave has become an issue because most school boards have failed to appropriately fund the benefit. Teachers have generally paid for the sick leave provisions by accepting reduced compensation packages over the years. Boards were happy to defer compensation to some future date. To facilitate a reduction in transfer payments, the province is attempting to allow school boards to renege on longstanding promises by giving school boards the right to charge teachers for a benefit for which they have already paid.
We recommend that section 10 of Bill 34 be deleted and sick leave for teachers be continued according to the current provisions of the Education Act.
Mr Holloway: The area of adult education is one that concerns OSSTF. The changes to adult education proposed in Bill 34 are far-reaching and overwhelmingly negative. If we are to compete effectively in the global economy, our citizens must have reasonable access to all levels of education. Individuals who for one reason or another have yet to complete a high school education will be severely handicapped by the proposed legislation.
The adult education programs in our Ontario public secondary schools are a great success story. The completion of the secondary school graduation diploma marks a level of achievement that's expected and demanded by our employers. Our students, who are our citizens of tomorrow, need the opportunity to complete their learning without restrictions governed by funding mechanisms which will tend to exclude adults from attendance in secondary programs. The achievement of completing the requirements leading up to a secondary diploma cannot be replaced by completion of a variety of interest courses that may be held by non-regulated agencies.
Public secondary schools offer trained professional staff and utilize an existing infrastructure in a local community setting -- locally, right here -- to provide the opportunity for adults to complete their educational requirements.
0950
The reduced funding being proposed will put school boards into an impossible predicament of using a much-reduced grant to pay for adult education on a continuing ed basis. This will probably shift the responsibility to the local taxpayer to fund adult programs. In Thunder Bay even using funding on a continuing ed basis has put the whole continuing ed and adult program in jeopardy.
As an example, in Thunder Bay we have two versions of training adults. One is the adult education regular secondary schools and one is a continuing ed program. The adult education part has been cancelled. There have been business courses for adults 21 years old and over. Those classes have been cancelled and those teachers now have been reassigned -- and therefore there are teachers out of work because of that -- because of the reduced funding.
On the other side, the continuing ed program, there has been a need expressed by the board for that program to break even or to become a profit centre. This has put extreme pressure on the workers to find ways to get revenues to continue to fund that program. That's in jeopardy. The results of the legislation have put all the programs for adults in Thunder Bay in jeopardy.
We believe adults should not be denied access to education due to funding on an age basis. This would appear to be a human rights issue. Ontario should have an education system that does not discriminate on the basis of age.
We recommend that the government restate Ontario's commitment to lifelong learning and equality of educational opportunity.
We recommend that the Education Act be amended to include adult education as a mandatory program with funding at the same level as regular credit programs.
We recommend that the government end its discrimination against adult students by removing from Bill 34 and the regulations all those sections that have the effect of lowering adult program funding from regular grant to continuing education levels. That is discriminatory.
The next section is the effect on negative grant boards. Bill 34 allows the provincial government to access and manipulate locally raised tax dollars as part of the cuts in transfer payments to school boards. Property taxes are collected on the demand of local rather than provincial politicians. Forcing locally raised tax dollars to be turned over to the provincial general revenue fund violates the principle of accountability our democratic system requires. We feel this is a back-door educational finance reform movement, and it's unacceptable. We agree there is a definite need for educational finance reform, but the version that you're proposing is inappropriate and unjustified.
We recommend that the government abandon its "cuts at any cost" program and seriously investigate and implement a rational education finance reform package.
Mr Green: In conclusion, the government appears determined to provide a tax cut for those who need it least, regardless of the impact on those least able to defend themselves. This current round of cuts to education will impact severely and immediately those children who need assistance to start their education on a decent footing, and in the near future all the children of those of limited or modest means. Eventually, Ontario will suffer as its ability to compete in the global economy diminishes.
It is obvious that the government hopes to force teachers to pay for the cuts through reductions in wages and benefits and increases in class size and workloads. It will not work. Teachers are already spending more time marking, preparing, counselling, planning etc than ever before. The increasing diversity within our classrooms requires more teacher intervention at a time when the teacher resources are being reduced.
This is a most cynical piece of legislation designed to steal educational opportunities from the most defenceless segments of our society. The government's attack on teachers is just another case of misdirection to gain public support for government cuts to public services.
If this government truly cared about the people of Ontario, it would consider the long-term effects of this legislation and realize how much it will impact negatively on our schools and our children.
Mrs McLeod: To lead off, you've touched on the numbers of teachers who are going to be laid off as a result of this round of cuts. I think you indicated 13% of elementary school teachers over two years; I'm not sure what the percentage would be of secondary school staff. I think you're also well aware that the Minister of Education has talked about cuts to education that would be much greater than what we have already experienced. He's repeatedly used the figure of $1 billion or $1.2 billion that he believes can be saved, to use that term, in education.
One of the tools that's not in Bill 34 but had certainly been talked about to achieve those cuts was preparation time. I wonder whether or not you've any sense of numbers of staff layoffs, teacher layoffs that might have occurred if that preparation time tool had been offered, and how far up the seniority list we're going in elementary and secondary schools with teacher layoffs, or might be going.
Mr Holloway: In secondary, my guess would be 20% of the staff. This year we're already looking at teachers who have worked for six years not having any job, as it stands right now, for next year. You add on that the 20% of the staff, which would be close to 80 teachers, and you would be getting that those with, I expect, 10 to 12 years of working for the Lakehead board would not be working -- a rough guess -- in secondary.
Mr Green: In elementary, we'd lose another 10% approximately of our teachers if preparation time were removed. At this point in time, we haven't finished our process, so I can't give you the exact number, but to fit people for work it's been necessary to declare people from 1979, I believe, or 1980, depending on their program, surplus to their schools, to try to bring them back. Our guess? Probably by next Wednesday we'll have the program done and about 100 teachers will be without placements. The board will then terminate their contract at a board meeting. That's out of 585, I believe, full-time equivalent teachers.
Mr Michael Gravelle (Port Arthur): That of course is based on the cuts that are in place now, let alone what may come down the line, which we're very frightened about. One of the most preposterous myths that continues to be spouted by the minister is the fact that this is not going to affect the classroom in a specific sense. Certainly a lot of groups addressed that. You address it in a real manner as well and I'm hoping you can even amplify it. In terms of what's happened now, it's clear how it's affected the classroom. I know that later in the day we're going to have presentations from some people who are very personally affected in terms of special-needs children and that sort of thing. But I think there needs to be more of an awareness of exactly what it means, especially if further cuts are in place, how it will affect the classroom.
Mr Green: In our system already, the program or assessor people, the ones who work with the teachers to provide programs for students who have special needs, have been reduced by about 75%.
Mr Gravelle: Which means?
Mr Green: There were approximately 20 people for the system, and there will be about five now. There are various job descriptions in it. What it means now is that students who would have been identified and for whom special programs would have been developed will have to wait or not receive any assistance at all and will be lost. The loss to the system will be the loss to the province.
Mr Wildman: I appreciate your candour in terms of the effects on teachers and students of the 16% cut in the GLGs, general legislative grants, by the provincial government. As my colleague Mr Gravelle said, the minister has repeatedly said that these cuts can be achieved without hurting classroom education, that classroom education should be exempt, and yet you've outlined effects in class size of these cuts.
You refer to this as a cynical piece of legislation. Wouldn't it be more honest for the government to say, "Look, we want to save money in education and therefore we're going to make cuts that will affect classrooms, increase class sizes and affect the education of kids in the classroom"? Wouldn't that be a more honest approach?
Mr Holloway: We would hope the government would be honest with the citizens. They are elected to govern and they are elected to be honest with the citizens. If they were to come up front and say, "We know it's going to affect the classroom. This is what we're going to do," at least then we'd know that they understand what their cuts are doing. As it stands now, they haven't told us the whole story, yet here in Thunder Bay we see classes affected and we're looking for some answers from the government.
1000
Mr Green: I would see that there are two possibilities: either the government doesn't have a clue about education and doesn't know what's happening or they may not know what the truth is.
Mr Wildman: The minister has agreed with your figure that on an annualized basis the cuts mean an $800-million cut, and it may be as high as $1 billion when we see all of the cuts. He has welcomed that. He has said that if we get more than $800 million, then that's good. He's also said there'll be further cuts next year. You've talked about what is happening in this board this year. Will it be possible to ensure that special needs students particularly, who have been integrated into the classroom, will get the kinds of services they require in order to be able to achieve to their potential if we see further cuts?
Mr Green: At this point in time, I see that we're following a program of integration, but if the cuts come, it will rapidly become a program of abandonment. These students will be dumped into regular classrooms with no support and will be lost.
Mr Wildman: The final question I have is in regard to adult education. You touched very briefly on the human rights issue. Are you saying that by saying that a student four years over 16 should not be in the regular day classroom program -- or at least the funding won't be there for it -- that in fact is a violation of human rights and is discrimination on the basis of age?
Mr Holloway: I would argue that if I were a lawyer. I think anyone who is slightly older than age 21 should have the opportunity to take a school process that everyone else has the opportunity to take. Going to school and getting your secondary graduation diploma is a fundamental belief that we have that should be available no matter what your age is and it is discriminatory to prevent someone on the basis of funding from getting that.
The Vice-Chair: I have four speakers on the government side and three minutes. If some of you want to join the other side, you're welcome to.
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): Two quick points. On page 6 of your brief you say that teachers have "more serious illnesses and in need of surgical procedures in greater number than ever before, with weeks of recuperation time frequently necessary." We've heard from the OSSTF in a number of other cities and they gave us statistics that teachers do not abuse the sick leave provisions, which I accept, and that for men, they take, on average, four to five days off for sick leave, and for women, nine days. So I have some problem with the statement that you make there. It seems to me there's some room for negotiation there.
I want to talk about accumulated sick leave, the retirement gratuity. Here in this jurisdiction it's somewhere in the area of $30,000 to $35,000 for every retiring teacher. That's money that does not go to children, that does not go into the classroom. We heard in Windsor that the unfunded liability province-wide for this gratuity is approximately $10 billion. We also heard from a number of teachers' federations that they would go on strike if this is now made a negotiable item and would not budge on that. They would go on strike rather than budge.
I'd like to know from you, what's your position if it becomes a negotiable item? To make it clear, the accumulated sick leave up to this point would not be cut back. It's further accumulation that would be subject to negotiation. What's your position on that area, considering that Lakehead, for example, is one of those boards that has no reserve at all and has an unfunded liability in the millions of dollars?
Mr Holloway: I want to talk a little bit about the illness situation. For people in a cancer situation or for heart surgery, open-heart surgery, we've had a number of teachers, and if you're not allowed to have that 20 days a year built up, then after 100 or 180 days, you may not have any salary. Our point is, teachers don't abuse the system of sick leave, but they do need that long term. More people are getting into that major surgery. So that clarifies our position on that. It's not a contradiction.
Mr Green: I would say that when you're talking averages, it's like one hand in a bucket of ice water and the other hand in a bucket of boiling water -- on the average, you're comfortable. We're not dealing with the average here; we're dealing with individual teachers. Many teachers take no days off a year. Would we take sick leave away from them all? Some teachers require a great many. On the average, we don't abuse the usage. People take only what they need.
When you talk about this unfunded liability, isn't it the same as when you went and bought your home and got a mortgage from the bank? It was a five-year, but amortized over 25. At the end of five years, you're not going to the bank and saying, "Well, guys, I paid for five; I'm not happy with how much I paid you, so forget about what I owe you." The bank wants the money. In this particular case, the school boards took a mortgage out with the teachers. The mortgage is now due; some of us would like to see it paid.
Mr Preston: Very briefly, no long-term income disability?
Mr Green: Certainly we pay for our own long-term disability after 120 days. I don't believe that, because we've done that and we pay 100% for it, the school board should receive a saving.
Mr Preston: It's odd that two days in a row we've seen that junior kindergarten has been taken out because it's an easy way to deal with the problem. When you say it's an easy way to deal with the problem, it suggests there are other ways but they're more difficult. I'm suggesting -- and I want your views on this -- that the easy way is a window to allow the high-grid teachers out and allow room for the low-grid teachers to come in. I want your opinion on that.
ECE starts at about six months, with eye contact, recognition, coordination. At which point do you think some form of government should fund it?
Mr Holloway: Let me talk about the early retirement. It is our understanding that that was one of the proposals the teachers made for having an early retirement window. Of the meetings that were scheduled, the government side cancelled five out of 10 of the meetings to discuss early retirement windows. We were anxious to talk about that, but the government side was not.
Mr Preston: You are in favour of an early retirement window?
Mr Holloway: One of our 11 priorities was having that.
Mr Preston: Okay, that's good. That's what I wanted to find out.
The Vice-Chair: A very short one, Mr Pettit -- 20 seconds.
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): A beautiful day to be in Thunder Bay, I must say.
I'm just curious. You seem to be vehemently opposed to differentiated staffing. We've had other presenters indicate to us that holders of ECE certificates are more than qualified to look after four-year-olds. I'm just wondering why you're so vehemently opposed to differentiated staffing.
Mr Green: I guess the question is, do we want to look after them or do we want to prepare them for their future education? Early childhood educators can certainly provide a warm, nurturing environment, but they are not trained to provide for the educational needs that are going to prepare a student for the future.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation. We appreciate it.
LAKEHEAD BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Lakehead Board of Education: Dr Linda Rydholm, the chair; Suzan Labine, the vice-chair; and Jim McCuaig, the director of education. Good morning. Again, you have 30 minutes for your presentation, which includes any questions and comments there may be. Could you identify yourselves as you're speaking for Hansard purposes.
Dr Linda Rydholm: Good morning. I'm Dr Linda Rydholm, chair of the board. With me are Mrs Suzan Labine, our vice-chair, and Mr Jim McCuaig, our director. We represent the Lakehead Board of Education, the local public school board. We have about 43 schools, 16,500 students, about 1,800 staff. This year our budget is $118 million.
Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act, refers to five different amendments. We will make some observations regarding each one of them and how they relate to our public school board in Thunder Bay.
(1) School boards will no longer be required to operate junior kindergarten.
There has been considerable controversy over the merit and the cost of junior kindergarten for many years. Until recently it was given 80% provincial funding and virtually all boards carried it. However, during the budget process this spring, many school boards across the province chose to cancel JK. Cancellation of junior kindergarten was considered a fiscal necessity.
The Lakehead Board of Education was in a similar situation here in Thunder Bay. Administration brought to the trustees a budget that included cancellation of JK for the fall of 1996. However, the elementary teachers decided that the program was important enough to maintain. Through the bargaining process, they initiated sufficient savings to cover the local cost of JK. The implications are some increased class sizes and less support, therefore, to students. Despite the generally difficult bargaining times this spring, good working relations at our Lakehead Board of Education made this compromise possible. JK has been kept at no increase to the local taxpayers of Thunder Bay. In fact, our average mill rate increase this year is 0%; minus 0.8% within the city limits.
1010
The future for JK is uncertain. If cancelled, provisions of some kind will have to be arranged for about 1,000 public school four-year-olds in this city. The two-year contract agreement with the elementary teachers will allow for some stability and planning time around the whole issue of JK.
(2) School boards will be able to direct certain adult persons to enrol in continuing education programs rather than in day school programs. This legislative change will have minimal if any impact on the Lakehead Board of Education. The provision of continuing education on a cost-recovery basis has been the way the board has operated for many years. There has been no adult education day school program. Occasionally, adults attend regular day school if that is the only time that the program is offered, and the new legislation allows for such exceptions.
(3) School boards will be permitted to enter into agreements to cooperate with other school boards and with municipalities, hospitals, universities, colleges and other prescribed persons or organizations, for certain purposes. School boards will be required to prepare annual reports on cooperative measures taken in this way.
This provision for cooperation between school boards and other publicly funded bodies will give encouragement and guidelines for those who want to work together in a cost-effective way. Public reporting of the tax savings is a natural follow-up. Taxpayers should be pleased to read an annual cooperative measures report that lists the savings achieved by publicly funded bodies working together. There should be greater fiscal accountability achieved and reported through this legislation.
The proposed legislation states that school boards will be permitted to enter into agreements to cooperate. The word "permitted" should be replaced with a stronger word such as "mandated" or "required." Cooperation sometimes needs to be more strongly directed.
The Lakehead Board of Education has been involved in some cooperative ventures and adventures. In recent years, the board has worked more closely with the separate school board to find cost savings in transportation. Also, the two school boards have been part of a purchasing consortium, along with the local university, college, hospitals and the city. For more than six years, the purchasing consortium has saved the taxpayers millions of dollars. More cooperative agreements may happen in the future. However, it should be noted that the number of administrative positions at the board has been reduced. These cooperative ventures do take administrative time. Careful consideration will have to be made regarding the cost-effectiveness and viability of any future cooperative efforts.
(4) School boards will be authorized to make equalization payments to the Minister of Finance. Traditionally, school boards in a grant-negative position have been envied by other boards in Ontario. There has been inequity regarding educational funding and thus learning opportunities for students across this province. The inequity needs to be addressed. Education should be financed so that all students in Ontario have equal access to learning opportunities.
The Lakehead Board of Education questions the concept of equalization payments to the province. The board does not agree with provincially legislated access to any local tax base. The grant-negative boards in Toronto and Ottawa have existed for many years. The funding issue needs to be directly negotiated with those particular boards.
The Lakehead Board of Education is in a grant-positive position. About 35% of the budget this year is provided by provincial legislative grants. The whole issue of equitable funding is an important area that needs to be resolved province-wide.
(5) The provisions of the act that set out teachers' entitlement to payment in respect of absence from duty because of sickness will be repealed on August 31, 1998. Teachers' entitlement to payment in respect of absence from duty because of sickness may be addressed by collective agreement.
The retirement gratuity paid to teachers upon retirement costs considerable sums of money across the province. Retirement gratuity is usually funded on a yearly basis. Some people consider it an unfunded liability. This new legislation will allow school boards and employees to consider other alternatives during the negotiating process.
In 1996, the Lakehead Board of Education has paid an average of $32,500, totalling $2,071,259 in retirement gratuity -- a considerable sum of money spent directly outside of the classroom. Perhaps this cost to the taxpayer could be dealt with in a better way. The amendment will provide boards and teachers greater flexibility in negotiations.
Generally speaking, Bill 34's amendments to the Education Act should help school boards to do their job better. There should be greater fiscal accountability and educational equity with the provincial government and local boards working cooperatively for public education in Toronto.
Suzan and Jim and I will be pleased to answer any questions the best we can.
The Vice-Chair: All right, we have 15 minutes. I have a question. I know I'm not supposed to ask questions, but this is just a factual question. Does the Lakehead Board of Education cover the same area as the Thunder Bay federations that we've heard about?
Dr Rydholm: The federations that just spoke, yes, although the OSSTF, the high school people, would go a little further. They were with their district or -- they've done it just for locally.
Mr Jim McCuaig: Actually, the people spoke locally, except one of the federations also represents a group in the separate school system, non-teacher.
The Vice-Chair: Is your board of education the urban board basically?
Dr Rydholm: Yes, and rural, but we do not extend, for example, to Nipigon, Red Rock or to Schreiber or Atikokan.
Mrs Suzan Labine: The townships.
Dr Rydholm: Those are different places.
The Vice-Chair: I understand.
Dr Rydholm: We're talking about the local city and surrounding townships.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. This time we start off with the NDP.
Mr Wildman: Thank you for your presentation. I think at the end you made a slip of the tongue when you said "public education in Toronto."
Dr Rydholm: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, "in Ontario." Good to the end.
Mr Wildman: Having pointed that out, I would like to deal for a moment with the equalization payment proposal in the bill. You recognize that in this legislation there is no requirement to designate funds.
Dr Rydholm: It says "may."
Mr Wildman: So if Ottawa and Toronto were to enter into an agreement to transfer property tax revenue to the consolidated revenue fund of Ontario, there is no guarantee that it will be used for education. It could be used for roads or health care or social services, or whatever, depending on the priorities of the government and the Minister of Finance. I recognize your concern about the province having access to local property taxes raised locally, but there's also the other concern that if the government does in fact get some of those funds, there's no requirement that they be used for education.
Dr Rydholm: That's interesting. Of course we are concentrating on education because that's the system we're in and representing, and you are looking at a larger picture.
Mr Wildman: That's why I wanted to point it out to you. This doesn't necessarily benefit education in other areas.
Dr Rydholm: Although if Toronto has less money to spend, they cannot continue to give certain learning opportunities that the rest of us cannot afford. I think that's what we're trying to get at with this address this morning, which is that because --
Mr Wildman: Surely that then affects education in Toronto.
Dr Rydholm: But it provides inequity in education, which is the point we were making, that some poorer boards have not had.
1020
Mr Wildman: Then the question is, do you achieve equity by a lower common denominator or a higher one?
Dr Rydholm: That is a good question. However, that is probably why this government, and past governments too, have been looking at this whole issue of trying to make education more fair and equitable finance-wise and learning-opportunity-wise. The answers have not fully come out. They certainly didn't come out with the last government and they aren't out yet with this one.
Mr Wildman: You said you're not in favour of the government having access to locally raised property taxes. You would also not be, surely, in favour of -- if the government did gain access to those, to have them redirected to social services or health care.
Mrs Labine: I think I'd like to make a comment on that. I would agree with you that the property tax is probably originally allocated for education.
Mr Wildman: Yes.
Mrs Labine: To reallocate that money to another area away from education would be unacceptable, in my view. Those dollars were raised and the people were taxed for education and that money should stay in education.
Mr Wildman: There is no provision in this legislation to require that.
Dr Rydholm: Personally, I can answer. Speaking as chair of the board, I would have to think a little bit more on giving the answer to your question earlier; however, I think at this time in the province we're looking for money saving anywhere we can get it and then distributing it as best we can.
Mr Wildman: But the problem is, this is then proposing --
Dr Rydholm: We don't know for sure how that money will be used.
Mr Wildman: That's right.
Dr Rydholm: However, one would hope that you and others would be watching over that and that we'll be using it well.
Mr Wildman: That's exactly why I'm raising that.
Dr Rydholm: Okay. So do that.
Mr Wildman: But the problem is, surely you would not be in favour of raising property taxes to fund health care.
Dr Rydholm: I don't know; I'm a doctor.
Mr Wildman: That's exactly why I raised it.
The Vice-Chair: We'll have to leave it at that, Mr Wildman.
Mr Wildman: Just one other quick question.
The Vice-Chair: Very quick.
Mr Wildman: In terms of junior kindergarten, the government has said that it will review the program. Have you had any contact from the ministry of any kind with regard to a review of the junior kindergarten program?
Mr McCuaig: Not yet.
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East): I'd like to deal with the myth of that section of the bill, the equalization payment, first off by directing my colleagues opposite to be reminded that the words say "may make a payment." No one is being forced to do anything.
Let me make one other point. We already have pooling here in the Lakehead area. I have no doubt that the poorer townships, which have a lower assessment base, are deriving a benefit from the assessment in the urban core. The same is true in Metro Toronto; in fact, let me give you a statistic. Scarborough -- where Mr Newman and I come from, and Mr Brown -- by participating as part of the Metro Toronto board, gets $175 million more every year than the Scarborough taxpayers pay. So already the city of Toronto and the city of North York are pooling their resources and the cities of Scarborough, Etobicoke, York and East York are deriving a benefit that one would argue is not appropriate. Yet somehow the status quo is acceptable.
I remind everyone as well that under the social contract the previous government forced the Metro school board to give up $66-million worth of services that it pooled with the separate school board. So the concept of ensuring a level playing field already exists and we have a commitment to make sure that every student in this province has an equal access to a quality education, and that is not the case today, based on the way education is funded.
I guess the other point that is very important to make, and I'd appreciate your response, is that at no point have we said anybody's going to write a cheque for anything. This would be a bookkeeping entry. By next year, Metro Toronto will be grant positive, so, to pick a number, if $13 million is what they should have been tightening their belt this year to match what Lakehead and every other school board in this province was asked to do as part of the belt-tightening for all of our transfer partners -- but they get off the hook if nobody asks them to do a similar exercise. But if they're grant positive next year, we simply reduce the grant by $13 million to them next year.
If it's nothing more than an internal accounting entry, the money never leaves Ottawa or never leaves Metro Toronto, it merely offsets future grants and it merely makes them have to do what every other school board is very responsibly doing across this province, would you then have any concerns at all with the option for Metro and Ottawa to share their portion of the transfer reduction?
Dr Rydholm: The way you've described it certainly makes good sense to me, and it happens, as you explained, on a similar basis in other areas throughout the province. For example, our taxpayers within the city pay a lot more than our taxpayers with the same sort of house just outside the city limits. Hopefully this will work and will be more fair for the folks down in Toronto, as it is, I think, for us here in Thunder Bay.
Mr Gilchrist: If there's no one else, one little quick question about junior kindergarten. How many boards in northwestern Ontario had junior kindergarten before the previous government made it mandatory?
Dr Rydholm: Junior kindergarten has been in the northwest a long time, 20 years, in pretty well all of them.
Mr Gilchrist: All of the boards in the north had it?
Mr McCuaig: That's my understanding, yes.
Mr Skarica: As you know, the cuts to the various boards ended up being less than 2% of their entire budgets, and what we were hopeful for as a government was that the savings would be done in such a way as not to impact on the classroom. In fact one of the boards where I'm from, the Roman Catholic board -- we heard yesterday that the administrators, the teachers, the maintenance people all took a slight cut in their benefits, in their pay package, and as a result the impact on the classroom did not take place.
We've heard that's taken place somewhat in the Lakehead board with JK, and the first presenters said major concessions were made. Could you tell us what major concessions were made or what concessions were made by the teacher group?
Dr Rydholm: For the first year of the contract, concessions worth about $1.3 million were made. For the second year, it'll be over $3 million. We have always at the Lakehead board maintained low PTRs, pupil-teacher ratios, especially at the lower grades. Starting this September, our class size in kindergarten will go from 20 to 25 students per class. We will be still maintaining low classes in grades 1 and 2. Grades 1 and 2 will remain unchanged at 20. Grades 3 to 8 will go from the present 29 to 30 per class.
Some people might say that's a huge change. Certainly the kindergarten teachers are going to experience a change from 20 to 25. However, it should also be pointed out that our coterminous board, the separate board, has been operating at 31 for years, from JK right up to the end of high school. So we're still going to be maintaining a lower PTR at our public school board.
Mr Skarica: Were there any salary or benefit concessions made, or anything of that kind?
Dr Rydholm: No salary or benefit concessions made. The health care benefits of about $6,000 or so per package will be maintained. The average salary of $66,000 will be maintained. The ed leave money will be gone for two years, the professional development money for two years. In the second year of the contract, 25 elementary teacher-librarians will no longer be designated and paid as teachers. There will be some sort of library technician personnel in there at, we hope, half the salary or less. Those are the sorts of compromises we came to in order to maintain junior kindergarten.
Mrs McLeod: If I ask a rather provocative question, you'll appreciate the fact that it's because I'm concerned about what's happening, just based on your response in terms of the concessions that were made which affect classroom education in the Lakehead board. I know that the grant reduction for 1996 for the Lakehead board is in the area of $4 million. In order to cope with that without losing junior kindergarten and without raising property taxes, there have been some very real compromises in terms of class sizes and cuts in special education.
It might be most appropriate, since this is a provocative question, to direct it to the director of education, if the chairman doesn't mind. The question I want to ask is, why were you not able to cope with these cuts by just making the administrative changes that the Minister of Education says you should be able to make? The second question is, where do you go if you have to make more cuts?
Mr McCuaig: First of all, I think it should be put into perspective. One of our concerns with the cuts is that we've already had five years of our own initiated cuts. I think it's clear to say that if we use the Ontario School Board Reduction Task Force report as a benchmark, which the government appears to be, with the assumption that central bargaining will take place, the assumption that curriculum will develop provincially, the assumption that assessment will be done centrally and the assumption that any new programs initiated by the government will be paid for by the government, as well as a College of Teachers that will be involved in some discipline, all those functions that are now done locally, even with those assumptions not in place, by September 1996 we are already at the outside-of-the-classroom level of staffing of the school board reduction task force. The school board reduction task force suggests that by 1998, assuming all those things are in place, we should reduce our budget by $6.3 million; we have reduced our budget already by $6.4 million.
1030
If you ask me where we're going to go, I don't know. We've already gone to the classroom; I don't think there's any question we've gone to the classroom. We have done massive school closures; four this year, plus two amalgamated. I can tell you there are several more in the plans for next year. I don't know other ways without hurting the classroom. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be cutting, I'm not trying to whine here, but I am saying to you that we have been in an efficiency move for several years.
Mr Patten: Your presentation, Doctor, is quite distinctive. This is the first board I've heard of that makes the comment that this bill should help school boards do their job better because, in effect, what it's doing is taking away resources from every board. Every report we've had from any school board has said that they've increased class sizes, they've had to cut certain programs, they've lost teachers, they've lost resources -- your director of education just made that comment. Therefore, I find it astounding. In which way would school boards be able to do a better job given that kind of impact?
Dr Rydholm: You know where most of the money is, sir.
Mr Patten: Pardon?
Dr Rydholm: You know where most of the money is spent in education.
Mr Patten: Where?
Dr Rydholm: Contracts. Is there another question?
Mr Patten: I see that your board has not had really a fully developed adult education program. Does that mean other boards have picked up that responsibility, or it's elsewhere in the community, or you don't have any people who need it?
Dr Rydholm: Our continuing education is very extensive; it has been for years. We have thousands of students who go through it every year. I can't speak for the separate board. You can ask them later.
Mr Patten: I'm trying to distinguish between adult education, which is really a full-time day program -- you don't have that?
Dr Rydholm: We haven't had the need or had it run. Also, remember we have a local college that does considerable upgrading and is sort of in competition with us. Over the years we've traded off who would do what. The local college achieved some of that job for us.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for your presentation, all of you.
LAKEHEAD DISTRICT ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Lakehead Roman Catholic Separate School Board: Joleene Kemp, board chair; Kevin Debnam, director of education; and Susan Soldan, superintendent of business. Welcome to our hearings.
Mrs Joleene Kemp: My name is Joleene Kemp and I'm the chairperson of the Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board. On my right is Kevin Debnam, who is the director of education for our school board, and on my left is our superintendent of business, Susan Soldan. We thank you for the opportunity this morning.
We accept responsibility for children who sneak Popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math workbooks, who can never find their shoes.
Mr Kevin Debnam: We accept responsibility for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, who never played hide and seek after dark, who were born in places we wouldn't be caught dead in, who never go to the circus and who live, in effect, in an X-rated world.
Ms Susan Soldan: We accept responsibility for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
Mrs Kemp: We also accept responsibility for those who never get dessert, who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, who watch their parents watch them die, who can't find any bread to steal, who don't have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser and whose monsters are real.
Mr Debnam: We accept responsibility for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, who throw tantrums in grocery stores and pick at their food, who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub, who get visits from the tooth fairy, who don't like to be kissed in front of the car pool, who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
Ms Soldan: We accept responsibility for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who aren't spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, who live and move but have no being.
Mrs Kemp: We accept responsibility for children who want to be carried and for those who must, for those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance, for those who smother and for those will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.
Our presentation is really what we are all about. We are a system united. The Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board is here this morning as an advocate for the 9,000 students it serves.
At the outset we would like to say that the board appreciates the opportunity to appear before the standing committee on social development to discuss issues that directly affect the students in our schools. As a Catholic-based organization, collaboration, consultation and cooperation form the very fabric of who we are as a people of God and the manner in which we function as an organization. We applaud the government's commitment to consulting directly with those affected by the change and trust that our concerns will be heard and, above all, carefully considered and reflected in subsequent decisions.
Our comments on Bill 34 are selective in nature. We as a board have chosen to make public statements on three issues that directly affect the quality of Catholic education in our schools and, accordingly, the children in our classrooms. The issues are: equalization payments to the Minister of Finance, cooperative agreements and junior kindergarten.
Ms Soldan: I'll begin with the equalization payments to the Minister of Finance. The board acknowledges that we are living in difficult economic times. Accordingly, we have planned effectively over the past three years to deal with the impact of shrinking revenues. We have restructured and streamlined our school system to ensure cost-effectiveness and to maintain quality programs. We've absorbed the following reductions and done so with creativity, prudence and an unshakeable commitment to our staff and students: the 1993 social contract, $1.69 million; the 1993 expenditure control plan, $410,000; the 1995 mid-year adjustment to the per-pupil grant, which affected us, $60,000; and the 1996 savings strategy, $1.6 million. Over that three-year period, $3.76 million impacted our board.
These reductions in provincial funding equate to about 6% of our 1995 operating expenditure of $62.4 million, or 11% of our 1995 general legislative grants of $32.2 million. We recognize that more cuts are on the horizon for 1997. It is our belief that these future reductions will have a dramatic and unprecedented negative impact on our students.
Fairness and justice require that these reductions apply to all boards and particularly those that are in rich assessment areas. Unfortunately, it is assessment-poor boards such as ours that are penalized. Had an assessment-rich board that receives little or no provincial funding cut $3.76 million from its budget, most or all of the savings would have been returned to the local ratepayer by way of reduced mill rates. In times of restraint it is more likely that these boards would have frozen their mill rates and not reduced them, and not even taken the $3.76 million from their budget. But our ratepayers saw significant cuts in service and no reduction in their mill rate. Where's the fairness?
However, we applaud the Ministry of Education and Training for providing financial relief to school boards in the province with student enrolment under 10,000. This measure provided our board with approximately $400,000, which equates to a 1.76% increase in our local mill rate, and greatly assisted our board in meeting a commitment to freeze the local mill rate. Although the board was able to prepare a balanced 1996 budget, which we finalized Tuesday night, it was not done without sacrificing programs and services.
Inequities arise because the provincially recognized cost of education for grant purposes is too low and does not reflect the real costs of providing education programs and services. Almost all boards spend above the recognized ceiling and fund these expenditures from local taxation. Assessment-poor boards such as ours must place a heavier burden on our residential ratepayers to raise the same revenue. For example, for every $1 of local residential taxation our board raises, our coterminous public board raises $1.55 and Metro Toronto board of education raises $3.39; and for every $1 of local commercial and industrial taxation we are able to raise, the coterminous public board raises $1.81 and Metro Toronto board of education raises $4.46. These figures I'm quoting are taken from the total wealth index which was contained in a document provided by the Ministry of Education and Training, based on 1994 taxation figures. The choice of boards, for your information, is to show you that there is a disparity.
1040
If non-residential assessment in Ontario was equitably distributed among all boards in the province, some of the issues regarding the wide ranges of assessment wealth could be addressed. In addition, there would be no issue of negative grants, that is, where boards generate local taxes in excess of the provincial expenditure ceilings by applying the provincial standard mill rate. The proposed legislation allowing negative grant boards to make payments to the province does not give the province the authority to collect such payments. As a result, these boards do not accept their fair share of expenditure reductions.
Therefore, this board recommends that Bill 34 be amended to authorize the province to collect negative grants and negative grant boards' fair share of the $400-million savings strategy.
We also recommend that the government proceed without delay with provincial pooling of all non-residential assessment as a component of education finance reform.
Mr Debnam: My comments are generally in the area of junior kindergarten, an area you've heard about time and time again this morning. Actually, this underpins much of what has already been said, so I trust you'll bear with me for a few moments while we bring our case forward.
Junior kindergarten is an essential and integral part of our school system. We have offered the program in our schools for 25 years. It's well established, it's educationally sound and it's staffed by capable, dedicated and well-qualified educators. The value of this program to children is well documented in research. In addition, junior kindergarten makes good economic sense, an area we sometimes forget about. Allow me to elaborate briefly on the point.
The Ypsilanti Perry preschool project in support of early childhood education found that high-quality education for young children enables families and communities to improve the life chances of their children. Long-term research shows that adults who attended a high-quality early education program made greater gains in education, employment and social responsibility than similar adults who did not attend this type of program.
In addition, the project found that fewer children were classified as developmentally challenged; more children completed high school; more attended college or job training programs; more held regular jobs; more reported higher levels of job satisfaction; fewer were arrested for criminal acts; fewer needed social assistance; there were a lower unwed birth rates; and fewer minor offences were recorded.
The project also found that these gains led to substantial economic benefits to the community. An investment in early childhood education returned $7 for every $1 invested. More importantly, this finding is replicated, and has been done so over the past few months by Dr Fraser Mustard, the director of the Canadian Institute on Advanced Research.
Junior kindergarten is first of all pedagogically rich, and from an economic perspective it's a sound investment. The program meets the needs of the local communities and is a solid investment in the future, something I believe we're all dedicated to for our children.
The board agrees that junior kindergarten should be optional. That's fair; that's fine with us. However, we believe that it should be funded as a category 1 grant. That should be reinstated. Recent changes in the funding from category 1 to category 3 mean that junior kindergarten is no longer funded at 100% by the province. Instead, it's funded at each board's rate of grant on recognized ordinary expenditure. This places a very heavy burden on assessment-poor boards that cannot match the dollars raised from the mill rate effort of rich assessment boards.
Accordingly, the Lakehead District Roman Catholic School Board recommends that junior kindergarten be recognized as an essential and integral part of the education system and that funding for it be restored to the category 1 grant level.
Mrs Kemp: The Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board fully supports the provisions of Bill 34 that enable school boards to enter into cooperative agreements with other school boards, municipalities, hospitals, universities, colleges and other prescribed persons and organizations. As an organization, we have been involved in such partnerships for many years.
We have, for example, shared many services with our coterminous board and done so with a high degree of mutual trust and respect. We've entered into program agreements with the local community college. We have helped form and manage a municipal purchasing consortium comprising local hospitals, the city of Thunder Bay, local school boards, the college and university. And most recently, we formed a Catholic community partnership with St Joseph's General Hospital, St Joseph's Heritage and the Diocese of Thunder Bay comprising over 20 organizations under the authority of the Bishop of the Diocese of Thunder Bay. This partnership is one of the first of its kind in the province of Ontario.
We are proud of our longstanding record of innovative, positive and cost-effective community partnerships that help us better serve the children entrusted to our care. Again, we support the spirit and intent of Bill 34 related to cooperative agreements. We must, however, base our support on the following principles. Cooperative agreements must, first, ensure the preservation of the Catholic school system and its unique nature and purpose; second, be educationally beneficial to students; third, recognize and protect local needs, input and autonomy; fourth, maintain or improve program quality and level of service; and lastly, result in cost efficiencies for all parties to the agreement.
Therefore, the Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board recommends:
-- That the government proceed with the full implementation of provisions in Bill 34 that enable school boards to enter into cooperative agreements with other school boards, municipalities, hospitals, universities and colleges.
-- That the government ensure that the framework for the implementation of cooperative agreements recognize and protect the rights of Catholic education in this province.
Mr Debnam: In conclusion, we are proud of our school system and the students we serve. We have effectively and efficiently provided quality education in the community of Thunder Bay for over 111 years. Our first schools were established in Port Arthur Roman Catholic Separate School Board in 1885. We have established in Thunder Bay a reputation for academic excellence in a Christ-centred learning environment. Schools in our system say to all who enter:
"My doors are open, come in, you are safe and welcome here.
"I stand here as a public witness that quality learning, in a Christ-centred learning environment, underpins the total education of the student.
"I stand for distinctiveness in purpose and in outcomes.
"I stand for academic excellence, for self-worth and for respect.
"I am a place where each student develops his or her potential as an individual and as a contributing, responsible member of society who will think clearly, feel deeply, act wisely and justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with his or her God."
Mrs Kemp: We believe the recommendations we have made this morning will help our board continue its deep and unshakable commitment to the 9,000 students we serve each day.
We thank you for your kind attention and would entertain any questions that you have at this time.
The Vice-Chair: We have five minutes per caucus.
Mr Skarica: I'd like to take you to page 3 of your presentation, and thank you very much for it. You point out just before your recommendation that this legislation does not allow negative grant boards -- or the proposed legislation doesn't allow the province to order payments to be made; it's a "may" provision. You obviously want us to go further than that. Do you want us to make it a mandatory provision?
Ms Soldan: No. I guess what we were suggesting was that with a provincial pooling of assessment, there may not be an issue of negative grant at all, in which case you wouldn't have to deal with that. What we are suggesting is currently that is an outstanding issue.
Mr Skarica: Perhaps I could read you what the OSSTF says about the current provision, the "may" provision. It says, "It is a stark example of the minister exercising dictatorial powers and undermining the statutory autonomy of school boards." Could you comment on that? Do you view that provision in that light?
Ms Soldan: Can I say, "No comment"?
Mr Pettit: Thank you for your presentation. I'd like to get your views on differentiated staffing relative to JK, if you would, please.
Mrs Kemp: To be quite candid, we are in negotiations with our elementary and secondary teachers, and it really would be inappropriate to discuss in a public forum something that takes place within our negotiation table.
Mr Pettit: That kind of deletes my next question. I was going to say -- Mr Skarica mentioned it again this morning, and I mentioned it yesterday -- that Patrick Daly, who is now the president of the OSSTA, I guess it is, and is also a trustee in Hamilton. The Hamilton separate school board recently came to an agreement with its staff which realized them approximately $3 million through a 5% reduction in their benefits, but I guess I can't ask you that question.
1050
Mrs Kemp: Thank you very much for not asking.
Mr Pettit: All right. I won't ask you that question.
Mrs Kemp: We might want to comment on the fact that we work very cooperatively with our staff and all of the employees within our system have been working very closely with us so that we are able to maintain the kind of Catholic education we have in Thunder Bay. Having said that, we would like to allow negotiations to proceed where they belong.
Mr Pettit: Yes. I think this was a model of cooperation in Hamilton and I hope a lot of the other boards can follow that. I'll defer now.
The Vice-Chair: Any questions? Mr Gilchrist, would you like to --
Mr Gilchrist: No.
The Vice-Chair: No other questions at all?
Mrs McLeod: I'll attempt to ask the question that Mike Gravelle was going to ask and got caught outside on the phone. I know the concern he wanted to raise, and one that we would have raised with the Lakehead board presentations as well, was around the whole area of special education. It comes back to the fact that you are being asked to cope with a significant cut in your grants. I think with the Lakehead separate board it's something in the area of $2 million, although the adjustment may help that. Clearly, so-called tools that are actually going to enable you to achieve that level of cut in the current contract year are just not available and so you've been forced to make some cuts in areas that affect students.
I was impressed with the preamble to your brief and with one statement that you made on the very first page, in which you said that even with the adjustment measure in balancing the 1996 budget, it wasn't done without sacrificing programs and services. I wonder if you would just comment on whether or not there have been sacrifices in the area of special education and what impact that would have.
Mr Debnam: Mrs McLeod, thank you for that question. It was one we anticipated, so I thank you for asking it. The whole issue of direct impact on the classroom and the government's position that these cuts are not going to impact the classroom is a myth. The cuts impact the classroom. They have done so this year and they will do so in spades next year. I can't say that forcefully enough. Four hundred million dollars taken out of education in the short term that we had to actually do it was dramatic and unprecedented. Next year is going to be worse if the government maintains a commitment to an additional $600 million-plus.
As a result of that, we have reduced a number of programs and services that impact kids, and we will do so again next year. One of the basic principles that we espoused, and I believe it's entrenched in our introduction, is to really try and ensure that special education programs are not hurt in any way, and to a large extent we have done that this year. Mr Chair, I submit to you that next year the cuts will more directly impact children in classrooms if the government maintains its current agenda of continuing to reduce payments to school boards within the magnitude that it is currently doing.
I'd like to make one more comment in that area. It has again pitted school boards against unions, teacher federations and parents. You have placed us once again in a position where we're taking the full brunt of dealing with the reductions. There's an adage that goes, when the well starts running dry the animals around it start looking at each other differently. I will tell you categorically that is occurring in this city, and I'm sure it's occurring across the province.
Mrs Kemp: If I could just add, while we have in the area of special ed been fortunate enough, due to the creativity and the collaboration within our system, not to have to completely eliminate programs, we have had to reorganize, restructure and offer in a different manner. When you offer in a different manner you hurt the children, because children in special ed function on the idea of consistency, they function on knowing the individuals they're working with. These are all changing. While we are committed to offering it, we've had to change and modify, and that really does not meet the needs of the children properly within our system.
Mr Patten: I have two quick questions. One is, in terms of the impact in numbers on your classrooms, what's the pattern for this year and what would be your prognosis? That annualization of the cuts, by the way, is in the $800-million range. You've flagged that for us and we've heard many school boards raise the alarm for themselves and alert the committee to it. What's the prognosis on the class sizes?
Mr Debnam: Our class sizes are governed of course through our collective agreements. Just to give you a sense, the PTR in the collective agreement generates a class size at the junior kindergarten level of 20 to 1, 25 to 1 at the 1 through 3 level, and then 30 to 1 overall once you get into the higher grades. We're at that. As a matter of fact, our 30-to-1 measures still are within the collective agreement. We have class sizes of 30 to 35 kids.
In terms of the overall impact, the social contract reduced our teaching staff by approximately 25. We have 350 elementary teachers and approximately 150 secondary teachers. Actually, our reductions began last September and we've put three phases of reductions through. I will tell you the majority of those reductions have been central office. We're reduced senior administrative staff, we've reduced support staff to classrooms. Anything outside of the classrooms, that's where our main focus has been. Next year, there's no other choice. We cannot go beyond the infrastructure that we've dismantled and still maintain the distinctiveness of our organization.
We are into the deepest level of cuts and the cuts that directly impact kids in the classroom. I think that's something you're going to hear across the province, and hear it consistently. We're at that level. The government is moving too fast and it's making the cuts too deep. They have to look very carefully at that impact, and I hope they're listening to what we're saying here this morning. I don't know whether I get that sense. I have some concerns about that.
Mr Patten: Your point --
The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Patten, your five minutes are up.
Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for your presentation. It contrasts with the previous one in some ways. Can we look at page 2 of your presentation, where you say, after giving the figures: "We recognize that more cuts are on the horizon for 1997. It is our belief that these future reductions will have a dramatic and unprecedented negative impact on our students." You've already talked about the impacts you've already seen, and said that it's got to affect the classroom.
I just have one factual question, and then I'd like to ask a couple of other questions. Further down on that page you mention the $400,000. Has that been confirmed by the ministry that you will receive it?
Ms Soldan: Confirmed in the sense that we do our 40-page general legislative grant calculation and it's just another page that was added into it. It's some time before it's confirmed.
Mr Wildman: Okay, that's fine. If the government's agenda is the cuts that you've talked about, wouldn't it be more honest with the public of Ontario if they said, "Look, we have decided these cuts must be made and we recognize they will adversely affect the classroom, but that's the way it is," instead of continually repeating that boards can make these cuts without affecting the classroom?
Mrs Kemp: That would be a fair assumption.
Mr Wildman: The government continually says the 16% cuts to the general legislative grants, on average, are only 2% to 3% of the total expenditure in education and surely any institution or group of institutions should be able to make 2% to 3% cuts without affecting their core program, their classroom program. What's the matter with you guys?
Ms Soldan: It may be 2% across the province, and if it were 2% for every board perhaps that would be true, but given that some boards are more reliant on grants, it may affect them even more than 2%. That is one difficulty, that it does affect every organization differently and you can't make a blanket statement such as that with education. The model, in trying to be equitable, is quite complicated, and a lot of different things do happen when you apply that 2%.
Mr Wildman: With regard to equalization, if I understand your presentation correctly, what you're basically saying is that you want the government to proceed with education finance reform and that if we get province-wide pooling or whatever the outcome of a true education finance reform package, these questions about equalization payments and so on will be irrelevant because there will be a pooling of the commercial and industrial assessment. I understand that, but in the current legislation, as my colleague has pointed out, is a permissive clause which says the Metro Toronto board and the Ottawa board could enter into agreements to provide transfer payments back to the consolidated revenue fund. Do you anticipate that that will assist your board or other assessment-poor boards?
Ms Soldan: I believe earlier you pointed out that there may not be any guarantee of where those funds are directed, in an earlier question with a previous presenter. I think it could help, but again it depends how the funds are directed. I think there's an issue of what the expectation is regarding the level of spending in every board in the province and how that's funded, their comments about the ceiling and how those funds are applied. Unless the issue is addressed of what do you spend on education, where is it spent and how much does it cost to provide that education -- and I think education finance reform was attempting to address those issues. That's the bigger picture. Right now, even if that money is collected, is it clear where those funds will be directed, into what part of education?
Mr Wildman: At this point you don't anticipate that if agreements were reached with Ottawa and Toronto, those moneys then going into the consolidated revenue fund will further alleviate the cuts your board is facing?
Ms Soldan: Unless it's directed into something like the $400,000 grant we received this year, which was more or less given to us to implement as we need it.
Mr Wildman: That's an interesting point. It's $14.5 million, and maybe that's where they anticipate the money's coming from.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
1100
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, THUNDER BAY ELEMENTARY UNIT
The Vice-Chair: Next we've got the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, the Thunder Bay elementary unit: Eleanor Pentick, president; Marshall Jarvis, first vice-president; and Tony Andreacchi, first vice-president, Thunder Bay unit. Welcome to our hearings.
Ms Eleanor Pentick: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for providing us with this opportunity to speak with you. Much of what we have to say I am sure has been heard by you previously, but we would ask your indulgence because anything we are going to say we believe is worthy of being repeated.
I'm Eleanor Pentick, the president of the Thunder Bay elementary unit, Catholic teachers. On my left we have Tony Andreacchi, first vice-president of our unit, and on my right, Marshall Jarvis, first vice-president of our provincial association.
The Thunder Bay elementary unit of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association represents some 350 women and men who are employed as teachers in the English section of the Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board. These teachers are found in the elementary panel teaching from JK to grade 8.
Approximately 5,700 children attend the 19 English elementary schools under the jurisdiction of our board. This year some 600 of those students were enrolled in JK.
As teachers in Catholic schools, we are both beneficiaries of and advocates for a tradition of social justice. Catholic social teaching has consistently spoken in favour of the poor, the marginalized and the vulnerable and proclaimed the priority of people over economic systems.
We know that the cuts in funding to education and the other measures being implemented by this government will have a devastating effect on the education system in Ontario and thus on the poor and the most vulnerable in our society, particularly the children who are entrusted to our care. Our association and our local unit are adamantly opposed to any attacks on the continuity of program and the quality of education in Ontario.
The Catholic board and its teachers were leaders 24 years ago when the JK program was initiated in Thunder Bay. Our program has been used as an example and model for many boards across Canada. This fact has always made us proud. After 24 years of successful operation it has no doubt proven its worth. To terminate this program would be a definite step backwards. Unfortunately, unless full funding is restored, our board and many others may be forced to take that backwards step.
There's a widening gap in Ontario between the children who arrive at school emotionally, physically and intellectually ready to learn and the children who come to school hampered by a lack of nurturing and stimulation, which is not necessarily their fault. The older these children are when they are first exposed to the basics of schooling, the harder it is to narrow that gap between their ability to learn and that of more fortunate students.
These children, who we say are children at risk, need early intervention to succeed in school. The Lakehead District Roman Catholic Separate School Board has such an early identification process in place and the junior kindergarten teachers are trained to identify hearing, visual, speech and social problems as well as learning problems which, once identified, can be dealt with more effectively and enable the child to become a better learner.
Junior kindergarten programs are not glorified babysitting services. Under the direction of qualified teachers, junior kindergarten children are provided with the following opportunities:
To make decisions, to solve problems and to complete tasks.
To listen, to ask questions, to talk about experiences and, I should have added, an opportunity to be heard.
To explore the world of books.
To play in organized activities which help the child to develop an understanding of the underlying skills in mathematics, science and technology.
To participate in the arts -- drama, music, dance, painting, drawing, sculpture.
To develop coordination skills through planned physical activities.
To develop personal and social skills.
To develop tolerance and understanding by being in classrooms with children from many cultures and backgrounds.
Continuation of this type of junior kindergarten program by assessment-poor boards means the local ratepayers will have to pick up the shortfall or moneys will have to be taken out of other areas of the instructional budget. We see this new funding reduction to JK as a direct attack on the delivery of Catholic education in this province. The removal of full funding for the JK program does not really leave an option for many boards, particularly the small and assessment-poor boards such as ours and many others in northern Ontario.
1110
The general cuts to education funding and the reduction in full support for JK programs have forced our board into such an unfortunate financial position that this September 1996 it will be implementing the following reductions in service which will affect the children in the classrooms:
The twinning of schools, with one principal in charge of two schools. We have four schools involved in that type of reduced service.
Gifted programs slashed.
Elimination of one speech pathologist.
Elimination of instrumental music program.
Elimination of replacement teachers for short-term absences of learning centre -- special ed -- teachers, teacher-librarians and guidance teachers.
Elimination of the grade 8 excursion to Toronto.
Reduction of school operating budgets by 10%.
Reduction in funds for plant maintenance.
Reduction in funds for professional development and curriculum development.
Elimination of the design and technology and family studies programs.
Elimination of 31 elementary teaching positions in the elementary panel -- 31 jobs since 1993, 31 fewer teachers teaching the same number of students.
Reduction in the number of secretaries.
The junior kindergarten program changed to a full day on alternate days. The restoration of full funding for JK, we believe, is necessary to ensure that JK will not be added to this list in 1997.
We are not directly involved in the area of adult education; however, we do have a few comments we would like to make. We believe that adult education contributes to the breaking of the poverty cycle by educating and training the poor, and investment in adult education directly contributes to the economic growth and development of a community. Business benefits from the upgrading of the workforce and it ensures that Ontario's workforce remains productive and competitive.
Under the new continuing ed grant model, many boards simply will be unable to afford to offer programs for adult students, and those that do will not be able to offer a wide choice of courses now available to adults through the regular day school curriculum. Thus these adults, who are the most disadvantaged in the workforce, will find it difficult to improve their situation. In particular, those in small northern communities where the public school facilities are the only educational facilities will find themselves in a hopeless situation.
I'd like to add a personal comment about adult ed. I am a product of an adult ed experience. I quit school after grade 12 some 30 years ago. My parents wanted me to go on to grade 13. I lasted two months and I was dying to get out into that world of work. I skipped a grade in elementary school, I had no difficulty learning, but I just didn't want to learn any more at that time -- I was 17 years old -- much to the dismay of my family, who really couldn't afford to have me at school. There were five children. My father worked at Canada Car, my mother was a full-time homemaker. We did not have money. I felt a personal responsibility at that point in my life to help my parents with the raising of the other children. I quit school.
For four years I worked as a secretary in various businesses in the community and one day I realized I wanted more and that I could contribute more. I went back to school at 21. Yes, there was a university here and yes, I could have passed and written an entrance exam and I'm sure I would have been able to go as an adult student. Why didn't I choose that route and why did I choose my former high school?
There are two reasons. The first was financial; I didn't have the money to pay tuition. The second reason, though, that I think is equally or maybe even more important is that at that point in my life I had no self-confidence as a learner. I had to be retaught to learn. When I went back to my high school, the guidance counsellor, the principal, those teachers welcomed me, nourished me, encouraged me. I would not have had that at the university; I would have been one of a number. I would not have had that at a college. But I went back home to my former school, and at the age of 21 I went to grade 13. After that, I went on to university, then to the faculty of education. I sit here before you today, and I consider myself to be a success.
People who are 21 years old today -- with this new government action about adult ed, in 30 years we won't be seeing those types of stories. I beseech you to reconsider what you're doing to adult education.
Mr Jarvis will speak to you about a few other issues.
Mr Marshall Jarvis: With regard to the issue of sick leave, the amendments contained in subsection 5(2) and section 10 will delete the statutory entitlement of teachers to any sick leave pay. It's with regard to that issue that I speak to you. From the Ontario Ministry of Labour database, it is essential to understand that for teachers, the length of paid sick leave benefit and the maximums allowed to be accumulated -- and these are Ministry of Labour stats -- are in line with both the public and the private sector in similar areas. Occupations such as those noted in the document you have before you clearly indicate that we are not out of line, and that fact sometimes has to play into political decisions.
From Statistics Canada, we find that in absenteeism rates for full-time, paid workers by occupation, in terms of average annual days per year in 1994, teachers, elementary and secondary school, are lower than manufacturing, all other industries and occupations, public administration, managerial and administration, nurses, medicine and health -- a fairly wide variety, I would say, in both the public and private sector. So we don't find that the usage rate of teachers is in any way exorbitant.
It comes down to one aspect and one aspect alone: Why would a government move in an area where it's attempting to save costs where no definitive cost savings are derived by that government? This government will not obtain one nickel in savings by altering these statutes that are currently enshrined within the Education Act. It's a question that begs an answer at some time.
There are arguments around the issue of retirement gratuity, but retirement gratuity is an issue unto itself, and I think this is a back-door attack upon it. It's a back-door attack upon a benefit which is negotiated locally. According to the minister in his announcement regarding the cost saving, he clearly indicates that he's looking for locally negotiated solutions.
Further to that, the implications are profound. There was a question earlier about long-term disability. Unfortunately, the poser of that question is not with us at this point. However, I will highlight the issue. The elimination period on all our LTD plans is based upon unused sick time. That is a net benefit to the employer, because it lowers the overall LTD cost. By eliminating the access or the accumulation, we end up with a scenario where LTD may become so prohibitive in nature that we will have to, in many cases -- I'm sure you're aware of statistics, of course, because you wouldn't make an uninformed decision as a government. You would look at the aspect of LTD usage rates already. The net effect we're probably going to have is that we'll be transferring all of that directly to the government through UIC, sick leave benefits, because we will not --
Mr Wildman: That's the federal government.
1120
Mr Jarvis: Federally, yes. Well, with some businesses, perhaps with the chamber of commerce, I wouldn't see a difference.
But that clearly is a concern. Short-term disability plans could be a resolution. However, we have already begun to investigate those, and the costs are so prohibitive that it's a complete exception. We cannot afford a short-term disability plan, either borne by the employee or the employer, in any form. We have portability issues in terms of sick leave that are going to be affected and, of course, retirement gratuities.
We, as teachers, oppose this attack upon what is seen as a statutory necessity for this profession. There is no reason for this to occur. When we talk about what other groups have said, and I do have our provincial document, sick leave benefit reductions and attacks upon retirement gratuities may very well lead to difficulties in negotiations, and one of the outcomes of difficulties in negotiations may be job actions, because that is a legal process. We will exercise, as we have in the past, discretion at any time being involved in such actions, but there has to be a recognition that it does exist.
Mr Tony Andreacchi: I have brief comments on cooperative agreements. The Education Act will be amended to permit school boards to enter into agreements with other school boards for certain educational purposes. In order to encourage cooperation among school boards and other public institutions with respect to efficiencies, the amendments will permit a wide range of agreements to be made by these boards. The intention is to encourage the sharing of facilities, equipment, transportation and various other support services.
Should downsizing be a factor, this association demands that all employee rights be protected and, furthermore, that the contractual status of each employee be honoured.
In Thunder Bay, our public and separate school boards have worked together cooperatively for many years in providing services in transportation, purchasing and the film library, to name examples. Considerable savings have resulted, especially in the area of transportation.
I have a little story here, not as poignant as my friend's. Last week, I had the occasion to speak to a JK teacher, and I asked about how the cuts were affecting her program and what the imagined effects would be. She cited, since I'm speaking about transportation, the fact that one of her children was picked up about 7:15 in the morning to arrive to school later on at approximately 8:30. This child, four years old, is on a bus for an hour.
I know our boards have already been involved with double routing; next year they're considering triple routing. When one considers the full-day option on alternate days, quite conceivably these small children could be on the bus from 7 am to 5 pm. If that were my child, I'd be very concerned. Your children, your grandchildren -- I don't think we want to see them in that position. Will that have an effect at the classroom level? Most certainly. I hope this committee takes that into account.
Aside from that, as mentioned earlier, the board has partnered with St Joseph's General Hospital, the Thunder Bay diocesan office and St Joseph's Heritage, one of our local facilities here, in sharing of staff and staff development services and facilities.
In conclusion, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association supports such cooperative ventures and endorses this amendment contingent upon the constitutional denominational rights of separate school boards being respected.
Mr Jarvis: With regard to the issue of equalization payments, the proposed amendments enable school boards to make equalization payments to the province so that the impact of grant reductions is shared by all boards. The amendment stipulates that a board "may" make an equalization payment which does not exceed the negative-grant amounts. Given the language of the legislation, it is clear that the government is depending on the goodwill of the boards to comply. Negative-grant boards will not contribute any moneys but will instead constitutionally challenge any attempt by the government to make any meaningful extractions.
Hence Vanstone's unilateral declaration of a holy war recently. The Metro press -- and I'm sure it's secular in nature -- certainly wasn't embracing any move by the government whatsoever, even a voluntary move, if it was going to access or involve any moneys from the Metro tax base. With that kind of position, I don't believe you're going to see a great deal of voluntary activity on the part of the Metro school board. What this will lead to is a further exacerbation of the plight of assessment-poor boards, since they will in effect pay the share which cannot be extracted from negative-grant boards. In short, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
It's interesting to note the $65-million question arising from the social contract. The most recent material I have from the government in terms of the agreement that was to be signed is not official and I don't believe those moneys have been transferred. However, I would certainly beseech the government to make public the documentation on that because I would certainly enjoy the opportunity to read such.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association is of the view that the language must be mandatory, because this is an issue of adequate funding which provides equity and fairness for all assessment-poor boards, both public and separate, in Ontario. We oppose any arrangements where the payments would only apply when the government is implementing a program of cutbacks. In essence what happens is that if the government's going to cut money, the board may perhaps decide, if it wants to, to give some moneys to the government.
A very interesting point was raised, certainly one omitted by a great number of individuals, that these moneys would then be destined for the general revenues of the government as opposed to specifically denoting them for educational purposes. I'm sure the government representatives here, in terms of the answers that I've heard, probably will go forward with recommendations to amend this to ensure that those moneys are earmarked for education.
Furthermore, we reject any arrangement in which negative-grant boards would pay the moneys owed to the province at some future date by a holdback when these boards become grant-positive. I await the day Metro becomes grant-positive. I will take issue with that, but we'll certainly see in the near future. It's a point of debate that will be an interesting one.
In conclusion, I would point out that the Catholic teachers' association has always been open to change. We've discussed openly with the government issues such as the College of Teachers. We've discussed issues openly in the area of destreaming. We are not opposed to change. We are opposed to any infringement on the rights of the students of this province, from junior kindergarten through to OAC, in terms of their right to a fully funded, equal public education system in the province of Ontario. We have to ensure that the opportunity of learning in a wide variety of areas is offered to each and every student regardless of their location. It is an onerous task for any government -- I respect that fact -- to ensure that such goes forward, and it is a political decision.
Our recommendations in terms of the present legislation are contained within the document. Yes, 1997 may be yet another year in which we embrace further cuts. We have limited our discussion at this time only to the questions and to the points before us. However, we will be prepared to answer questions at this time on a wide variety of areas, no doubt.
The Vice-Chair: But we only have two minutes per caucus, unfortunately.
Mr Patten: Thank you very much for your presentation. It had quite an impact, especially your personal experience in adult education, which vividly demonstrates not only the worth and the value of the program but the distinction between that and one taking a course here and a course there under what will now occur, that is, moving to the continuing education model.
I would like to ask you a question, if you don't mind, on junior kindergarten first. It sounds like in the future you feel JK may be threatened for your board even though you were pioneers in having junior kindergarten.
Related to your comment on a direct attack on the delivery of Catholic education, I'd like to let you know that Joe Redican from the Windsor Catholic school board made the comment that this move pits board against board, creates competition, creates conflict and undercuts essentially a farm system, especially for the Catholic school boards, where people have to make a conscious decision to send their children there. If they don't, those children will be lost to that system forever. Is that the spirit in which your comment was made?
1130
Ms Pentick: I would say basically that's our concern. Our board and the public board, to the best of our knowledge, do try to work cooperatively, but it's a fact of life that if one board offers JK, the other is going to be forced to or else you lose your students, you lose your lifeline. Of course, in the situation of Catholic boards, our assessment base is lower, the revenues are smaller. It's more difficult for us to offer programs that are not fully funded.
Mr Patten: This particular bill has been so divisive. I live in Ottawa and I'd like to suggest that the characterization of those two boards is not that they're greedy boards. As a matter of fact, the Metro Toronto board was in negotiations with the minister, and it was our leader, Lyn McLeod, who flushed out the agreement they had in principle, which never did take effect because the Metro board was looking for some of those "tools" to cut. They felt the government did not live up to its end of the bargain in providing them some ways in which they could find the resources. So they are still in negotiations.
The Ottawa board has said: "We've been told there will be negotiations. We are prepared to sit down and negotiate." We have yet to hear a word from the minister or the deputy or the ministry in terms of looking at those resources. I'd go further to say that I think they would agree -- I shouldn't say that for them; they might agree -- with the concept of looking at a new basis on which funding would take place for education.
This bill is not an education bill. It really is a money bill. What it's providing is money to be taken out of education and to go out of education totally and completely.
The Vice-Chair: Do you want to make a quick comment on that?
Mr Jarvis: I'd appreciate the opportunity. A $400-million extraction in four tenths of the school year translates into -- and even the minister agrees with it -- at least $800 million. It may be slightly higher than that, because not all the factors can be quantified at this point in time in terms of count dates etc. However, they too will add to the moneys that will be removed from eduction.
In terms of improving education, I haven't found one, but I would await perhaps hearing from the government's representatives as to the benefits derived by school boards and, more importantly, the students of this province with this.
I have a question to the government that I think has to be posed, and that is, what are you going to do with the 50,000 students who are currently enrolled in JK whose programs have been cut? What are you offering as quality educational programming for these students?
The Vice-Chair: We'll move on to Mr Wildman now.
Mr Wildman: Obviously there are a lot of people who are influenced or directly affected by educational programs and funding: the students, the parents, the teachers, the trustees, the administrators and the taxpayers. In the past, governments of all stripes, and I think all boards and teachers, have attempted to have a student-centred program in education which takes into account the needs and concerns of all the other players as well. It appears with this legislation that this government is moving to a taxpayer-centred education system, and the interests of the students are not being taken into account in the same way they were in the past.
I appreciate your comments on adult education, but I want to deal specifically with junior kindergarten and the question you just posed. It seems a little bit like the cart before the horse, but the government has said they will cut the funding for junior kindergarten and they will make it optional, and then they will do a review of the program and might reinstitute it later on perhaps, I guess. Has your federation had any contact from the ministry with regard to participation in a review of the benefits of junior kindergarten? If so, what contribution have you made or are you willing to make to such a review?
Mr Jarvis: We are prepared to sit down and discuss educational issues with the government at any time. We're still prepared. If this is the consultation process, then this is what we've had an opportunity at this point in time to look at. So no, we haven't had any direct contacts that I'm aware of, provincially or locally. I think much is being made of the day the minister walked out on the OTF group after a brief discussion about, "What are you willing to cut?" and we put principles forward as organizations and that didn't meet a need.
I would add one thing to your preamble, and that is that I have yet to find a school board that did not weigh education and the effect it has upon the taxpayer in any of their local decisions, many times much to our chagrin or my chagrin within my own local school board. Just to put things in perspective, at this time last year I was in the classroom, so this is not someone who is not an educator. I am an educator.
Mr Gilchrist: It's unfortunate that the short time period -- there are a number of things in your presentation I'm sure a number of my colleagues would love to question, and I'll have to restrict my comments to two very quick questions. But I also wanted to redress something you said a second ago to Mr Wildman. Your association has in fact made representations to this committee on a number of occasions, and perhaps your president should do a better job of consulting if you were not aware that Ms Rettig has appeared before.
I note in your introduction there are two things that are very clear: Number one, you are here to represent 350 men and women. That is absolutely your right, to come and appear before us here today as a special-interest group or a vested interest. But I see something else, where you claim a priority of people over economic systems. But when I look at the things that have been done to implement the 1.8% reduction in the grant in this board, I don't see anything about prep time, I don't see anything about sick leave gratuities, so I guess the priority of people over economic systems doesn't apply to the economics of the teachers.
Let me just challenge on the sick leave, because I really do believe one of us is very flawed in our thinking here. I would submit to you as somebody who had a business for 25 years and had a myriad of employees and had an LTD plan, you're suggesting that if in fact the OSSTF and others who have made representations -- the numbers vary from 4.1 days to 7.8 days, what teachers actually are using. So that is the cost if in fact teachers were recompensed for the days they are -- and I have no reason to use any other word than "legitimately" -- taking off.
Obviously, if the sick leave allowance were changed to reflect that, and let's say eight days, or 10 days to err on the high side still, and the LTD plan picked up the potential to go higher, you're suggesting, I guess, in your presentation that instead of the absolute cost that could be up to 20 days -- OECTA in Carleton has no gratuity at all. I don't know why that is, but for most of the boards, 20 days. You're suggesting instead of the absolute expense to the school board of 20 days' pay, the possible expense to the LTD plan, which would factor in on a strict accounting basis the possibility you would go over those 7.8 days, that somehow that wouldn't be a savings.
I really would ask where you derive that conclusion. And let me just say, because you're only going to have one chance to respond in the limited time, the OECTA presentations in all but one location have also said that in the event that employer groups resist granting teachers 20 days of sick leave or refuse accumulation and further refuse that such accumulation can be utilized for retirement gratuity purposes, strikes will occur. I wonder if you can comment on those other OECTA presentations.
Mr Jarvis: Absolutely. I would enjoy the opportunity. I'd like to begin by stating that what was stated here is that if this is the only source of consultation, speaking to this committee, then yes, we have utilized that. However, I think, as the educators, as the "service providers" in education, that if you're going to alter a program in terms of funding or implications of the funding changes, perhaps you should have come to the service providers and said, "What would be the possible outcome of these actions, and are they beneficial?" My president, I'm fully --
Mr Gilchrist: I suspect Mr Skarica could comment about the number of meetings he's held.
1140
Mr Jarvis: I gave you full opportunity to pose your questions and make your statements. In my classroom, we have a simple rule. It's called common decency and courtesy. Let the other person respond. I'm sure it would be enjoyable to have it here too.
Mr Gilchrist: Oh, I'm sure.
Mr Jarvis: So with regard to that issue, our president has spoken to select committees. I think that in education we should have a much broader consultation basis than just this. With regard to the 350 men and women who provide the service, education, we are the ones who are in the classrooms. We are the ones who deal with the students on a daily basis. The bond that those students have with their teachers is an important one and in many cases has done a great deal to shape those. So if that's special interest, then you're right, it is, because we do have the special interest of the students at heart.
Further to that, in terms of a 1.8% reduction, let's talk about educational finance, since we all have an understanding of it. The 1.8% reduction is against the total financial cost of education in the province. It's not limited to the grant. The government provides a grant. The remainder comes from the local tax base. The impact of the reduction of the grant portion alone, which the government has the control of, far exceeds 1.8%. As a matter of fact, it's closer to the range, depending on where we are, up to 10%. I am sure that if we brought the financial people from boards forward we could get into this discussion.
We can disagree on that, but the fact is, the cuts to education are not 1.8% against the total outcome. However, you do not control the local tax base. You may one day control the local tax base and then you can talk about how you derived the total benefit in terms of educational cost.
In terms of the sick leave, let's talk about LTD plans. LTD plans, a basic premise -- because I looked after mine directly with Canada Life for over a decade. We made a number of substantive changes to our LTD plans. There are a number of factors that impact upon the cost. What we're looking at is this: When an individual has an accumulated sick leave basis in terms of elimination period, that elimination period for most standard educational LTD plans is anywhere from 90 to -- it could be all accumulated sick leave. That is a direct benefit in terms of, in an absolute sense, the cost of that plan to either (a) the employer or (b) the employer/employee if it's a shared one.
If you turn around and remove the accumulation, then you have one of two ways of funding it: either through UI short-term sick leave to bridge that period of time, and that does happen where people with few years of experience have not accumulated sick leave, or your premiums become excessive to the point where you cannot afford to offer the benefit.
We will end up with situations across the province where we're going to either have employees have to drop out of the plan because the plan's so exorbitant, or the employers are going to say, "We can't afford this," and will dump the plan. Now, if that's the long-term goal, then what you're going to do is shift it in two ways -- and there is a provincial component in this. You're going to shift it to where people can't afford it and therefore will go on UI, but UI is a limited time period. After that, there is another form, and then you're looking at a provincial expense. And so there are significant -- and yes, we can discuss this all day. Let's talk about --
Mr Gilchrist: It's amazing that the private sector can all survive without it.
The Vice-Chair: Excuse me. We're not going to do that because --
Mr Jarvis: The private sector doesn't survive without it. They do have plans and they do deal with it.
The Vice-Chair: I noted that in this round the questions were longer than two minutes and so were the answers, so they're the longest two minutes I've ever seen. But anyway, thank you very much for your presentation.
Mr Wildman: You're a draconian Chair.
The Vice-Chair: I am a draconian Chair. I'll go on the record as being that. It doesn't bother me any.
DRYDEN DISTRICT
WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: Next we'll hear from the Dryden District Women Teachers' Association, Shelley Jones, president, and Lynda Pilipishen, an executive member. Welcome to our hearings, and again you have 30 minutes, which includes time for questions and answers.
Ms Shelley Jones: Thank you for having us here today. I'm Shelley Jones, the president of the Dryden District Women Teachers' Association, and with me is Lynda Pilipishen, an executive member of our association and a JK teacher.
The Dryden District Women Teachers' Association represents 110 women elementary teachers within the Dryden board. Our members can see the effects this government's cuts and other measures are having on the children and women of both our area and the province. DDWTA urges the social development committee to listen carefully to all the presentations in front of you and give serious consideration to the issues. We urge the provincial government to reconsider many of the decisions which are proposed in Bill 34. We do, however, encourage the government to continue to provide the opportunity for cooperative approaches to providing services that we find in the cooperative measures section of Bill 34.
Junior kindergarten as an optional program: It is a myth that the government has made junior kindergarten optional for school boards to offer. "Optional" would mean that the boards could choose to offer JK or choose not to offer JK. The government's actions have put the choice of providing a JK program out of reach for many boards. The government has lowered funding from 100% to the rate of grant for each school board, approximately 45% on average. It cut $398 million from the grants to school boards for 1996 and it introduced this bill which makes it optional to offer junior kindergarten programs.
It is clear to us that the result of these changes is that offering a JK program is no longer an option for many boards because ending it is the easiest way to find the savings imposed by the cuts in the grants. The Kenora board, for instance, has successfully operated JK classes for the past 17 years. They have found themselves unable to continue this program and it has been cancelled. The cancellation of this program is a great loss to the young children in the Kenora area and their families.
The mass of research, evidence and experience showing what a mistake it is to deprive children of early childhood education should be well known by now. The Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario has detailed this evidence in previous submissions to this government; for example, in the FWTOA submission to the Ontario standing committee on social development, The Impact of the Conservative Government's Funding Cuts on Children and Children's Services, December 12, 1995, and in FWTAO's statement to the Ontario standing committee on finance and economic affairs for the 1996 pre-budget consultation, and the FWTAO's submission to this committee.
Making early childhood education difficult to obtain threatens the most vulnerable in our society -- our young children. The junior kindergarten program has much to offer the four-year-old child. We would like to give you a picture of the JK program by describing a day in the life of a JK student.
Ms Lynda Pilipishen: "We wait by the side of the road for the big yellow school bus to pick us up. Our mommies and daddies think we're too little to ride the bus, but we know different. We know the school bus rules -- sit in your seat, listen to the driver and be careful getting on and off the bus. Everyone thinks the bus ride is too long for us, but we love the bus ride.
"When we arrive at school our teacher greets us at the door. We have to be responsible for our coat, hat and backpacks. Everything much be hooked up in its proper place. We find our names and hang up our belongings. We're organized!
"We all join the teacher at circle time. Our class is learning numbers, dates, patterns, days of the week, months of the year at calendar time. Most of us can recognize all of our classmates' names in print from the teacher's flashcards. `J' is for Jeremy. Our teacher says we're smart cookies.
"Next our teacher tells us to choose an activity we would like to work at. We have to go to the activity chart and pick a centre. Our teacher says we have to make a decision and plan our day. There are lots of centres to choose from: painting, blocks, bikes, water, stories, computer, playhouse, puzzles and many more -- about 25 activities for each theme. It's a hard decision to pick one, but we soon learn to take our turn at each centre. At the centre we must cooperate with our friends, find the materials we need, follow the instructions, show the teacher our work and clean up after we're finished.
"If we don't know or understand something, our teacher teaches us lessons. We're learning colour names -- yellow, red and blue. We have to sit and listen carefully to the teacher when she teaches us stuff like numbers, letters or science. She says, "All ears and eyes on me," and we do that lickety-split.
1150
"Every day our teacher reads us a story or our reading buddies from grades 4 and 5 come in to read to us. We sing and we dance every day too.
"Our favourite days are gym and library day. We go to exercise in the gym and in winter we go skating. At library we get to take books home! We're lucky ducks.
"Sometimes we have special guests, like the police officer to talk to us about bike safety or the dental nurse to show us how to brush our teeth. We have toothbrushes in the classroom and we brush our teeth after snack time. We have regular visitors too. Janine comes in to help those kids who are just learning to talk; she's a speech helper. Lynne comes in to help some kids who are having problems; she's a social worker. Our moms, dads, aunts, grandmas and babysitters drop into our classroom all the time. They help us with skating, read to us, work at the craft table and go on field trips. We love having our family come into school and we like to show off all our great work.
"After a busy day at school, we say goodbye to our teacher -- she gives us a big hug -- and we head home on the yellow bus. We'll be back tomorrow to have fun with our friends."
We hope you can see that junior kindergarten is truly an opportunity for children to learn and grow into independent, motivated learners. It is an opportunity for educators to work with young children at an age when the children's learning capacity is at the strongest; it is an opportunity for parents to bridge that gap from home to school; and it is an opportunity for community agencies and support staff to meet children's needs at an early age and give them a head start.
Ms Jones: I want to tell you about a specific school in the Dryden board. By teaching at this school, I became very aware of the importance of early childhood education and intervention for at-risk school children.
Hudson School is a small school in the town of Hudson outside of Sioux Lookout. Many of the children live in low socioeconomic circumstances. Children entering kindergarten in the Dryden board undergo a screening process by the classroom teacher and the speech and language pathologist in order to identify at-risk children. Over the past five years, 40% to 60% of the kindergarten children at Hudson School have been identified as at risk. They enter school with receptive and expressive language difficulties and are often well below age level for these skills. Usually it is because they have not had a variety of experiences with language. Because the school staff has an understanding of the students' needs, the focus of the kindergarten programs, both junior and senior, is on language experience and utilizes English-as-a-second-language strategies to help the children understand the words they hear and to develop their speaking vocabulary. If these children cannot enter a junior kindergarten program, they will lose the proven preventive and remedial effects of early childhood education.
Ms Pilipishen: The government should know very well by now that parents recognize the value of junior kindergarten. Last year more than 110,000 children were enrolled; 85% of all four-year-olds. The DDWTA also knows that parents care about early childhood education for their children. We have worked closely with many of the parent councils in the Dryden board. Several parents were interested in attending this hearing but were unable to due to family responsibilities and the time and the distance required. Deby Justice, chair of the Lillian Berg Educational Advocates, made a presentation to the Dryden board regarding JK, and I would like to excerpt some of her comments from this presentation:
"I am not alone when I believe what a vital and important role the school plays in a rural community. The school becomes the focus of our children's lives. As a parent of two young boys who have both participated in and benefited from the JK program, I speak to the importance of youngsters, living in the country without neighbours, experiencing making friends and socializing with people their own age for the first time. The joy that is savoured by the new expression `my friend Kevin' cannot be equalled.
"Some people may dismiss JK as an expensive babysitting service. Yes, in some cases that may be the attitude of some parents initially, but as the days progress you can see the youngsters blossom, become more sure of themselves as little `people,' look forward to the projects and activities each day provides and learn how to deal with people outside the family unit. Over the course of the year I watched a little child who could hardly be detached from the mother's leg transform into a humorous, motivated, participating student through the nurturing educational JK program....
"Our current society is not very forgiving and the future appears to be even more competitive and demanding. It is imperative that we provide our children with the best possible start in their educational lives and in that regard I firmly believe that the JK program cannot be considered expendable in the educational plans. I understand fiscal restraints but we can't let that be our reason for ignoring the irrefutable and positive benefits of kindergarten programs."
To demonstrate to the Dryden board that parents wanted the JK program continued, a petition was circulated. Hundreds of parents and taxpayers signed this petition. It is very clear that parents want junior kindergarten and believe in the long-lasting benefits of this program to both the learner and society. Dryden Board of Education will offer JK next year, but will there come a time when it won't have that option, won't be able to afford the program?
We know a lot about children and how they learn. We know the importance of early childhood education. It is a serious mistake to make it impossible for school boards to offer junior kindergarten programs. Children, parents and society will pay for this shortsighted cost-cutting measure for a long time. Please reconsider making junior kindergarten optional for most children.
Ms Jones: I would like to address changes to sick leave provisions of the Education Act. Bill 34 removes the longstanding statutory entitlement of teachers in Ontario to be paid for up to 20 days of illness per school year, effective August 31, 1998. There are two main myths surrounding this issue:
(1) The number of sick days available to teachers is not out of line with those provided to many other groups in both the public and private sectors. Sick leave in other occupations ranges from six to 24 days per year, and it can accumulate also. Nurses, for example, receive an average of 18 days per year.
2. Teachers do not abuse their access to sick leave. A study by the Canadian Teachers' Federation in July and August 1995 stated that teachers' absenteeism is below the average in all industries and occupations.
Teachers, by the nature of their daily interactions with children, are exposed to an extraordinary variety of illnesses. Do we really want teachers with colds and flus working with children? Ensuring that teachers have guaranteed sick leave is good public policy.
The collective agreement for Dryden elementary teachers and the vast majority in the province contain language providing adequate sick leave, and we will be determined to preserve this necessary protection. By removing the entitlement of teachers to be paid for up to 20 days of illness per school year, you have escalated conflict between teachers and school boards in an area where the parties have so far been able to live with their negotiated commitments.
Joint activities with other boards: Bill 34 proposes changes to the Education Act to allow school boards to enter into agreements with other school boards, municipalities, hospitals, universities or colleges for the following purposes: joint investment of money; joint provision or use of administrative support services or operational support services; joint provision or use of equipment or facilities for administrative or operational purposes; or a purpose prescribed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, by regulation.
The Dryden District Women Teachers' Association sees these amendments to the Education Act as positive ones that are currently being pursued by our board and others. We believe this is a positive step only if these cooperative measures do not affect the education of the children in the Dryden area or in Ontario.
FWTAO has advocated for the integration of children's services for the past five years. In a brief to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, FWTAO encouraged the government to "provide the opportunity for cooperative approaches to providing services." We hope these changes will facilitate the needs of a child being met in a holistic manner.
Conclusion: Dryden District Women Teachers' Association strongly opposes the cuts to education funding that have been made. We fear these cuts will have a detrimental effect on not just the education system but also the children of our area and the province.
In introducing this legislation, the Minister of Education and Training indicated that the decisions for realizing the savings through the changes in the Education Amendment Act, as well as other measures announced on March 6, are based on three goals: classroom funding should be protected; opportunities should be provided for local decision-making and locally negotiated solutions; and local taxes should not be increased.
We have seen at first hand how our board acted hastily to meet its budgetary obligations without any consultation with the stakeholders, which resulted in community upheaval. The cuts to funding our board experienced did not facilitate local decision-making or local negotiated solutions. The only opportunities we see are for further cuts. Dryden is a small board with 150 elementary teachers. Currently, we have 36 teachers on the recall list and we expect that in the end 20 full-time equivalents will be terminated. The elementary system has been devastated. We have lost programs, support services and personnel. All of these changes will have an impact on the classroom. The cost of these changes to the Education Act is our children's future.
Thank you for allowing us time to make this presentation and for making it accessible to us by holding this hearing in Thunder Bay.
1200
Mr Wildman: Thank you for your presentation. I enjoyed the way you did it, in terms of the experience of the junior kindergarten student. I must say, though, as a member of the opposition and a member of the committee, I find the experience of these hearings frustrating. I'll explain why and then ask a question.
Over and over and over, both teachers' federations and boards, both separate and public, have reiterated, as have some others, the benefits of early childhood education, specifically junior kindergarten programs. They've also described, where junior kindergarten programs are being continued by boards, changes that have been made in them to make it possible: larger class sizes, full-day programs, alternate days, those kinds of things; in some cases they've been combined with kindergarten programs. Yet I don't get any impression that the government is about to change its position with regard to making it optional and cutting the funding.
There has been a suggestion that the government might review the junior kindergarten program. Have you and your federation, provincially or locally, had any contact from the provincial government in terms of a review of JK with the opportunity perhaps to have it reinstated at 100% funding?
Ms Jones: Locally, we have not been. The ministry has promised FWTAO that FWTAO will have input into the ministry review of junior kindergarten, but no opportunity has been provided as yet. FWTAO representatives, as part of an OTF meeting, have met with the ministry representatives on junior kindergarten. But I know for a fact, speaking to our president yesterday, that has not been continued past today.
Mr Wildman: In one of the boards you said it's been eliminated and in the other it's been continued because of the pressure from parents and so on. If there are further cuts next year, as we anticipate, in terms of grants, what's likely to happen to that program that has been continued?
Ms Jones: I don't know where our board will go next year with cuts. I can only speak for the elementary panel. There's nothing left in it to take out besides PTR. That's the only thing we have protected. We have devastated the special ed program. We have JK all day, every other day. There are very few places left to go.
Mr Pettit: Thank you, ladies. I think we should note right off the top that based on the returns that are in so far -- and I stand to be corrected on this -- roughly 78% of all boards have voted to maintain JK. Having said that, I would like to ask you, do you have any alternative venues for ECE in Dryden?
Ms Jones: Are you asking if we have a day care program in Dryden?
Mr Pettit: Whatever you may have.
Ms Jones: We have both a day care program and we have nursery schools in Dryden. The nursery schools are usually offered, I believe --
Ms Pilipishen: Half-days a couple of mornings a week.
Mr Pettit: What are your views on the differentiated staffing?
Ms Jones: First of all, there's a real difference in how programs are offered for day care and for junior kindergarten. Under the current legislation, early childhood education provides programs for many fewer children than are found in junior kindergarten classes, so this wouldn't necessarily be a cheaper solution.
Mr Pettit: One last quick one: Do you have any alternative solutions that would deal with the fiscal realities of the day or is the status quo acceptable to you?
Ms Jones: I'm not asking for status quo. I understand that there are fiscal restraints necessary. However, I believe --
Mr Pettit: Do you have any alternative solutions then?
Ms Jones: -- that you have cut far too deep and too fast into education, and I've heard that over and over and over again today. That's coming from educators and school boards and parents. Our board at every budget meeting and board meeting for the last month had 12 parent groups every time speaking eloquently, and I'm sorry they can't be here today, but they have lives to continue.
Mr Pettit: I understand that, but do you have any solutions to offer?
Ms Jones: They see, and it's not just the federations but these parent groups, that you have cut far too deeply and too fast into education. There are a wide variety of --
Mr Gilchrist: Wait till she lectures us.
Ms Jones: Thank you.
Mr Skarica: I share Mr Wildman's frustration, but for different reasons. We've had three weeks of these hearings and I think it's conceded that the province has a huge debt and deficit problem and that's not going to go away. The way many organizations are dealing with it when they have these kinds of fiscal problems is they do whatever is necessary to maintain their programs and what needs to be served. One of the things they do, and we've all done it here -- all the politicians at the table here have done it -- we've taken a 5% pay cut, we've given up our pension benefits, but I don't hear any of that coming from any of your organizations. We're not talking a lot; we're talking maybe a small percentage cut in benefits or pay. That is not even being considered.
When you look at the retirement gratuity, we're hearing from a number of teachers, "We're not negotiating that, even if you make it negotiable; we're going to go on strike," even though there are unfunded liabilities in that area, we've heard, of up to $10 billion. Is there any room for a small reduction in benefits and compensation as opposed to laying teachers off and so on and so forth? Is there any room for that?
Ms Jones: We just went through a very, very difficult collective bargaining process with our board. It took us three years to a collective agreement. I am not prepared at this time to discuss possibilities with you in such a public forum.
Mr Skarica: Why not?
Ms Jones: Because it's a collective bargaining issue which takes place at a place. We have come to the collective bargaining table with presentations, with possibilities, and have taken changes to our collective agreement. There are many changes to our collective agreement this time that were concessions, and concession bargaining is occurring all over the province. I resent the fact that you are saying it's not occurring. Many collective agreements are open right now; ours is not. We just signed it. It's a very painful experience, and no, I am not prepared to discuss collective bargaining at this time.
Mr Patten: I would say that the federations are paying with lost jobs that will number in the thousands when this is all through. The number you quoted is fairly high in terms of teachers on recall; out of the 150, 36 on recall, and a number who have already lost their jobs, and that's this year.
Ms Jones: That's this year. That does not include the social contract loss of jobs.
Mr Patten: You might add that to your answer. When you take that into account, you take this year, and the prognosis of the annualization of the cut, because next year it'll be even more severe, what is your prognosis in terms of staff and teacher loss?
Ms Jones: We will lose 20 full-time equivalent elementary teachers this year. We have lost, I believe, and I'm not sure if I have the numbers right, seven teachers through the social contract. So we're looking at 27 fewer teachers from 1993. I don't know what our elementary system will look like next year. I can't imagine being able to provide programs for children with fewer teachers.
Mr Gravelle: What I find astonishing about my colleague across the floor's statement is that it seems almost implied that "Unless some concessions are made and discussed publicly, we're going to punish you by removing JK in terms of making it optional."
Mr Newman: Oh, come on.
Mr Gravelle: Well, it's what you're implying: "We're going to take away adult education. We're taking away junior kindergarten." The fact is, and Mr Patten said it earlier, it's not an education bill, it's like a finance bill.
I wanted to ask you, because a lot of the members here, particularly the government members, probably don't know where Dryden is, more specifically, what the Dryden district --
Mr Newman: We know where Dryden is.
The Vice-Chair: He's got the floor. Let him ask the question.
Mr Gilchrist: You are being condescending, Michael, and that's unbecoming a committee like this.
Mr Gravelle: I didn't mean to insult you. In terms of the Dryden district, what are the boundaries into the schools and the area? You mentioned Hudson and Sioux Lookout, and I think it's important for everybody to know that.
Ms Jones: The Dryden board area starts in Ignace and goes to Dryden, which is 110 kilometres; extends farther west to include Eagle River and Vermillion Bay; then it extends north to include Silicote, which is 100 kilometres from Dryden; also again it extends to include Hudson, which has a tuition agreement with the Frenchman's Head band.
Mr Gravelle: The example in terms of the Hudson board was really interesting in terms of JK. It was really important in terms of the speech-language pathologist and the fact that you were able to put that into play. This is something that could be lost in terms if further cuts occur, because obviously without the speech-language pathologist these assessments can't be done. We're talking about children at risk who would be at greater risk, I presume, or would never be in a position to find out what their needs are.
Ms Jones: Right. It's not just the loss of the speech-language pathologist. We have one speech-language pathologist for our board, who does the testing. The special education teacher provides the programming for those children. We have lost in our board five special education teachers. I know it sounds like very little when you're talking about the huge numbers that occur, but we have a small board. Five special education teachers is a lot of teachers. Those children in Hudson will be affected negatively next year. If we lose JK, I can't imagine what opportunities would be available for those children. They are in desperate need of early intervention for English as a second language, English as a second dialect, and just early language experiences, because that's where their needs are.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. We stand recessed until one o'clock this afternoon.
The committee recessed from 1212 to 1304.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like to call this session of the public hearings into Bill 34 back to order and welcome everyone here this afternoon.
TOWNSHIP OF EMO
The Vice-Chair: The first delegation is Reeve Brian Reid of Emo township and Judy Klug. Would you like to come forward, please. Welcome to our hearings. We look forward to your presentation.
Mr Brian Reid: Thank you for allowing us to participate. I guess I will begin. I'm going to speak on -- I think it was about the third point on the fax I received -- the cooperation between boards and municipalities.
Our Fort Frances-Rainy River Board of Education has been involved in a battle over the Westfort multi-use project, which is a project that began probably I'd say about a year and a half ago, just at the end of the previous government's reign.
This project has split the board of trustees, pitted communities against each other and resulted in our board being taken to court over the refusal to implement the school closure policy. The idea is to build an addition to Westfort, call it multi-use and close down our existing Fort Frances high school. The board lost the court decision and had to invoke the school closure policy. They formed the school closure committee, which offered no direct representation from the area our one trustee represents.
Keeping in mind that money had already been spent on the initial Westfort project, including drawings and engineering studies on the land and the existing Westfort property, it was difficult to imagine that the committee could objectively look at any other alternatives, one of which, we had suggested, was a smaller school in the middle of the district.
That committee has now completed its report, and to no surprise, they went with the original project, which is the Westfort multi-use project. Our municipality has expressed concern over the cost of this facility to our ratepayers. Our pleas pretty much fall on deaf ears.
Our municipality visited a representative from the Ministry of Education and Training, Rob Sinclair in Toronto, to discuss our board's actions, to try to offer an alternative to better serve our students, but under our present board structure, our ideas, concerns and possible solutions will never be addressed.
Our municipal council has been petitioned to separate from the Fort Frances-Rainy River school board, an action taken by concerned citizens because of the constant lack of cooperation and consideration from the present school board. Also, because of where we are situated, it affects not just people who come from Emo but where going to Fort Frances involves over an hour-long bus ride.
In the middle of our district right now, in our town, we have about 95 lots coming up that are two separate subdivisions that construction has begun on. We have an OSB plant being built about five miles from our town in Chapple that is going to provide 130 jobs. We anticipate a growth in the centre of the district. We thought if we couldn't research the opportunity right now to have a smaller school in the middle of our district to better serve the people from Nestor Falls and Clearwater Lake and areas that are within a half or three quarters of an hour from our town, we've sealed our fate for a number of years for the distance and also for the money.
I don't think we can be satisfied to just sit still and collect and remit the school tax levy. I think we have to have some responsibility to the people who have elected us. We need some input, and at present we have one trustee on the Fort Frances-Rainy River Board of Education.
1310
Our municipality this year faces a 2.7% increase in the mill rate, which translated into roughly $13,000 more that we have to remit to the school board. I think our total allocation is roughly $394,000, at a time when each municipality is struggling to find ways to keep a zero tax increase. We feel it is unfair that the school board can levy an increase which the municipalities are bound to collect and remit to the board.
I know it has been petitioned -- I don't know if it made it to NOMA or not -- the idea that the boards should maybe collect their own taxes, because it does put a burden sometimes on the municipalities. When your first requisition is due in March, and ours is $95,000, if we haven't collected the taxes yet, the school board doesn't lose, we still have to remit them.
Municipalities are faced with a reduction in funding from the province. I think we'd like to be part of the solution, but we don't seem to have any control over this education thing as it just comes down the pipe at us. The people don't complain to the school board, because they pay the taxes to the municipality of Emo, so it has to be a concern of ours, how high this levy is going to go, where it will go.
We don't have this new construction yet. This year, there was one new school built in Devlin, Ontario, to replace the Cornerbrook facility, which is an elementary school, but we don't have this $13-million project, the Westfort multi-use, on the table yet. With more cuts, you're going to have an increase automatically because of new construction. I think it's just going to be detrimental to our district in the end. It's going to tax us to death on education.
We need to cooperate to survive the uncertain times we face, but it takes two to cooperate. We think we've had a reasonable idea, but the board had forged ahead on this other project and it's almost to the stage where sometimes their actions are questioned. As recently as the other night, there was a motion from the trustees to review the whole situation again on this Westfort multi-use. It's a bad situation that's driving our whole district further apart instead of pulling us together.
I think some of the other changes that are mentioned, the junior kindergarten being an option, for years we've got along without that junior kindergarten. Now that it's implemented, even if it comes back to a local level, with the public pressure it would probably be difficult for it to be taken away, if you want to call it that. I think similarly with the sick benefits to the teachers, bringing it back to be addressed at the local level, once again, that's a strong union, and I don't know whether it would be successful. I'm sure it's going to be used as an attempt to try to help out with the impending cuts that are coming, but I don't know whether that would be successful or not.
I'll let Judy speak. She will expand somewhat on the idea of what we had as a proposal that we didn't think got a fair shake through the school closure committee process in our area.
Mrs Judy Klug: My name is Judy Klug, and I'm a parent. I'll speak to that, Brian, at the end of the presentation if I have time. I would ask you to throw your hand up if I go over the time. I don't wish to do that for you.
The Vice-Chair: Oh, I will.
Mrs Klug: As a way of introduction, I think I'd like to tell you that I'm sort of a non-political person in that I'm one who tends to shift her vote. I grew up in a family that was mostly Liberal, always seemed to vote Liberal at the federal level and either Conservative or Liberal provincially. I was the type of person who said when the NDP got in that I thought they deserved a chance and that I often thought they were the conscience of the people.
I voted Conservative this time around because I liked the candidate and because the government promised to make some changes that I felt were necessary and needed to happen, and I felt they were the kind of people who could make them happen. I commend the government for recognizing the seriousness of our province's financial situation. I feel that sustaining or maintaining a $100-billion debt would be just economic genocide for our children and our grandchildren, and I thank you for that foresight.
I'm not going to read the first couple of pages. If there's time, I'll read them at the end. I have noticed that Mr Snobelen has some very worthy goals, and he has them in the right order: a higher-quality system, a more accountable system and a more affordable system. I would like to address the last two, which should also look after the first one, which of course is the most important one.
I used to think that with a few minor adjustments school boards could be restructured from within, but I no longer feel this. They are too cumbersome; they're too time-consuming, for both administration and trustees; and they're too expensive. I have found, from the years I have been teaching in the system and since I have left the system, school boards are just dysfunctional and have been for a long time.
One of the problems I have with the school boards is, who is responsible? I don't have a problem with the people who are on the school boards, who are involved with what's going on; they're all very good people. But who is responsible is, to me, a good reason for us just to get rid of school boards, because you can never find out who is responsible. We are told that our elected trustees are responsible, but they are making irresponsible decisions because they haven't got the information with which to make a responsible decision.
You can spend hours and hours on the problems that are going on with our school boards, but I have put within the presentation a leadership letter that is really not meant for the press or anything else. When you read that letter, if you feel that school boards are important and are working and functioning well, you won't after you read this, from a professional. I've taken away, I think, the names and everything that are on there. I didn't take away the year, because one of the things I want to draw your attention to is on the fourth page, which talks about a select committee on eduction that was made up of various MPPs from all the parties, and it had to be before 1990; very good recommendations that needed to happen there, but nothing happened.
The system just isn't working. The bureaucrats, I'm afraid, are running our system, and this is another reason why I voted for the Conservatives, because I could see that they've got the initiative to change this around. This is why your constituents are always saying it doesn't matter which party gets in place, it's always the same: It's because the bureaucrats are running our system.
There are alternatives to school boards that we could have. One of them, a possibility, is to just have the administrators be responsible, and instead of the trustees having the position they have, they could just have an advisory position and would do so without having to be paid for that position. The administrator, then, if he wished to have advice from the public, could go to his advisory council and call his meetings whenever he wishes and have his advice if he wishes or does not wish, he or she, and make the decisions. It would certainly be a quicker way of doing it and probably a more efficient way of doing it, because parents can be a problem for administrators and trustees.
1320
But the idea that started actually with the NDP and has continued on with the Conservative government now of parent councils, to me, is the way to go. You would need to get rid of that whole layer that we have now, just completely scrap school boards in the way they are now run. The parent council has some problems that come to mind for me; because we don't have time, I can't put them forth here. A provincial council as well would be of help because it would help the local situation.
You're looking at your local schools, then, having a parent council, having parents involved, principals still having a great deal of the responsibility for what's going on with that school. From what I can read and understand of the parent councils, I just know this is something that parents would really want to have.
There's a letter in here from the Ombudsman which shows some of what the problem is with parents who are trying to deal with a system that is just immovable. I won't go through that either, because if you're interested, you will read it, but one of the things that I will mention in it is a paragraph that goes, "Individual members of the public," said the person in the letter, "have access to school board meetings, and you may want to contact the local board to inquire about the meeting dates and times and their processes for reviewing written submissions and for making verbal presentations."
Yes, if the system worked, that would be the way to go. But excuse me, we did that. We tried it. It just doesn't work. As you read the letter, you will see that school boards tend to be just untouchable. I think they're even untouchable by the Minister of Education himself.
The third piece that I put in is -- I hesitated to put in -- perhaps I'll just tell you a wee story around this. Brian mentioned the lawsuit. We received a phone call in the middle of the night and I answered the phone. The person on there told me he was a sheriff and he wished to give us some papers -- to "serve" us I think was the word he used.
When the papers were served, we didn't accept them, but that isn't the case; you have to accept them anyway. There was a very difficult situation here in that my husband and I were being sued for the court costs of a board of education that was going to court, that someone had taken to court. We had not given one cent towards that lawsuit. I personally just can't accept having lawsuits of any kind, on the board's side or on anyone else's side. I think that shows that school boards just are not working, because it's not a way to be responsible, to show our children how we should deal with conflict. That is no way to deal with conflict.
Also, the bureaucratic thing came in there, quite interestingly, because there were seven of us, I believe, who were served with these papers. One person who was served with the papers just didn't have any idea where on earth his name came forth because he had nothing to do with anything, he didn't know what was going on. But he was involved with the health system and was causing some problems there. I think he was working with the unions there. It just shows that the bureaucrats do get together and do decide who needs to be reprimanded in whichever way they wish.
In the end he received a letter saying they were very sorry that this happened, but what had happened was, apparently through some of the documentation, there were names. People had gone to some meetings. They weren't school board meetings; they were public meetings. We had written our names down because we had gone to these meetings to see what was going on, and this particular person, whose name -- I'll say it was Albert -- he had put "Albert" and then the last name wasn't very well written but it looked as if it was the exact same name as this person who had been causing trouble in the health system. They immediately decided that person was someone who needed to be brought to task, and it was found out that he hadn't been there at all.
Another problem we have within the system I guess could be put up into two words, which is "teachers' federation." I put a couple of newspaper reports within the submission -- and you can read those at your leisure too -- to show that we still have this problem in that we were told we weren't supposed to harm the classroom and the taxes weren't supposed to be raised, and here is an indication of a board -- and I'm sure most of the boards have done what our board has done, which has done both things.
The one that says "Parents Rally to Support Teachers" is interesting in that it brings up a topic that I wonder why we ever need teachers' federations at all. I like to think of a federation as an alliance of teachers. Look at businesses and corporations that have done well without federations or unions. One I can think of is Federal Express. Knowing that parents are really the very best allies that teachers can have, they truly are, they are the best tool that we have for our children, that going to parents and not using them for selfish reasons, which I feel has been used in this specific case when you read these, that parents are there to support the teachers because we know they are looking after the most precious thing we have, which is our children.
I feel that the collective agreements are hurting our children. One of the areas -- I'll just mention one of them -- is in preparation time. I've never cared for preparation time. It is an area where it is in the classroom, but it doesn't adversely affect a child, to me, to work on this within the collective agreements, on the preparation time that is given to teachers. I believe that it's not helping the children, it's not bringing consistency to their classrooms, and I just don't really quite understand why that has to be during classroom time. There are tradeoffs that can be made, and teachers do have a lot of things thrown at them, mandated to them.
One of the things that's coming up is that we're going to have mandated marks and achievements that our children have to make, and that's right too, but I'm hoping the government will put that on the honour system rather than forcing that, because it will happen. Teachers want to know where their children are in comparison to someone in Halifax or somewhere else and I think it will work if you do it by the honour system, instead of working it through as if it's mandated and it's something that has to be done and tends to be something that's finding out whether the teacher is a good teacher or not.
Parent councils too will be very helpful towards teachers' problems, teachers' concerns. With the elimination of boards and the incorporation of parent councils, it seems like perhaps a dramatic change, but it's a good change.
1330
Going on from there, there need to be, in my opinion, schools of choice. I was sitting here this morning but only listened to one presentation, and there seemed to be this feeling that the way we have the school system now is better for the poor and the disadvantaged children, but the schools of choice going on in some of the other provinces -- they call them traditional schools in BC; they call them charter schools in Alberta -- are proving quite the opposite.
They're finding out that the first parents who line up to those schools are the single mothers, the parents who are on welfare, the parents who really need to have extra help with their children.
The charter schools in Alberta are public schools but are schools of choice. We do not have any choice within our system now. I feel that these kinds of schools should be looked at by our province, and I think once you do look at them, you will incorporate them.
I've talked to many of the people involved with charter schools. Parents love them. The kids really get to like them. At first they're very leery of them, especially in the high school area, because they don't like accountability any more than a lot of us do and they find that it's not as easy to hide in the system, but they are finding that they are feeling they're people of worth too. It's not that the public system doesn't have teachers who are good teachers. It's just a system that needs to have that choice within it.
The Vice-Chair: Mrs Klug, you have two more minutes.
Mrs Klug: I have to stop?
The Vice-Chair: No, no. I just wanted to draw your attention to the time.
Mrs Klug: The teachers -- I was a teacher in the system for seven years -- do have a tendency to condemn corporations for exploitation, and they are correct. Large, conglomerate corporations do take advantage. But that tends to be a monopoly, and that's what we have within our educational system now: a monopoly. What I'm finding for myself is that the children tend to be victims of this monopoly and the teachers tend to be the scapegoats.
I would like to talk about technology because in our area -- Brian was going into some of the problems we're having; we're in a remote area -- technology just opens the doors. It changes everything. It's a revolution, and we are not getting anywhere with it within our school system. Computers are non-judgemental, they're positive feedback, they allow children to work at their own pace, they are good for self-esteem. There are many areas in which a teacher can use the technology that is available.
When our particular group sent in one of our presentations to the board, three quarters of our work within that is on technology. The thing is to know how to phase that into the system and how our teachers can be restructured so they will fit into that system. I'm hoping our government will look to that. I know Mr Snobelen has said he's looking towards a computer for each child within the secondary system. That's the way to go, and I hope it does happen. It will do nothing but help our system.
The last part of the presentation was something to do with a case in point concerning our particular issue. I will leave that now. I've gone over my time. Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Klug, and also to you, Reeve Reid. We don't have any time for any questions or comments because we're exactly at a half-hour. To be fair to the others, we have to continue. Thank you for two very interesting presentations, and I'm sure the members of the committee will read the presentations in their entirety.
RICHARD STAPLES
The Vice-Chair: Next we have Richard Staples. Welcome to our hearings, sir. Your brief has been handed out to everyone and we look forward to your presentation.
Dr Richard Staples: Mr Chairman, members of the provincial Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, my presentation this afternoon will be as follows. What I'd like to do is read into the record the short memo report I have written to the standing committee on social development, which I think will take about 10 or 12 minutes, thereabouts, and then I would welcome questions from the committee as a whole as to my report or to discuss other issues related to Bill 34.
I'd ask you to have a look, first of all, at this memo report and detach the two appendices with the report. You might find the covers interesting as we go through this, the one of which is the province of Ontario. It shows all the community colleges, among other things, and represents the extent of the issue before us today with Bill 34 in that it really is a pivotal point in time for the educational system right across the province, involving millions of people.
My report today will try to focus on one central issue which I think is really critical in terms of Bill 34 if there are to be any further revisions to it, and that has to do with having some sort of audit of quality of education and what that might mean.
The cover on the other appendix shows one of either of the following. It would show, let's say, a hypothetical representation of what a student is going through in a community college or it could show a hypothetical representation of what a teacher's involved with. Part of my remarks this afternoon will be about the social systems relating to schools and how social systems models and those theories might be applied by the Minister of Education and Training within the context of Bill 34, just the sheer complexity of the educational system itself and all its internal and external environments.
I'll read into the record, to start with, my memo report to the standing committee on social development, the subject being Bill 34, An Act to amend the Education Act, which I have a copy of here and which I've read.
The summary of my report: The provincial government's toolkit or Bill 34 education amendment needs a concise and expanded set of operating instructions. Such an expanded toolkit manual would be useful. It would ensure that all educational participants would understand exactly how students, teachers, parents, high school dropouts, school boards, municipalities, hospitals, universities, colleges and other prescribed persons or organizations are all going to pursue cooperatively their lifelong learning and training objectives and gauge the worth of their quality in education efforts.
This report recommends that the minister's Bill 34 toolkit should include, along with its section 8 financial statements and cooperative measures reports, an annual teaching effectiveness, learning efficiency and student satisfaction audit. Such an official examination on a province-wide report basis would provide a quality of education bottom-line perspective to Bill 34's "financially satisfied" statements.
Introduction: The findings in my report originate from the classroom perspectives of my 13 years of teaching and guidance counselling in Ontario's public and secondary schools in Peterborough and Toronto as well as my teaching of communications subjects for 22 years at Confederation community college. I also worked as an academic adviser for six years in Confederation College's in-service teaching training program for Ontario's community college teachers.
1340
The case for a classroom audit of quality programming: A frequent criticism of Bill 34 is that its savings measures will hurt students in their classrooms. Liberal education critic Richard Patten notes:
"These cuts are not about enhancing education, they are about funding a tax rebate....This short-sighted approach to fiscal management will lead to a reduction in the quality of education for Ontario's school children....It is not possible to make further cuts without affecting the quality of teaching in the classroom. We will definitely see more unemployed teachers, losing the youngest teachers from the system. More classroom portables, increased class sizes and fewer new teachers in the system signal bleak days ahead for education in Ontario."
Patten makes some strong statements that Bill 34 needs to address directly. The Bill 34 amendment and the minister's accompanying savings in education memorandum do not include any mention of how the minister and the government will both assess and evaluate how well "quality (in education) programs are maintained as we bring our costs into line with those of other provinces and deal with the provincial deficit."
Significantly, Bill 34 does not include any mention of a province-wide teacher's classroom effectiveness audit, which would address Patten's quality in education concerns. This appears to be a serious omission unless the minister and the government are content to let their pursuit of quality programming rest entirely on purely financial efficiencies documented by financial statements of the board and a copy of the cooperative measures report, as section 8 of Bill 34 outlines.
If the need to maintain and improve quality programming inside the classroom really remains an essential educational bottom-line issue, as the minister has stated, this report recommends that the Bill 34 toolkit include an educational effectiveness timing light, if you want to call it that.
A timely teaching effectiveness audit could serve to monitor, assess and evaluate the ongoing operational success of the Bill 34 toolkit in quality of education terms. Its educational, inside-the-classroom, societal purpose would be ninefold: (1) to improve the learning, (2) enthusiasm, (3) classroom organization, (4) group interaction, (5) teacher's rapport with each individual student, (6) breadth of instruction, (7) examination, (8) assignments given, and (9) overall educational quality within the classrooms of Ontario's schools. In effect, the inclusion of a teaching effectiveness audit would walk the quality of education talk espoused in the minister's savings strategy but which is unaccounted for due to Bill 34's omission of any ongoing inside-the-classroom quality of education audit.
The existing research literature, written by Feldman, Cashin, Marsh and other authors, could well provide a reasoned and non-threatening multidimensional model for assessing and evaluating the continuance of quality programming inside the classroom. The minister has the opportunity to implement a province-wide teacher's classroom effectiveness audit which would address directly Patten's quality in education concerns for Ontario.
An annual province-wide teaching effectiveness, learning efficiency and student satisfaction audit could be conducted by Ontario's school boards and given to the minister along with the board's annual financial statements and co-operative agreements. As to the practicality of conducting such a province-wide teaching effectiveness, learning efficiency and student satisfaction audit, the standing committee could review a study entitled the Relationship of Attitudes, Perceptions and Practices of Students and Teachers as Evaluators of Educational Quality, in Ontario's 22 colleges. For that, you could see appendix A, which you have.
Bill 34 could assign clearly a legislated importance to tracking and evaluating commonly understood instructional dimensions that serve to maintain and improve quality of education programming. Marsh's 1982 Students' Evaluation of Educational Quality could be used province-wide. If you look at appendix B, part 3 shows Marsh's Students Evaluation of Educational Quality, which could be used for a quality in education audit.
Conclusions: The people of Ontario are faced with the crowded classroom of 1996 where innovation is the key to success. All interest groups have much at stake as schools cope with a growing number of increasingly troubled kids.
There is a broad and well-researched theory base in the educational research literature for the minister to implement an annual teaching effectiveness, learning efficiency and student satisfaction audit on a province-wide report basis. Such an annual report could add a quality of education bottom-line perspective to Bill 34's "financially satisfied" statements.
My recommendation to the committee is that the revised version of Bill 34 include a legislated provision for a quality of classroom education audit based on a multidimensional model of teacher effectiveness, learning efficiency and student satisfaction in Ontario's schools.
That pretty well concludes my report's overview, and I would invite the committee to ask me any questions they might have about what I've said so far or any documents I've provided to you about the possibility of a quality of education audit province-wide that would accompany the financial statements and the $400-million savings strategy.
Mr Skarica: I'm interested in your observations regarding audits. Just before left Toronto, the newspapers reported on an audit done of the Roman Catholic board in Metro Toronto. The findings were very disturbing in that they concluded that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. The trustees apparently had no idea of what was going on within the school board. They were informed at some point that they just weren't getting the right information or misinformation. They just hired 70 teachers and then they found out they had a $10-million deficit. Is that situation common in school boards in the province, and do you feel that audits would help alleviate that situation where it exists?
Dr Staples: If I understand your question, it seems like the trustees weren't really walking around enough to reconnoitre their own educational territory. I haven't read the Globe article today, but it sounds like they were out of touch.
My own perspective on this in terms of boards: When I went to the University of Texas at Austin I was impressed with the way boards in the United States, at both the public secondary or college level, knew what was happening within their institutions and they were very publicly accountable to the people, if that answers your question. The one you related to me seems like they were really out of touch.
Mr Skarica: Another area where I have concern -- maybe it relates to the presentation we heard just before yours -- is that we pay approximately $950 million a year for school board administration and we're finding out now that there's unfunded liability for retirement gratuities somewhere in the area of perhaps $10 billion, we've heard. I've gone through the ministry figures and we have that the boards in Ontario have set aside collectively maybe $100 million, so one cent for every 100 cents of liability has been set aside. Would an audit catch that type of thing in the early stages? This appears to have been building up for the last 20 years.
Dr Staples: It sounds like the Canada pension plan hearings from a month or so ago. The financial responsibility is clearly there. I don't really have any answer to your question or comment on it, other than to say that people must understand what's happening with the financial situation as they go along; they can't just wake up later. The unfunded liability of the plan is a for instance.
Mr Skarica: You referred to a number of authors in your report, and on page 2 you're referring to an author named Patten, 1996. Do you have that book with you?
Dr Staples: Patten is the Liberal education critic. I don't know if he's written any books, but he had a pretty sharp critique in March, his press release. That's a direct quote from his press release.
Mrs McLeod: The book will come after.
Dr Staples: He may autograph it for you.
1350
Mr Patten: Dr Staples, it's a pleasure to meet you. We have never met before. I appreciate your comments because I share the belief that the bill is incomplete but that the impact of this bill will seriously affect the quality of education.
Have you had a chance to see Bill 30? That was the Education Quality and Accountability Office that was set up. It hasn't come to third reading; it's in process right now.
Dr Staples: No, I haven't read that.
Mr Patten: I would think they would be the people who will be managing the province-wide testing, evaluation of the educational programs etc. I like what you have to say here; I believe it's an important measure, and I would be happy to facilitate a meeting with those people in terms of your recommendations and suggestions. There's a report from them that we'd be happy to share with you as well.
Dr Staples: Thank you. I'd be pleased to meet with them at your suggestion, sir.
Mrs McLeod: Richard, clearly the kind of audit you were talking about is not a financial audit or an operational audit; it's an effectiveness of education in the classroom audit.
Dr Staples: That's right, Mrs McLeod. I feel that this type of audit is conspicuously absent from Bill 34 in the sense that the financial efficiencies are being sought out, the cooperative agreements are being read, but the minister has mentioned many times in his documents surrounding the letter of memorandum about Bill 34 about quality programming inside the classroom. My question to this committee is, how is Bill 34 actually going to monitor, assess and evaluate how quality program is being maintained?
It's like the Ford Motor Co where here in Thunder Bay a year ago all the Crown Victorias were turned in because, although "Quality Is Job One," all these cruisers showed up with defective steering that killed one or two policemen. A year later, the bugs have been worked out, the local police force is again buying Crown Victorias, and we're all assured: "These are wonderful cars. They'll steer well this time."
How is Bill 34 going to get it right the first time versus, "There's time to do it right, there's time to do it over"? How is it going to monitor quality of education within all of Ontario's classrooms? That's my question.
Mr Gravelle: Richard, it's good to see you. I'm glad you were able to get on the list, because I know you very much wanted to make it on the list for Bill 26. You presented a written presentation.
Dr Staples: Could I put a plug in here that I still haven't heard back from my January report to that committee on Bill 26? I still have never received any written acknowledgement. I know it's a little late in the term for papers, but it is mid-May now and hopefully there'll be something forthcoming soon.
Mr Gravelle: That's really why I brought it up. I know you were hoping to get a response back from the government in terms of your presentation and I hope it still comes forward. Mr Patten pointed out that it would be interesting, and perhaps I can pass it to you as well, to get you a copy of Bill 30, which we've also been studying in committee for a couple of weeks. A lot of the things you're commenting on here probably would be fairly relevant to Bill 30. Afterwards I'll make sure we get together to talk about that. But I'm grateful and glad that you managed to get on the list this time around.
Dr Staples: Thanks, Mr Gravelle.
The Vice-Chair: By way of a point of information, I understand that when a written presentation is made to a standing committee, the standing committee as such does not respond to it. An individual member on that committee or an individual member of the House may very well respond to it and some of the recommendations may be contained in a later report. I just didn't want you to think you may be getting something back from a committee, which I don't think is so.
Mr Gravelle: Could I clarify too? We made a specific request to the Chair of the committee to respond on behalf of Dr Staples. We're still hoping there will be some response.
Mr Wildman: Thank you for your presentation. As Mrs McLeod indicated, unlike Mr Skarica, I interpreted your recommendation to be an educational effectiveness audit in classrooms as opposed to a financial audit of the operations of various boards.
Dr Staples: That's exactly right.
Mr Wildman: You've referred to a number of studies here and to one that was done in the community colleges. Could you expand on that a little as to how such an audit might work? Are you talking about what used to be called in the old days an inspectorate type of inspection system with reports? Are you talking about a one-shot deal or an ongoing audit every so many years? What exactly might the logistics be of such an audit? I'm interested in your proposal.
Mr Staples: I'll attempt to answer your question by saying that in the case of the one study of my own that I conducted in 22 of Ontario's colleges, which I've passed out to you, I was able, as an individual researcher, to do an ideal teacher audit, if you want to call it that, of 120 teachers across Ontario with 1,000 or more of their students. I did it primarily by using appendix B, the instrument you've got there. It was in three parts; it took the classes I did my research with something like 20 or 25 minutes to fill this form out. From that I got back a couple of estimations, one of which was how the teachers compared with the students' ideal teacher, how they more or less ranked or rated, or whether the students' expectations for the ideal teacher were higher than what the teachers were and so on.
If the minister did this audit, you might take a representative random sample of a lot of the teachers across the public and secondary school systems right across the province. You'd take a representative sample, and by using an instrument like Marsh's Students' Evaluation of Educational Quality and having students rate their teachers on nine dimensions of teaching, the minister and the Ministry of Education and Training would get a good understanding of how quality of education is being maintained and enhanced in the classrooms of Ontario.
For instance, it would be interesting to take a baseline measurement now before this $400-million savings strategy is implemented. What's our quality of education, bottom line, across the province now in representative terms? How does that compare with what it's going to look like a year, two, three years from now?
On the front page of Maclean's magazine this week we've got "Brave New Schools." From my perspective, ladies and gentlemen, in education bravery is not enough. There has to be sufficient planning to assess and evaluate quality of education, and that has to start now or whenever the minister deems it a priority within the context of Bill 34.
Mr Wildman: I suppose the reference in that title is to Aldous Huxley, and I would suspect --
Dr Staples: Brave New World?
Mr Wildman: Yes, and perhaps Mr Snobelen should take very seriously what Aldous Huxley had to say about the brave new world.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Staples. It's always nice to meet another Queen's grad, because it gives me a moment to talk about the beautiful city of Kingston and that people should come and visit it as often as they can. We get that into the record at least once a day.
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS' COUNCIL, DISTRICTS 28 AND 29 -- OSSTF
The Vice-Chair: The next presentation is by the Ontario Secondary School Principals' Council, districts 28 and 29. I believe that Brian McKinnon, the first vice-chair, and Laurie Tulloch, the principal at Northwood High School, are going to make the presentation. Gentlemen, welcome.
Mr Laurie Tulloch: I'm Laurie Tulloch, the principal of Northwood High School and Green Acres Alternative School. We're responsible for alternative education of pupils in the Lakehead Board of Education.
1400
Brian McKinnon is with me today, and he is the vice-principal at the school, my good right hand, or I guess today my good left hand. He is also the provincial first vice-chair of the Ontario Secondary School Principals' Council and someone I rely on a great deal in my day-to-day work. Mr Rick Victor, the principal of Dryden High School, had hoped to be with us today and was unable to make the journey from Dryden. However, we have some written comments from him that Mr McKinnon will speak about shortly.
While we have a great interest in the whole of Bill 34, we're here really today to speak to you about the adult education components and the effects that we see coming on alternative education. I'll ask Mr McKinnon to start.
Mr Brian McKinnon: I assume you have the reports in front of you. I'm not going to read from them word by word. I know most of you probably can read, so I won't do that. I won't insult you.
Mr Patten: Don't make any assumptions.
Mr McKinnon: I was looking at Michael when I said that, so --
Interjections.
Mr McKinnon: All these people can read. Okay.
Interjection: As long as they're one-syllable words.
Mr McKinnon: You all went to JK over here, right?
Mr Gilchrist: None of us did. It's a miracle we made it this far.
Mr McKinnon: The area entitled "Whither Adult Education" -- I'm afraid that's an English phrase; my background is showing a little bit. That means, what place does adult education have in our education system?
We've written some points down there. I will quickly review them, if you will bear with me. Under the circled left bullets, "Why is the existing organization of adult day school working so well?" and what we mean by that is we presently have, or have had anyway, an organization where adults were able to attend day school in the same form that an adolescent was able to.
There are a number of reasons why an adult would have left school, for example, a female adolescent may have become pregnant and was forced to leave school for a variety of reasons, most of them personal; and others who had to leave for any number of reasons, who have decided at some further time in their lives to upgrade, to continue their education, to improve themselves -- any number of reasons. We've welcomed them into our day schools, and over the years that particular process has worked exceedingly well. Statistics and data and research prove that over and over and over. The bullets that you see there are just reminding you that this indeed is the case.
For example, the established level and standard of education recognized in Ontario. Somewhere in the report, I've written that the OSSD is probably one of the finest diplomas a person can receive in -- I'd like to say the world, but certainly in Canada. It is sought after. Our curriculum is always "borrowed" by other jurisdictions in the world. I know of a principal friend of mine who just took a post in Hong Kong, and she is taking with her, at their urging, much of the curriculum from Ontario schools, because it's the best there is, according to them over there. So it is established and always admired by outside agencies.
There is the accountability of day school, which may be missing in some of the other organizations which exist. Our big concern, of course, is the privatization which may occur. Who is going to be monitoring that? Who is going to monitor the credit that is gained? Is it going to be something found out 10 years later where we have ineffective graduates who are out there in jobs not doing a very good job because their training was not very solid?
Numbers 3 and 4 are a little different, but certainly number 4 -- if you will look at the words in the middle which I've put in quotation marks, "full disclosure." Universities in Ontario now are just about all asking for full disclosure on high school graduates' transcripts. That is a concern to us. Why are they doing that? Obviously, it's to test the validity of what these students are coming out with. Are the credits that they have obtained valid credits? That's why they're asking for this information.
Number 5 talks about the OSSD for the adult students being attained probably in the shortest possible way through granting of maturity credits and the fact that a student can take eight credits in a year. Most of these people are looking for an expeditious way to get their OSSD without tainting the quality of the diploma. Certainly, there's no question that the day school was able to provide that. The rest I think you can touch on yourselves.
On the next page we talk about the strength of the adult day school program. It's reiterating a few of the things, but more specifically, having talked to scores of adults myself -- and I know Laurie can back this up as well -- what are the things they like about the day school program? Well, it's the things like the required discipline of regular attendance; they like that. They like the regular daily teacher contact, the regular accountability through formative evaluation, ongoing testing, and showing that yes, they are achieving at the level they should be at this point, and so on. Adults need that. They have told us that. It's not so simple as simply taking courses home through the old correspondence mode and sending that material in and getting it marked. They feel they're not getting the education they should be for the jobs that most of them hopefully will be getting.
That leads to the other three bullets, one talking about cooperative education business partnerships. That's a critical area of day school now. They have bought into that very strongly. That probably is one of the most important links we have for adults to the work world and the workplace. Many of them take those particular disciplines.
The school counselling services that are available: Many of these adults, remember, are people who have had a disadvantaged background, they've had trouble in school, any number of things have happened to them in the past, and they need help. They are, for the most part, like you and I. Most of us probably came from backgrounds that were fairly stable; two parents maybe. Most of you probably have gone to a university of some sort or another, so you have the wherewithal to deal with life's daily exigencies. Most of these people do not. That's historical and research is supporting that. They need the help offered by school counselling services and things such as pre-employment skills, because most of these adults are there for employment purposes only -- just about all of them. Help them get a job is what they come to us and say, and we will do that by offering them some of those skills.
Of course, the third bullet is talking about the practical courses, which I think is self-evident.
Mr Tulloch: Dealing with students on a daily basis, with adolescents who have concerns, is something that we do as a natural matter of course. We deal with parents and we deal with the community and we deal with those students and we try to help them on as best we can.
One of the most traumatic things that a principal does, however, is to deal with the adult student who comes into your office in tears, who needs to get back into school, who suddenly recognizes, after many years of being out -- whether that's one or two or five or 10, whatever -- that life is filled with all kinds of obstacles: It's filled with unemployment, it's filled with career changes, it's filled with being locked into position within corporations and within business because one doesn't hold the piece of paper one needs as the filter to go on.
It certainly is the kind of thing that interested me once I became a secondary school administrator to try and find ways of dealing with the trauma these people were going through and to try to help them to become more productive. Much of it has to do with the self-image of the adult. It doesn't have so much to do with whether they could do the work or not; it has to do with whether they think they can do the work, whether they think they can fit in. The role of the adult educators is to ensure that happens.
1410
I once had occasion some years ago, at a school that is now closed -- I'm a guy who goes around closing schools, I think; I'm about to close another one. At a school I was at, an adult program that we had centred on computer studies. We had students going on to the grade 12 level in computer science. We didn't have enough adults in the school to generate a full class. We knew that the following year we wouldn't have sufficient adults, but we knew we had some who had a really strong interest in the area. We also knew that our school population was declining in enrolment; exactly the same thing was happening. We couldn't justify a grade 12 class in computers for the regular day school, so we said: "Aha, the solution is to meld the two classes. We'll have enough students. We can have the program that we need."
When I suggested that to my head of student services at the time, she said, "I think maybe you want to go down and talk to the adults about that." I went down and I talked to the adult class and they all said, "That's interesting" and "We think that you should" and "We think that it's necessary to have the class." As I left, one of the more senior ladies in the class took me aside and said: "Mr Tulloch, I think you have to do what you have to do, and that's your responsibility as a principal. However, I want you to know that there probably won't be any adults in the class." I said I didn't get that message when I was in there and they said: "They would never do that to you because you're absolutely right in what you have to do. The fact of the matter is that we can never feel the security that we need to go into a class of adolescents and to try to compete with those young people. What will happen will be that we will select other courses where we can be with adults."
That tragedy I think is one that we're hoping to avoid.
The barriers to success, the self-esteem of these young people, their fear of failure -- they've been through failures after failures in their lives and it's up to us to change that mentality to find success for those young people.
We can go through the myriad reasons why students in alternative and adult education need support. However, I think it's sufficient to say that it ranges anywhere from child care to inadequate housing to parental abuse to streetwalkers to you name it, and we're trying to get them to understand the benefits of education, to maintain their contact with education and to proceed through day school.
We think there are obviously some alternatives to a day school operation. The alternatives are in continuing education. The alternatives are in private schools of one kind and another. We happen to believe that the most effective way of dealing with adults is through the regular day school program. We think we have a higher retention rate and that we work a lot more closely with the students, given that we have individuals who have devoted their careers and treat the situation in a career manner, and they are well trained in the process.
I have a sheet of paper in front of me that describes some of the students from one of our programs, which is "Mothers in Search of Learning." They're all single moms who range in age anywhere I guess from about 19 to about 40, who avail themselves of a program that we have. There are probably about 30 of them. They're all on social assistance and every one of them is desperate to get off social assistance. In 1992-93, eight of them went off to Confederation College. Some of them made the dean's list the next year. In 1993-94, we look at the numbers that went on to college and there were probably slightly less than the eight who went off to college, but two went on to university, four went on to college and the remaining five went off to employment and they were employable and they had the skills that were necessary. I could go on and describe last year's and what we anticipate with this year's group.
I guess what I'm saying is, this program in the fashion that it is and the support that we're able to give it through the Lakehead Board of Education probably can't exist in the future, given the funding barriers we're coming up against. We know that our board doesn't have sufficient funds. We're not talking about a whole lot of money, but every board I think across the province is looking at how it's going to squeeze out the savings it needs to make. We do that in schools on a daily basis and everybody is trying very hard to do that. On the other hand, we're afraid that we're going to disenfranchise some young people and that's our concern.
I have another concern that I want to address for just a moment and that has to do with clause 49(2)(b). I guess we've been struggling with trying to figure out what it means. I've been in this profession for about 30 years and I looked at that and I read it and I've shared it with colleagues and we don't understand it. It would be really good if somebody could explain it to us. This is the section that says, "a person who did not attend secondary school for a total of four or more school years beginning after the end of the calendar year in which the person attained the age of 16 years;" and I don't know what that means. I'd like to know what it means, but I don't. There aren't any comments in there to tell us and so I think it presents a bit of a problem in interpretation and probably needs to be cleaned up in the process.
Mr McKinnon: I'm sensing that you want to get at us here.
The Vice-Chair: No, maybe it's the other way around.
Mr McKinnon: There is the whole section on the effects of Bill 34 on small northern communities and single-school towns. That section was written by Rick Victor, who is the principal of Dryden High School. There are a couple of areas that are quite interesting. I'm sure you have heard what the impact is in small towns and what particularly you're faced with, with a single-school town where you have a number of adults who wish to upgrade or that paper mill has said, "All right, we'll give you this job, but you have to have your grade 12 diploma." So this person may only have grade 10 and has to get back to school and get his or her diploma quickly. The job is sort of in the balance and most companies will wait a little while, saying, "Well yes, you're working on it so we will allow you a certain period of time."
Rick has pointed out that Bill 34 is essentially blocking that avenue for these people because the funding, as Laurie said, is one of the things that is going to be cut first. It's not one of the compulsory things that a board must carry.
There's another interesting little note here, in the third paragraph, talking about the negative impact on day school students if the adults all leave the day school in a small town. That is, you simply decrease the number of bodies in the school. Therefore, by declension you've decreased the number of options available and therefore, day school students are being quite negatively impacted by the adults leaving. He has said that to me over and over in our discussions in the recent past.
Of course, the fourth paragraph and so on talks about, yes there are options, but they aren't necessarily valid for a small town, such as night school. There wouldn't be the numbers. Distance ed: It's too long a process for most of these people and the interaction is not there. Go back to what I said earlier about adults needing encouragement, needing the contact, needing the formative evaluation and the fact that private enterprise might come into the town -- unlikely. There simply aren't the numbers there to have those people show up in town, set up a shop and say, "All right, come and buy our courses." First off, it's too expensive; these are the people who need the help in the first place. So those issues are really, really having an impact, it's already started, on those single-school towns. In district 28, which is west of Atikokan and onwards, every one of them is a single-school town and so there are no options for those people. Do you want to conclude?
1420
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We have a little bit more than three minutes left for each caucus and we start with the Liberal caucus.
Mrs McLeod: I just have one example of that particular clause that you asked about which causes me some concern, and if we could get some clarification that this isn't what's intended, I will appreciate it, too. The example was: A teenager, aged 16, gets pregnant, leaves school, has not been in high school for four years, tries to return at the age of 17 after the baby is born and is denied admission to school on that basis. It's just horrendous to think that could be the implication, so I hope we do get some clarification.
Having said that, I want to use our time to ask you some more questions about, what's the alternative for the students you now deal with if we can't continue with the adult education day school program? Some suggestions have been college. Colleges aren't mandated to do this yet. They've just faced millions of dollars in cuts themselves. They would have to significantly increase tuition, so I'm not sure the students you deal with could afford the college tuition even if the college could do it.
Brian mentioned the private sector coming in. Again, this isn't an area they've been involved in. Where they have been involved in training programs, in my experience, there are two things they do: one is charge a very large fee in order to make a degree of profit in offering a training program. They justify this by saying, "We'll condense the program so that if you pay the money, you'll get into the work world faster and therefore, you can afford the large fee." I guess I'm interested in your thoughts on, are any of those possible solutions an alternative to what you're doing now?
Mr Tulloch: It's my belief, having worked in the area for some time, that the full-time day school program is the one that leads to the greatest success and leads to the least amount of dropouts. Any time that you have a dropout in education, in schools, you have a cost that can't be recovered. I guess it's difficult to put our fingers on that all the time, but it's certainly a major undertaking.
I don't see that alternative. The continuing education program, as far as school boards are concerned, is to some degree an alternative, but the funding on continuing education does not allow you the ability to provide the kinds of programs these people need. They don't need straight academic programs. Many of them want to go out to work. They need employability skills. They need the food service program that we have at the school to work in the hospitality trade. They need training in a variety of shop areas in order to go out and work in the custodial field. They need skill-driven kinds of opportunities and I just don't see continuing education being able to provide, other than the straight academic programming, that these young people need.
Mr Patten: First of all, I want to commend you on your articulateness and the clarity by which you've presented your case. I think it's excellent and will be useful.
My question is similar to Lyn's question and that is, the suggestion that the continuing education courses in and of themselves will be the option is what is provided as the educational rationale. But of course, that's not really the rationale; the rationale is to find money. In terms of this, there will be considerable human costs, as you've pointed out. When you weigh that over and against the apparent short-term savings, does that make sense?
Mr Tulloch: No, I would say over and over again that I think that's a short way of looking at it and it's the short-term way of saving money, but if we do that at the cost of people not proceeding on with their education, not proceeding on with lifelong learning, then in the final analysis they become a drain on society because they don't have the skills to do the kinds of things that are necessary. They become the mid-40s unemployables. They don't have the education. They don't have the experience to fall back on and as a result they fall by the wayside and they become the people who visit our social service network on a regular basis. We're in the business of trying to get them off those rolls.
Mr Wildman: I want to commend you for that. The example you mentioned about the mothers' program, that is exactly what I think all of us want, young single mothers, as an example, people who are dependent on social assistance, who are able to get the skills they require in order to be able to provide for themselves and their families and be contributing members of society.
One of the educational rationales, if not excuse, that is used for saying we don't need adults in the day program and that they could attend the continuing ed program as an alternative is that because they are adults, mature people, they don't need the kind of supports and assistance and control and discipline that adolescents require. It seems to me that you're saying the exact opposite is the case. Because of problems of low self-esteem, for instance, these people need additional supports, not less, and that they find themselves at a disadvantage when competing with adolescents. Could you expand on that?
Mr McKinnon: As indicated, I've talked to literally hundreds of them, as a night school principal and being in our alternative school and so on. They will say over and over that they need that perhaps more than they ever did in their lives before, because they are fragile people, generally speaking they are; there are exceptions. But they need the discipline. They've come from backgrounds which have not afforded that. It's over and over that they will say: "Day school program is the most successful program that we can have. Continuing ed and correspondence will not do it for us. We will drop out." They've said that to me personally and I've seen evidence of it with a person who has had to, for example, take whatever job he or she has in the daytime and they've had to take night courses or correspondence and have not been successful.
Mr Wildman: As an MPP who represents a large area of northern Ontario with many, many small towns and single-school towns, I take your colleague's written presentation very seriously, because there you don't have the alternative of a community college, you don't have private programs and you probably don't have enough people for continuing education programs or night school programs. The only option for adults in those communities is to be able to enter a day program in the high school, and if they can't get that, then they're going to have to go to great expense to leave town and that's probably not an option for many of them. I think this is one of the most important presentations we've received in terms of what it means in northern Ontario, and while I recognize the importance of what you've had to say about Thunder Bay, I think this is really crucial and I appreciate the fact that your colleague presented it to the committee.
Mr Newman: You're speaking about single-school towns. Does that mean a single school in the public system or --
Mr McKinnon: Usually it's one school for the whole town.
Mr Wildman: Hornepayne has one high school and they have two elementary, one Catholic and one public.
Mr Newman: I guess then, I'm just going to ask a question generally so it wouldn't pertain to your specific community. Could savings be found by having one school board, either the separate or the public school board, provide adult education in communities where there are two high schools? Could savings possibly be found there?
Mr Tulloch: Sure. The cooperative nature of programming is always there. Because we happen to be the larger of the two boards, many of the programs that we run are the only programs that are run in the city now. The MISOL program, there are a number of students who have been former students of the separate board who have been involved in that program. I think those kinds of things in cities even as large as Thunder Bay have been happening for years. It's not that we actively went out and said, "Let's have a cooperative venture here."
Mr Newman: That may be the case here in Thunder Bay, but perhaps in other areas where it hasn't been happening, is this something they should be looking at?
Mr Tulloch: Sure, absolutely.
Mr Newman: For the sake of adults and so it's not --
Mr Tulloch: That's right.
Mr Skarica: Thank you very much, gentlemen. I also found your presentation very, very informative. I'm disappointed that Mr Victor wasn't here. Given his location, he could have provided the Conservative caucus with written directions to Dryden, thereby dispelling a notion we can't read and don't know our geography.
I don't know if you're familiar with a new initiative by the government called the GED.
1430
Mr McKinnon: Yes.
Mr Skarica: All right. We heard from representatives in Windsor and Ottawa that they felt that perhaps 10% of the students could avail themselves of that program and not have to take any adult education at all and would thereby get the high school certificate they need. Would that apply in northern Ontario, or what do you think?
Mr McKinnon: It would to some degree, except again there's a fairly substantial cost associated with the GED. Again, we're talking about people who have limited resources in most cases. I'm not saying that some couldn't afford it; probably they could if it meant, for example, getting a diploma. That's all well and good, but I go back to, what does the diploma represent? I think we cannot lose sight of that fact. That is a very powerful piece of paper and if it loses its validity -- and that's our fear. That's the basis of our presentation here, and I'll be honest about that. I think if we lose the validity of the OSSD -- I'm not saying the GED would necessarily do that, but I've seen the papers and I've seen the procedures and the tests and, yes, I think you could train someone to prepare for the GED and get an equivalent paper. I've seen the equivalency diploma as well. I'm just fearful of that.
Mr Tulloch: If I could just add, I'm not sure how the GED assesses a student on the basis of their self-esteem, their fear of failure, all of those kinds of issues they have to deal with in their lives that the programs in day school do for them. It's the kind of things that are done for adolescents on a daily basis. Not everything that they are going to be exposed to, that we are going to expect of them, is going to be the kind of thing that we're going to test on at the end of the school year or that Jim Green is going to help us with, with the accountability initiatives. My belief is that's been a long time coming and we welcome those initiatives. However, how do you bring people to the point where they're going to be productive? I'm not sure the GED answers that.
The Vice-Chair: Just for the benefit of Hansard, "GED" stands for general equivalency diploma?
Mr McKinnon: General education.
Mr Wildman: Just as a point of information for Mr Newman and other members of the committee, only two separate boards in northwestern Ontario have extended programs to high school: the Thunder Bay separate board and the Kenora board. All the rest, the separate programs are only elementary and there's only one high school, a public high school, in the community.
Mrs McLeod: Might I also ask if legislative research might provide for the committee's information a report that is available and I know has been presented to the Minister of Education on the cooperative services area board. Given the interest that members have expressed in cooperation between the boards, they would be interested in knowing that the smaller boards in northwestern Ontario have a rather unique model in which public and separate boards have come together in order to share their administrative services as well as any additional support services the schools need. I know they are most anxious that the government be aware of this innovative model and I think it would be helpful to the committee to have the information on that board tabled for their information.
The Vice-Chair: We can certainly have it distributed to the members of the committee.
Mrs McLeod: It will be available from Mr Fred Porter, who is the director of that board; also from the ministry, I'm sure.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, and thank you for a very interesting presentation.
JACKIE METHOT
SUSAN GLIDDON
The Vice-Chair: Next we have Jackie Methot and Susan Gliddon. Welcome to our hearing. You have 30 minutes for your combined presentation, including any questions and answers. Would you identify yourself as you're speaking so that Hansard can properly record it.
Mrs Jackie Methot: Hi. My name is Jackie Methot and I am here to speak as a concerned parent. I guess I'll just read it.
As a citizen of Ontario, a taxpayer and a mother of two children, I am very concerned over the tax cuts being made to the education system, particularly the special education programs. I realize the desperate need to cut spending in order to help lower the deficit, but we must set our priorities. Our children are the future.
The dictionary defines special education as: "special" -- beyond the usual, individual, distinct and limited; "education" -- providing schooling, training mentally and morally. How does our government define special education?
According to the Ministry of Education and Training's key statistics, 1992-93, there are at least 105,000 elementary and 60,000 secondary students in Ontario who have special needs. Tell me please that cutting costs in the education budget isn't going to affect the growth and development of my child.
Already my son has been touched personally by the education cuts. Cory is a 10-year-old boy who has a medical condition called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiance disorder. ADHD is researched as a chemical imbalance in the brain. Not enough is known about this condition, only that it does exist. Children with ADHD have a problem with short attention spans, impulsiveness, hyperactivity and inability to follow social conduct. These are only a few of the symptoms of the disorder.
As a result of these disabilities, it is extremely difficult for Cory to cope in the mainstream of the school. Since Cory first began school in junior kindergarten, there have been a lot of frustrations in dealing with his condition, not only in his schooling but in his day-to-day life. He attends a Catholic school now and a tremendous effort has been put forth by the staff and their resources in dealing with his special needs.
As a last resort to help our son, and with a lot of encouragement from many professionals in the health care field, we placed our child on a drug called Ritalin. We did not approve of using medications such as these, but in order for Cory to be able to attend school with what we hoped would be fewer problems, we proceeded with the treatment. Cory has been on this medication for about four years now, with some improvement, but not without some side-effects to his health, the worst being depression and the inability to eat. A joint decision between his physician and ourselves resulted in Cory being withdrawn from the medication.
We have had Cory to see more specialists than most adults have seen in their lifetime. For seven years we have been involved with the Lakehead Regional Family Centre. We have attended parenting courses and read more books on the subject than I care to mention. Cory has been assessed twice by professionals at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre.
James Arthur, a behavioural specialist with the separate school board, observed Cory in his school and stated in his consultation note: "In view of the severity of Cory's problems in spite of a great degree of school adjustment, medication, strong parental involvement and previous treatment through the Lakehead Regional Family Centre, it may be advisable to have him identified as an exceptional student through the IPRC process. Over his school career, he will likely need specific skill training and recognition for accomplishments."
An IPRC was held this year where Cory was officially identified as an exceptional student. During this meeting it was decided among us involved to enrol Cory in a special adjustment class held during the mornings, returning him to his regular class in the afternoons. In attending this class, funded by the separate school board, Cory is being taught basic language arts as well as mathematics, in which he is progressing quite nicely.
However, while this program is aiding in his ability to deal in a small, structured group, the steady, hectic pace of the larger classroom setting is a disaster. It is extremely hard and frustrating for a child with ADHD and ODD to cope with the transition from one subject to the next. Just going for recess is tremendously difficult for these children. This is why a smaller, more closely knit class works best, but with more and more cuts to education, the classes are getting larger and larger.
1440
At the present time, Cory's principal feels they are unable to accommodate properly a child with the severity of his condition. The suggestion has been made that perhaps he should be removed from his afternoon class, returning home following the morning adjustment class, the reason being that they do not have the extra help to assist him.
I ask you, where does that leave my son? What kind of education are my child and others like him going to receive? What will become of these bright children who have the right, as any other child in Canada, to become the best they can be? Will they be forgotten or, worse yet, dismissed? These are the children who need your help the most.
Don't tell me that alienating Cory from school and sending him home to a day care is my only option. My husband and I both work very hard to make ends meet. Adding the extra burden of day care costs to our budget will make life even more difficult. One of us quitting our job to stay home with Cory is not an option. It has been suggested that the arrangement of mornings only may be carried out during the 1996-97 grade 5 school year as well, because there will no longer be a full-time principal on the premises to intervene.
As you can see, we are in a catch-22. We love our son more than life, but we are exhausted. I will not sit back and watch my son's chance at a full life be taken away. I feel I am fighting a losing battle. Please help me save what is left of our education system by not only listening, but acting. I am fighting for my son's future.
The letter I've just read is my personal story. I know there are a lot of other families who are in the same position as ours. Please think very carefully before any more cuts to education are made.
The Vice-Chair: Before we go on, just for the record, what is an IPRC?
Mrs Methot: I'm not sure exactly what --
Mrs McLeod: Identification and placement review committee.
Mrs Methot: Thank you.
Mrs Susan Gliddon: My name is Susan Gliddon. After listening to Jackie speak, I probably shouldn't be sitting up here, because I think she's probably said it all. We have a little bit different views on how our children should be educated. I don't have a formal presentation, because I learned of this very late; however, here I am.
I'm the mother of two children, one of whom has been labelled as multineeds. My son is nine years old. He's in an electric wheelchair and he creeps around on the floor to get around. He uses a Danavox, which is a computer, to speak. He also has to be clothed and fed etc, but he does understand and he is learning.
So far today I've heard a lot of federations speak. I don't want to talk about JK, sick leave or adult education. I appreciate the opportunity to speak, particularly in light of the fact that there have been very few opportunities given for people to speak.
I'm appalled at the steamroller manner in which the cuts to education have been made. Education does not produce widgets, and it certainly deserves a bit more time and thought into the cutting of its funding before additional cuts are made.
My child and other special needs children have already been affected by cuts. Lakehead Board of Education's decision to reduce funding by $200,000 may not seem like a lot, but it's already affecting a number of children, one of whom is mine, obviously, or I wouldn't be sitting here. I'm told the Lakehead board has been fiscally responsible. I hope that's true, but I hope the decision they made to cut this $200,000 in their budget wasn't made lightly. I presume, because they went ahead and made it, that it had to be made because there were no other places to cut. I'm told that the Lakehead board and I believe the separate board are two of the most fiscally responsible in the province.
It really makes me angry that there hasn't been more local media attention or people just speaking up on their own to protest the cuts. We all know the budget is very large and it has to be reduced, but at the same time, let's cut the frills; let's not cut the basics. All kids deserve to have education no matter how they come into this world. Frills should be cut, but not basic education. Every child deserves the opportunity to learn.
Students earmarked to be moved back from integrated classes into segregated classrooms are not being treated the way I would want to be treated, or, I'm certain, your children and your grandchildren.
Cuts are hurting kids right now. I really fear for the fall when I believe $6 million more is supposed to come from the Lakehead Board of Education's budget. I don't know where they're going to cut from. Kids requiring extra support, shoved back into segregated settings, are facing situations where they will be babysat. They will be taught life skills, if that; they will not be educated. So what we don't pay for now, we will be paying for dearly in the years to come.
I do hope that in upcoming budget deliberations, those of you who have chosen to be decision-makers, particularly with these education cuts, will really deliberate and ensure that, whatever cuts have to come, they come to the frills and not to the basics. Please ensure that kids who need the most support from us get it. I don't know if it was legal for people -- I shouldn't say that -- to make cuts to special ed. I presume it was or it wouldn't have been done, but I don't feel, at least for my son, that kids learn in isolation. I feel it's very important for my child to be out there, to be seen and discovered by other kids at a young age. You'd spend less money on cooperative education programs and kids would just learn naturally through association.
Both our kids have a lot to teach young ones, teachers and adults alike. It's very important they get out there in the education system and be seen and learn as much as they can learn. Budget cuts are important, but they're not everything; our kids are. Thanks for listening to me.
Mr Wildman: I want to thank you both for your presentations and the obvious emotion with which you expressed yourselves.
As you said, the cuts should not be to kids' education, they should be in frills. Obviously neither of you believes that providing proper supports and assistance in education to your sons is providing frills but rather is providing for the needs of your children. Where I live in northern Ontario, kids with special needs are facing a significant cut in the number of teachers' aides, which is going to make it very difficult, with larger class sizes, for the teachers to provide for the needs of the kids, both those who have special needs and the other kids in the class, because the teacher's aide won't be there. What is being proposed is removing children back into segregated classrooms or even, in some cases, removing them and taking them home. I know that's what you were saying about Cory.
Could you give us some indication of what effect you think that would have on your son? You mentioned the drain on you and your husband and the financial problem you might face if day care were an option, but what does it mean for your son's progress if he is removed from the integrated system into a segregated classroom or even out of the system to going home?
Mrs Methot: I couldn't imagine what it would do to him, to be honest with you. He's a child who has been labelled all his life, has been different from everybody else all his life, has tried his hardest to have friends and acquire friends, but because of his difficulties he has a hard time with it. To be taken away -- he has very low self-esteem right now, he thinks he's bad because he's being possibly taken out, he's suspended from school, more than you can imagine, because they don't have anybody in the classroom.
I just want to make one thing clear, though, in case anybody misunderstood me when I was reading this: I don't want my son in a segregated class, I want him in the regular classroom with the regular kids.
Mr Wildman: Yes, that's what I understood.
Mrs Methot: Unfortunately right now, the only option was to put him into an adjustment class, as they call it, and it is a segregated class --
Mr Wildman: For behavioural --
Mrs Methot: While he's working in it he's fantastic, he's excelling, he's flourishing, he's doing wonderfully. You put him in a class with 35 children and one teacher -- maybe if all these MPPs here were to sit in on a class with a special-ed child and watch what a teacher goes through, with no extra help in the classroom, when she has 30-some-odd children in that classroom and a child who is acting out, who has no control over some of the things he does and says, who can't sit still for more than five minutes and can't pay attention, when she tries to explain to him how to do his math problem and he looks at her confused and she says, "I don't have time because I've got 30 other children I have to help here." Maybe if you sat in a classroom at that point and watched those kids and saw how hard it was for them and how hard it was for the teacher and for the other children in the classroom, you wouldn't be so quick to put the axe to some of the money you have out there. I'm sorry.
Mr Wildman: In terms of your son and the special needs he has, is it possible that he would be removed to a segregated classroom as opposed to the integrated situation?
Mrs Gliddon: My son has been integrated for five years and I've been told he's earmarked for a segregated class in Thunder Bay because our numbers are small. There's one designated area for multidisabled students, who are students with two, three or more disabilities, which he has. I visited that class on a couple of occasions, once before he entered the school system and about two weeks before I heard the decision that he was earmarked for that school. On both occasions I found it to be a very clean, bright school, but the children in the class are being babysat. I don't even know if they're being taught life skills. They're not being educated.
Every child with a physical disability, as I'm sure behavioural problem children and different disabilities, requires individual, specific care. My son has the capability to motor around on his own, speak with his computer, but to function he requires one-on-one support. It will not happen.
1450
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I have four speakers and five minutes on the government side, so use your time wisely.
Mr Pettit: Thank you, ladies. Jackie, I'd like to start with you first. You indicate that Cory goes to a Catholic school now. Do I take that to mean that previously he was in the public system?
Mrs Methot: Yes, he was.
Mr Pettit: Why was he switched over?
Mrs Methot: At the time he was in the public system, because of these problems and difficulties at that point, they were not receptive to providing any extra help for Cory, they were not taking any of the recommendations of the specialists. Whether it be because they couldn't accommodate him or because they just didn't want to, I don't know. We switched him over to the Catholic system and they have been very helpful.
Mr Pettit: To your knowledge, are there any cooperative measures between the two boards vis-à-vis special education?
Mrs Methot: You mean do they combine resources? I'm not aware of that, no. I know they each have their own special-ed people.
Mr Gilchrist: Just following up on that -- and I appreciate your having the courage to come down to a venue like this. I know it's very daunting to some people, but we appreciate your doing it. I want you to know many of us, if not all of us, have gone to local schools and seen exactly what you've suggested we do. In fact as recently as a week and a half ago I also visited the Hugh MacMillan school in Toronto, which is the largest centre in the province for dealing with kids with developmental problems such as your son.
I would say to you, though, with all respect that we hear a lot of rhetoric about this issue. This bill itself does nothing about cutting further funding. It merely takes out of legislation a number of things that really should be affairs dealt with between the boards and the teachers, yet somehow the province got involved in years gone by and put in limitations on how they could bargain between the two. But I would remind you that the 1.87% that they were cut is it, and for your trustees, for the people who have counselled them to have suggested that special ed is where the cuts should be made, I think we would all agree is deplorable. It is repugnant.
In Scarborough, I just discovered the other day, they are still keeping on four paid ski trips every year for every student. Not like in the days when you and I went to school, where they post a notice saying a bus is available on Saturday and if you come and pay your $15 or $20, you can join up; no, they pay for the bus, they pay for the lunch, they pay for the lift ticket.
I just wonder, in the context of that, whether when you hear what you've heard today about all the things that have been cut yet on the other hand you recognize there are still frills and the teachers won't open up things like sick days and we haven't heard enough about merging services, whether you're convinced that the school boards have gone as far as they can in dealing with frills and saving the dollars where they should be saved, namely, special-ed programs.
Mrs Methot: I have to say that with the Catholic board now, I honestly believe they have done as much as they can do. I speak from the fact that the school my son is in, and my daughter as well, doesn't even have a gymnasium. They can't afford to build a gymnasium. These kids have to go outside or they have to once a week maybe get a bus and load them all over to another school. They certainly do not have new desks. The principal doesn't have a new chair or a new desk. They don't have anything like that as far as the school itself goes. The board office as well -- I've been in the board office -- it's not all fancy with new chairs and new this and new that. They're very conscious of how they spend their money. We do a lot of fund-raising within the school ourselves trying to raise money to give our children a play centre out in the school yard to play on, for goodness' sake.
Mr Preston: I want to put a pin in a balloon here. I want you to listen very carefully. Because we're MPPs, we are not all very rich, living a pristine life with perfect children. At any given time in the past 20 years I've had three boys in my home between the ages of 10 and 18 all of whom are on Ritalin, all of whom have ADD. I am very familiar with your problem and your son's problem. We have four boys, but at least three of them at any given time, so you can imagine what our place is like on a Saturday morning. Usually I stay in Toronto.
We are cognizant of your problem. We are not a bunch of men with horns on our heads who hate children. I've got 12 grandchildren, and I want my grandchildren to have the best they can get. So we are cognizant of the problem. If your board has cut special ed, talk to the board. They're wrong. That's the feeling of everybody here. It's not this government's intention to cut special-ed classes.
Mrs Methot: I don't believe I had said that you cut special-ed classes, but the cuts that you are making to the education system have to go somewhere. My feeling is, I'm not an informed person, I'm not a government official, I don't read your rule book or whatever you have, all I know is from what I hear from the media, what I hear and what I am told. I'm told that they don't have the money to bring in one more person to help my son. That's what I'm talking about. I don't think you're a bunch of mean, horned people. I just want you to stop and I want you to think for a moment that, even though you put the ball in the board's court and say, "We're cutting out $2 million from you. You find out the place to take it from," well, they're trying to take a little bit here and there, but special ed is going to be one of them that has to get it.
It has to come from somewhere, and unfortunately it's going to keep going down the line. It's not only special ed; there are other parts of the schooling. I don't care about anything else right now because special ed's my main pet peeve. But you can't pass the buck off on the board. I'm sorry. I can't accept that. I can't accept that you can cut the money and then pass it on to the board to try and explain to the parents and have them ranting and raving at them.
Mrs McLeod: I wondered how long it was going to take before I exploded today, but, Jackie, I think you've just saved me from exploding by the answer you've just given. I get really angry when people sit all day long and don't hear the reality of what people have been saying to them presentation after presentation about the stresses that these cuts have made, and try and suggest that somewhere in here there are mythical savings. Members of the government have spent the day trying to persuade people that there are savings to be found somewhere else, therefore the cuts that are being made, whether it's to junior kindergarten or to adult education or to special education, somehow weren't necessary.
They need to take the blinders off -- talk about rhetoric -- take the blinders off and realize what those kinds of cuts are doing to education and to kids in classrooms, including kids with special needs. When you suggest that changing the number of sick days is somehow going to prevent cuts to kids in classrooms, you really don't understand how the financing of education works at all.
Interjections.
The Vice-Chair: Just a minute. Mrs McLeod's got the floor.
Mrs McLeod: It makes me absolutely furious. If you want to go back and read the transcripts, if you'd like to have a debate about the fact that reducing the numbers of sick days -- and even if your hidden agenda is to get at the retirement gratuity, it will not help one kid in one classroom today. It won't have any financial effect for about 20 years.
I want to tell you that when it comes to special education, not only did I first get into politics because there was no special education in Lakehead schools, and that was almost 30 years ago now, but the director of education who sat here, whom you're saying was wrong if they made any cuts to affect special education, was one of the founders of special education programs in Lakehead schools. There's no lack of commitment to special education here. When I hear two parents come and say that their kids' special education programs are being hurt, it really does make me want to explode, not at the board, as Jackie has said, but at arbitrary cuts that are forcing those kinds of decisions.
Mr Preston: If you sit here for one day out of three weeks of meetings, I guess you're entitled to that.
Mrs McLeod: I do believe, Mr Chair, that I continue to have the floor.
The Vice-Chair: Yes, you do.
Mrs McLeod: I think you're saying in both cases that what is happening with the cuts is that there is no longer a flexibility to be able to respond to individual needs of students in a classroom, and somehow that gets lost. When you're forced to look for cuts and just find them where you can, there are things you can do that still maintain, I think Susan said, the legality of Bill 82, which was a Conservative government bill guaranteeing mandatory special education to meet students' needs. Boards legally have to meet that mandate, but there are all kinds of things that you can do to still provide special education in name that isn't responding to the individual needs of your kids.
I'm frustrated and concerned because I see the ball rolling down the hill so fast that I don't know where it's going to stop, and I hear you saying the same thing.
Mr Gravelle: Certainly Lyn has spoken eloquently in terms of the frustration I think you feel, especially when you're listening to both Jackie and Susan here today, and obviously I've very glad that you've had the opportunity to express yourself. I think it is only to be hoped that indeed some of what you say in terms of your concerns -- I think Jackie responded well in terms of the fact that the boards are not the place to be apportioning the blame, and we hope they listen. It gets a little scary to spend the whole day having all these things coming across the airwaves and still to have responses like those.
I'm grateful you had the opportunity to get on today and I'm glad, Susan, you were able to be here as well. We thank you for being here.
The Vice-Chair: Thanks to both of you for very personal representations. It's very encouraging.
Mrs Methot: May I say something? I'm really upset right now. I sat back here watching while the other two people were up. Maybe this isn't the time to say this, but I watched these gentlemen. These people were talking. When my page came out I watched everybody start reading this. I watched them talk between themselves. I watched comments being said when Mrs McLeod was speaking, and the little gibes. I'm really appalled that this is how our government works. I don't know if anything I have said or that anybody else has said today has gotten through, or if you have your minds set that you're right and no matter what anybody else says, that's how it's going.
I have never been experienced and exposed to anything to do with the government; I have never been actively involved. I'm really disappointed. When I came out today, I was hoping that at least I would have a sympathetic ear to listen and maybe something would touch home with you. I honestly don't feel like it was. I'm sorry.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation and good luck to both of you.
1500
CONCERNED TAXPAYERS GROUP
The Vice-Chair: Next we have Mr Hugh Holmes. Welcome to our hearings. You have 30 minutes, which includes any comments or questions there may be from the committee members.
Mr Hugh Holmes: This may not take quite that long. I'd like to thank the members of the committee for giving me this opportunity to address them on behalf of our Concerned Taxpayers Group. Mr Sinclair forwarded a copy of Bill 34 by Purolator to Shebandowan, but unfortunately it failed to arrive, so I ask you to keep this in mind during this presentation.
He advised that Bill 34 addresses issues like junior kindergarten, adult education, delivery of services, negative-grant boards and payment of sick days to teachers. Certainly all are areas of concern, but I won't comment because I didn't have the information I required. Instead, I'm going to go on the vein of presentations I've made previously, and this is with regard to the cost.
During the past few years, we've made presentations to the Ministry of Education, the Fair Tax Commission, the Royal Commission on Learning and the Lakehead Board of Education, all with little or no apparent impact. It would appear that we finally have a government that recognizes how out of control the education system is, and it's our fervent hope that it will bring sanity back to it. The incredible greed of the boards of education and the mediocrity of their service are things that prompted the formation of taxpayer associations, the Fair Tax Commission and the Royal Commission on Learning.
I'll leave the mediocrity of the service to those more qualified to address it and keep my comments to the cost, which everyone has considerable experience in. For example, during the last two years of constraint, my educational property taxes increased in excess of 13.5% from an already exorbitant level.
The Fair Tax Commission heard loud and clear from the province that the people wanted a stop to the ability of a board of education to levy a property tax, or any tax, for that matter. The boards wanted to keep the status quo. The committee agreed with the people, but I suppose, not wanting to totally quell the boards, suggested funding should come from the province, ideally through income tax, but that they retain the ability to levy a tax of 10% of the provincial allotment for services beyond the provincial standard.
We believe they should have absolutely no ability to levy a tax. The mandate of a board of education should be education and only education. This would force a board of education to live within its budget and impose an accountability that has never been there. Elimination of the taxation function would in itself save a very considerable amount of money.
Serious thought should be given to the elimination of boards of education altogether. They grew into the monsters they are now during the empire-building days of the 1960s and 1970s. Do we really need them? Could they not be replaced by appropriately chosen members from the schools and local community to oversee the delivery of education? This approach has been successful in Great Britain and elsewhere.
If they are not to be eliminated, there must be a drastic reduction in size, each position must be justified, every penny accounted for and made public, with areas of largess and mismanagement highlighted, and contracts should be such that anyone not capable of producing the quality of service required can be terminated.
A current advertisement on local television has the teachers' association not so subtly suggesting that if there are going to be any cuts to funding of education, the children are going to suffer. The children have been suffering for a long time. They get much less than 20% of the budget now, while the rest goes to salaries and administration. It's time to rein in the sacred cow. Teachers in Ontario are the highest paid in the world, and it's time the reality of constraints and wage rollbacks came into play.
Other areas such as PD days, sabbatical leaves and retired teachers double-dipping by coming back to work for a given number of days must be looked at. The list could go on, but I'm sure the Ministry of Education is well aware of these things, and hopefully this government will do something about them.
Mr Skarica: I share your frustration, sir. I wasn't familiar with the education system until recently, and it's disturbing to realize the number of factors as follows, and maybe I could have your comment. We spend close to $1 billion a year on administration in our various school boards, and then we find out during these hearings that there's a potential $10-billion unfunded liability for this retirement gratuity, which does not end up benefiting any children at all. We find out from the last ladies that there was a $200,000 cut to that board. Meanwhile, we find out the Lakehead board spent $2 million on retirement gratuities, totally unfunded; it came out of operating revenues that didn't go to children and instead went to that unfunded liability. We find out that there's an $8.1-billion unfunded liability for teachers' pensions, and this year we're paying an extra $300 million. On and on and on it goes.
It seems to me that what's happened over the last 20 years or so is that there have been massive amounts of money paid to administrators and so on and so forth, and yet at the end of the road what we have we got? We've got billions of dollars of unfunded liabilities in various areas and situations like the last one occur. How do you prevent that? Throwing money does not prevent it, it would appear.
We've just been accused of being insensitive and so on and so forth by Mrs McLeod. We realize the pressures that boards are under, but we're also, as a government, under fiscal pressures ourselves. We gave the Lakehead district Roman Catholic board extra money, as they qualified for an undue burden grant, and then we still hear of these problems arising. What would you suggest we do to make sure these problems don't arise in the future?
Mr Holmes: It's a problem that has been made over years and years and years. Like I say, it started back in the 1960s and 1970s as the boards grew and almost every government department grew and grew. As you have seen through many other government departments, there have been cuts, rollbacks, everybody is looking at what they're doing with regard to the service they're providing and who's providing it, how many they need to provide it and so on. This type of thing has to go on, this search, inside the board itself: Do you need X number of superintendents? Do you need a board at all?
Only government can put this on to the boards, because if it's left to the boards, experience has proven that they'll do absolutely nothing unless they absolutely have to. Our board did nothing until the pressure was put on it recently. I spoke to a trustee last night, and I understand there has been some movement in this board, checking out some ways to cut costs. I have to say that the pressure came from outside, because it certainly didn't come internally. Whether that helps you or answers your question --
Mr Skarica: Yes, it does.
Mr Pettit: I was just wondering which board. Is it the Thunder Bay board?
Mr Holmes: Yes, the Lakehead Board of Education.
1510
Mr Patten: First of all, thank you for your presentation, sir. You suggest that perhaps the payment for the school system might be switched from property tax to income tax. What's your analysis of what that would do to your provincial income tax?
Mr Holmes: I think it would raise the provincial income tax from what it is now -- I mean, you can't just put a tax here -- but the decrease in your property tax and the decrease in the cost of education itself by doing away with this particular unit would more than offset the raise in your income tax. Right now, I'd like to ask you what the location and size of my house has to do with the delivery of the service of education. Absolutely nothing. There are people who don't pay anything, outside of a little in their income tax; other people pay two and three times because of property tax. It's definitely not equitable.
It would be far, far better for everybody if it came through income tax, and I believe everybody benefits from education of children, whether you have any or not. They help you as they get older. Everybody then should pay, and that definitely is not the case now, and some people are paying a hell of a lot more than they should.
Mr Patten: I'm led to believe that the increase would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50% increase in provincial income tax.
Mr Holmes: That's possible, but there also might be a good 50% decrease in your property tax, because right now in the city of Thunder Bay, for instance, it costs more to run the board of education than the entire city.
Mr Patten: You say that only 20% of the budget goes to the children in the school. How do you arrive at that 20% figure?
Mr Holmes: Actually, it's less than 20%. I can't give you the figures right now. I have met very often with previous trustees; I had a breakdown on it at the time, and salaries and administration costs were in excess of 80%. If I can recall right, they said the children, in what they're receiving, supplies and things for them were less than 15%.
Mr Patten: So the 20% would not include the teacher?
Mr Holmes: No. The salaries are coming in already with the teachers.
Mr Patten: I see. The teacher is the most important, it would seem to me.
Mr Holmes: Absolutely. I'm definitely not bashing teachers. There are many good teachers around.
Mr Patten: Are you advocating or suggesting that instead of school boards, there might be some replacement or a volunteer board or parents' councils replacing school boards?
Mr Holmes: Yes. Is the function the school board does now necessary to have that large a unit? It's an area that could be looked at. That's what I'm trying to say.
Mrs McLeod: I'm just curious to know whether or not -- you don't have to share this information with me if it's confidential -- you'd be in a position to be getting a rebate on your property tax on your income tax or whether that rebate is completely disappearing.
Mr Holmes: I have never got a rebate on my property tax.
Mrs McLeod: There was a system of rebates for property taxpayers -- as I say, it may be confidential information; I shouldn't make it personal -- where anyone who, for example, was retired or on a fixed income would get a property tax rebate, but it would show on their income tax, so the two things often weren't related. I simply don't know whether that rebate still exists. Mr Wildman may know because he's been at it more recently than I. There was some change in it, I think, a couple of years ago.
One of the frustrations with that is that the relationship was never made for those who, as you say, quite rightly felt that their property tax was too large if they were living on a fixed income, and they were never able to see how the rebate was coming back.
Mr Wildman: Thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions.
Mr Skarica: Mr Wildman, we didn't use up all our time, and one of our members wants to ask a further question.
Interjection: No, go ahead.
Mr Wildman: You indicated that in your analysis, if the income tax were to fund education -- I think that makes sense, frankly -- there might be an increase in the income tax but that would be offset by the decrease in property taxes. Is the inverse correct too? If there's a decrease in income tax, will there likely be an increase in property taxes?
Mr Holmes: I'm not quite sure in what context you're saying this.
Mr Wildman: If the provincial government decreases income taxes and cuts transfers and grants to school boards, the school boards then have to increase property taxes to make up the difference.
Mr Holmes: They certainly have the power to do that. We don't know yet whether they will or not; it's up to the school boards. Under the current system that's exactly how it is, but if they were funded through income tax from the provincial government, then they wouldn't be able to increase. They would have to live within a budget.
Mr Wildman: Okay. I am wondering if you were here during the previous presentation by the two parents.
Mr Holmes: No, just part of it.
Mr Wildman: They were -- one from the public system and one from the separate system -- parents of kids with special needs -- different types of special needs, but special needs -- and they felt that the cuts in education funding were resulting in a significantly adverse effect on their kids' education. I'm wondering if you think that's a wise thing to happen in terms of your comments about the need for us to educate all the kids in a community.
Mr Holmes: I don't know what proportion of funding now goes for children with special needs. It has to come within that 15% or 20% that is there now. The cuts that are to be made should be within the 80%, not the 20%, so I can't see why they should be cutting it. They can, but I don't see why they should.
Mr Wildman: I have a problem with your 15% or 20% as opposed to 80%, since about 60% to 70% of all school board expenditures is teachers' salaries. The teachers go to the kids too. When you say the funding is for teachers, not for kids, I have some problem with that, that only 15% of the education expenditures is for kids.
Mr Holmes: When I'm saying salaries, I'm not also saying just teachers' salaries, but salaries all across the board -- all the superintendents and you go on through there. When teachers negotiate their wage contracts, there's certainly no reason for a board to oppose it, because just by nature of the contracts, as soon as the teachers get a wage theirs goes up percentage-wise in accordance with that, so it keeps going higher.
Mr Wildman: Do you think boards and teachers should negotiate issues like class size?
Mr Holmes: I sent a copy of an article that was in the Chronicle-Journal by trustee Paul Kennedy to Minister Snobelen's office. It's a pity I don't have it here, because it was an extremely well-written one. It addresses part of this. If they still have this there, it would be a good idea to look it up, because he has been with the board for a number of years. An extremely frustrated member of the board, he wrote this article and wrote it exactly as it was. I think it would be well worth reading. He could certainly be far more eloquent and be able to express it much better than I.
Mr Newman: One quick question: In looking for savings within education, if you could implement one measure, what one measure would you implement to find savings in education?
Mr Holmes: There are so many, it's going to be hard to say one.
Mr Newman: Well, name them all. What would be the number one priority?
Mr Holmes: I'd like to do more than one, if I could.
Mr Newman: You're free to answer that.
Mr Holmes: Okay. One is salaries and the other is all the perks within the board, like the expense accounts, the use of vehicles. If they have a vehicle, for instance, does that vehicle sit at the board or do they run home with it and use it as a personal vehicle? These are things that should be looked at to cut costs. Those are some that would probably take a fair bit of cost out. The gentleman was speaking about the cost of some of these things that have gone on -- the retirement parties, the wrist-watches that have been given away. We're talking thousands of dollars here that just comes out of this revenue.
1520
Mr Newman: When you mentioned salaries, what specifically would you do with respect to salaries?
Mr Holmes: We have a number of superintendents making in excess of $100,000 a year; there are 50 in excess of $80,000. Those are pretty fair salaries, especially in these days of constraints. I'd love to be in that bracket. Others are not all that far behind.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Holmes, for a very interesting presentation.
PROSPECT SCHOOL PARENTS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: Our last presenters for today are the Prospect School Parents' Association. Welcome to our hearings.
Ms Anne McCourt: I'm Anne McCourt. This is Anthea Kyle on my left, Mariana Maguire on my far left and Gary McMahon on my right. We represent the parents' association at Prospect Avenue Public School in Thunder Bay, where our children all go to school. We're happy to be here today not least because we understand we're the only parents' group that's presenting to you. As partners in the education system, we think it's really important that you hear our point of view.
Before Anthea begins our presentation, I'd like to make one thing clear: We're here to talk to you about how cuts to the education budget are affecting our school community at Prospect school. You will have heard from and will continue to hear from many school boards and province-wide organizations as well as from individuals, but what we want to focus on is a single school, our school, because the school where our kids go every day is what this is all about. I think that's true for every school and every child in the province. I'll turn it over to Anthea now.
Mrs Anthea Kyle: I have three points to make: My task is to give some background on the school and to tell you why Prosect school is important in the neighbourhood it's in. Finally, I'd just like to outline why I think we're here today.
Prospect school is an old school. It was built in 1912, which by Thunder Bay standards is practically an antique building. It's in a neighbourhood which in 1912 would have been like a suburb; it would have been on the outer edge of what was then called Port Arthur.
The school itself is still in a residential neighbourhood, there's very little commercial development and the neighbourhood is now ringed by busy streets. It's become a neighbourhood that's a little bit -- I won't say isolated, but it's not suburban any more. It's considered an older residential neighbourhood.
The neighbourhood itself is an interesting socioeconomic and ethnic mix, which again is unusual in Thunder Bay. Neighbourhoods here tend to be organized by economic lines more than the sort of mixtures you might get in a larger urban area.
There's virtually no busing to Prospect school. It's a smaller school. Their enrolment runs between about 230 and 240 students. There's one class of each grade. There is a lot of parent involvement in the school because it's in a largely residential neighbourhood. There's not only the usual sort of fund-raising and field trip accompaniment, but Prospect also has a number of parents who volunteer in the classrooms on a regular basis. They do everything from, say, assisting teachers with intellectual development of children to athletics, to artistic and creative pursuits.
I've been involved with Prospect school for a long time. My oldest child began there in 1987, so I've been an active parent since then. One thing that Prospect is known for in the community is an annual spring tea that we hold. I was one of the first parents to begin the tea when it started a theme. We've been inviting people from the community. Now other schools are approaching us about that one fund-raising event. The tea's not so much important for the fund-raising, obviously, but it's important because it's a community event. The neighbourhood itself has retired people whose children have returned to the neighbourhood to raise their children. When you walk into Prospect School, if you go down the first-floor hallway you'll see the list of names of men and women who fought and died during the First World War and the Second World War, so it's a school that has a real history in the community.
They've done some innovative things with Prospect school. The property itself takes up a city block, and although the school doesn't take up a city block, there's a huge field; there have been tennis courts put in. The Lakehead board shares the property with the city. In the summer they run an outdoor summer program. It's a real hub in the neighbourhood itself. It's a place where kids go to school during the day; it's a place where kids go and play basketball at night. It's an important part of our neighbourhood. Of course we're worried that with funding cuts small neighbourhood schools are easy to cut loose, and we don't want that to happen to Prospect.
We're here today because we want to talk to you about what we think cuts might do to our school, what we think cuts might do to our students, and to remind all of us that really we're always talking one school, one classroom, one teacher, one child. That's how most of us feel, and that's the beginning and the end of the educational process. The bureaucracy aside, we're talking development of individuals as well. I'm sure you've heard that today.
Prospect school got its name because it's actually beside tailings of an old mine. I don't know if you know that there's silver in this area, and silver was mined in the 1890s in the area. The hill beside Prospect school is a popular tobogganing spot. When you go there in the winter and you stand on the top of the hill, you look out and you have a wonderful view of the harbour and the landmark the Sleeping Giant. I feel strongly that I want our kids to stay on the top of the hill and be able to see out and see that beautiful vista and keep the prospect. I don't want them to see the view from the bottom of the hill; I want them to be on the top.
Ms McCourt: I'd like to talk now specifically about the impact on Prospect school of cuts to the education budget. According to the figures we received from the Lakehead board, 94.5% of the total budget goes to the instructional block, which is teaching and classroom support. First of all, we want to say that the government cannot make cuts of this magnitude without affecting what goes on in the classroom; it can't be done.
We looked at how the current round of cuts has already affected Prospect and what its impact will be in the school in the coming year, which is 1996-97. Class sizes from grade 1 to grade 8 now average 22 children, which is a wonderful and unusually low teacher-student ratio; we've appreciated it while we've had it. In September, grades 3 to 8 are going to average 31 children per class; that's an increase of 41%. All of us have worked, as Anthea said, as parent-helpers in the school in a variety of activities and we know that in spite of the confidence we have in the teachers at Prospect, this kind of increase in the student-teacher ratio seriously threatens the quality of education.
At Prospect we now how 14 teachers, including the principal and vice-principal. This coming September we will have 11, with no significant decrease in enrolment. We started this school year with one and a half special-ed support positions. This has already been reduced by half, and will likely be reduced again in September, and this is at a school that serves about 15 children identified with special needs.
We started the school year with three and a half hours a day of school assistant time, and this has already been reduced to two hours a day. The teacher-librarian position will be eliminated as of September 1997. What goes on in the classroom is obviously of primary concern to us, but staffing cuts affect more than classroom ratios. They also affect yard duty, lunchtime supervision, extra-curricular activities that enrich our children's education -- things like sports, charity fund-raising events like readathons and Jump Rope for Heart, public speaking, choir, student council, student newspaper -- the list goes on.
1530
Our school's operating budget has been reduced by 20%, and it was small to start with. This means a one fifth reduction in money for classroom supplies, library books, textbooks, art supplies, science equipment, math equipment, sports equipment, computers, calculators, furniture, paper, pencils and chalk, as well as the teachers' professional development budget and the school office budget, which covers phone, fax, photocopier and so on.
Junior kindergarten, as we know, will continue to be offered by the Lakehead board, but in order to do it as economically as possible, we're going to have children going to junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten on alternate days for a full day. We haven't talked to any parents or teachers who think a full day of school with an hour and a half lunch break in the middle is a good idea for a four-year-old, and I'm glad my kids are older than that now.
There will be a big reduction in the system's sports budget, which means kids will have fewer opportunities to participate in excellent system-wide events like track and field, three-pitch, wrestling and soccer, or else these activities will be available only to children whose families can afford to pay.
As a result of board-wide cuts over the past few years, elementary family studies, industrial arts and instrumental music have already been eliminated. Overall, in the next school year, there's going to be far less direct service to children. Mariana will be speaking to how the cuts will affect children with special needs and how that in turn will have a negative impact on teachers and all the children in the classroom.
Finally, to reiterate what Anthea just said, as a direct result of the provincial education cuts, the Lakehead board has turned to school closings and amalgamations. This year, four schools have been closed and three others amalgamated, and our board assures us that this is just the first round. Our school is one of several now being studied for closure. As parents and community members, we're deeply concerned about the damage that closing Prospect School would do to our children, our education system and our community.
Ms Mariana Maguire: I would also like to address the budget cuts to education and the impact these cuts will have on our children in the classroom, specifically children with learning disabilities, behavioural problems and special needs.
I realize that many of these changes are being made at a local level, but they are in direct response to the cuts made by the provincial government. I will begin by sharing stories of two children at Prospect School and then I'll go on to outline how these budget cuts affect special education and other programs presently managed by the Lakehead board and used at Prospect School.
Isaac is seven and a half years old and in grade 2 at Prospect School. My son was identified at the age of three and a half as having speech difficulties and possible developmental problems. This identification was as a direct result of the preschool screening process conducted by the Thunder Bay district health unit in conjunction with the Lakehead Board of Education.
He was referred to a speech pathologist and occupational therapist for developmental testing. It took one and a half years to reach the top of the list with a local agency. Isaac was diagnosed with delayed language development and articulation difficulties and began therapy at the age of five with this agency. The developmental assessment was referred for further attention but never followed up.
When he entered school full-time, he was seen twice a week at Prospect School with a minimum disruption to his schooling. He was discharged in April of this year and continues with a special daily reading program. The success he has achieved in this program was due to hard work on his part, but also because of early identification and intervention. The preschool screening program with the district health unit has been cut back and no other early identification program has replaced it.
I would like to contrast my son's story with a story about a little girl, Charlene. Charlene is six and a half and is in SK at Prospect. Laura, her mother, has given me permission to present her daughter's story. Charlene did not have the benefit of a preschool screening due to the cutting of this program. Her mother decided to hold her back one year before entering JK. She was referred by her family doctor for assessment. She was identified as being developmentally delayed, but a full program was never implemented for her. Somehow she fell through the cracks and is only now being attended to. With pressure from the parents, she is currently in the process of IPRC testing, which shouldn't have happened until next year, and is waiting for identification.
It has been suggested to the mother that she place this little girl in another school with a program for children with special needs so that she has access to all resources and support staff that will not be available next year at Prospect School. Many children in this class are severely physically and/or developmentally handicapped. This little girl is high-functioning and will not thrive in this atmosphere. The alternative is to keep her at Prospect with her siblings and for the parents to pay for the necessary resources.
Early identification of and program implementation for children with special needs and learning disabilities is important in ensuring an optimum outcome. Treating these children holistically in their school environment ensures the best education possible.
In the area of support services, the Lakehead Board of Education currently has one overall system support team and four area support teams. Each of these teams consists of a programmer-assessor, one speech-language teacher and one curriculum adviser. These individuals currently provide direct services to students in schools within their area. This provides consistency with a minimum disruption to school routines.
Next year the four area support teams will be replaced by one system support team that will act as facilitators and not provide direct social services in the same manner. Many of these programs are being referred to social service agencies and the health care system, and many of these agencies are also cutting programs because of provincial cuts and cannot provide these services within our schools with the same quality.
Prospect School has already lost support staff in the area of special ed. Next year there is a further proposal to cut all assessed positions and to replace certs with special-ed facilitators. These serfs, I like to call them, will not provide direct services either but will be responsible for setting up programs to be carried out with classroom teachers. Other programs, such as speech, will be given to classroom teachers to implement. There will be no support staff to assist with behavioural problems in the classroom. The burden is to be placed on classroom teachers with little or no special ed training and reduced support at a time when class sizes are increasing. This will not only impact on children with special needs; it will certainly affect the quality of education for all our children.
Last, we would like to address the topic of community schools and the issue of school closures to reduce spending.
We live in a downtown neighbourhood, one of the first developed in Thunder Bay. We have a diverse population, with kids at risk at one end of the spectrum and kids who are privileged at the other. We all look out for each other and our children. We have a high ratio of parent helpers in our school who enrich the lives of all students by offering everything from reading programs, music, art workshops and extracurricular sports to spring teas and fund-raising. This involvement enhances the quality of education in our community.
We feel it is important to maintain as many community schools as possible. If you take these 250 kids, put them on buses and send them all over hell's half-acre, there will be a high price to be paid in this community and by society as a whole.
These budget cuts cannot possibly be made without affecting the quality of education in our classrooms, and we do not wish to sacrifice the future of our children for this government's economic ideology.
Mr Patten: Thank you very much for your presentation. You graphically illustrate the pressures and the challenges facing you and your children and your school board. I must point out, though, that the chairman of your board was quite supportive of this legislation and thought this was a good thing for school boards and would be helpful and useful in performing their job, so it is interesting to hear what happens at school level from a parent's point of view and from the child's point of view, particularly when I look at some of your statistics, which truly are astounding. Class sizes in grades 3 to 8 will increase by 41%. Is that this year and next year?
Ms McCourt: That's as of September. That's going from right now into September. We should point out that those class sizes are lower than our board average. We're very grateful for the fact that we've had these terrific teacher-student ratios for a while. However, just because we appreciate how unusual they are doesn't mean we don't think they're our right. That's the way to run a classroom, and that's especially the way to run an integrated classroom with special-needs children. You can't do both. You can't have an integrated classroom and high ratios.
I would like to say also, in response to what you said about our differing from our board, whether we agree or disagree with how our board administers its budget -- and I would say there's a whole range of reactions to that; we're not adversaries with our board -- the fact is that the province isn't giving them enough money to do what needs to be done in the classroom. How they administer it is a separate issue for us.
1540
Mr Patten: To quote from the paper, it says, "Generally speaking, Bill 34 amendments to the Education Act should help school boards to do their job better." I think what you're saying is that the impact of Bill 34, which is the removal of these resources, in your opinion is lessening the capacity of the school to do its job in terms of the needs, as you see them, for your children. In that sense, I think that's important.
I support that while your personal situation is unique, this dynamic also is happening in other school boards as well. Inevitably what happens is that the most vulnerable students, the most vulnerable programs, are those that require the most intensive care and the greatest sensitivity and the greatest degree of expertise in helping youngsters to work through their program. This aspect is a great worry for many, many parents.
I was tempted to say that the prospect for Prospect school is not too bright. You're saying that it seems the existence of the school itself is perhaps in jeopardy. This is only round one. When you look to 1997-98, when the full brunt of money will be from operations -- this year much of that $400 million, $231 million of it, was made up on a freeze of capital, which mitigated somewhat the impact on direct school operations. You can imagine what it's going to do when that translates into $800 million and becomes totally operations. This will look like a very minor series of cuts. What's your reaction to that?
Mr Gary McMahon: I'm not a very good speaker. I don't do this often, but if I can say something, the only statistic I can recall right now is that one sixth of the population of the United States eats at McDonald's. That's the only stat I can come up with.
But to me, you're cutting the model. Prospect is the model of what education should be. It's a small school. All the kids have an identity. The kids who are better off mix it up with the kids who are from lower incomes. I always tell my kids, "Now, you make friends with somebody who has money."
In a large school, kids lose their identity and you don't get this mix of income. In the States they're finding these big schools are counterproductive; it's not good. There are some rough things happening in schools now in Vancouver and in any big city in the States. Violence is becoming a factor. My wife has seen drug deals going on close to Prospect.
But in a small community, small school, you know everybody. You know who the troublemakers are and you can better keep a handle on it. If you cut schools like this, you're going to leave a big hole in the neighbourhood, and it's not a good thing. We should be making smaller schools instead of larger schools.
Mr Gravelle: Indeed Prospect is a model school, and the important thing about having the parents' association here -- it happens to be the school in my neighbourhood where I live as well, and I was at the --
The Vice-Chair: Are you a grad?
Mr Gravelle: No, I'm not a grad. I wish I had been. It's a wonderful place. I was at the tea --
Mr Preston: If you'd stayed longer --
Mr Gravelle: I did graduate. I think it's important for people to realize, and the battle we're fighting in essence is to try and convince the members of the government that further cuts are going to be an even greater disaster when we think in terms of what it will mean if Prospect does close, in terms of the community involvement and the parent involvement. I know your involvement in the school is extraordinary and that you're committed to it. All the things that have been said, just now by Gary as well, in terms of being able to be on the spot and to be real partners in the education process, would be lost. I thank you.
Mr Wildman: I really appreciate your presentation. It's important that the committee hear from parents who have a direct interest in the education of their kids and in their community school. We've had a lot of presentations from boards and from federations and so on and not as many from parents, so I really appreciate the opportunity to hear you.
Could you give me an answer to two questions? The first is, has the board actively considered the closure of Prospect, because of budget cuts, because it's a small school?
Mrs Kyle: Prospect was looked at for closure in 1983. The principal at the time did some creative arrangements with the city to bring the city on to use of the property. At the time he recommended that the board in fact enhance Prospect because it's a strictly residential neighbourhood that will always have a student population. The board at the time didn't do it, for whatever reason. We've gotten unofficial word that they will look at Prospect next year for closure. That process takes a year, and we're just starting now.
Mr Wildman: I appreciate very much your comment that there are two issues here. There's what the board does and how you respond to that, and there's the funding from the province and how that affects the board's overall budget and so on. I'd like to deal with the second part now.
You've seen class sizes increase substantially, albeit from much lower levels to higher ones, and the effect that's having on integrated classes and special-needs kids, which you highlighted. If you have larger classes, what is the effect not so much on the special-needs kids -- some of whom, I'm afraid, as you pointed out, may be removed, but if they remain in the classroom, what is the effect on the other kids and their opportunities to interact with the special-needs children and their ability to get the kind of service and help they need from the teacher?
Ms Maguire: As to the effect on the children, I think it's good to have children integrated into programs, but if you put increased demands on the teachers, then the children without special needs are not going to get the same amount of attention and the quality of their education is going to change, definitely.
Mr Wildman: This morning the chair of the board, in answer to one question, said that most of the money spent by the board is spent in contracts, meaning teachers' salaries -- and we all recognize that's the case -- so if there are to be savings they are to be saved in terms of the contracts, either by lowering the salaries, I guess, or lowering the number of teachers. I suspect that's one reason you're getting higher class sizes, that there are fewer teachers. How does that affect this government's commitment that its cuts will not affect the classroom, that classroom education will be exempt?
Ms McCourt: As we said at the beginning, it's quite obvious that the classroom is not exempt, it can't be exempt. If we're making cuts to teachers, increasing class sizes and decreasing programs for children, the classroom is not exempt. We're taking that as a given.
Mr Skarica: Thank you very much for your presentation. I have a couple of questions to ask you.
I went over with representatives of the Lakehead Board of Education their financial documents and their budget. Last year, 1995, expenditures were $126 million, and this year they're reducing their total operating expenditures by $6.4 million, which exceeds the reduction by the province by $2.4 million. Our reduction was in the approximately $4-million range. Apparently they're going to decrease property taxes by almost 1%, and I guess that's how the other $2.4 million is being saved.
My first observation is that they have cut even more from their budget than what we've cut them. What troubles me about what you've told me -- I have to admit, I'm quite troubled by the fact that class sizes have increased from grades 3 to 8 by 41%, but I don't understand the mathematics; maybe this is the failure of the school system I went to. Basically $6.4 million is a 5% to 6% cut of $126 million. How does 5% translate into a 41% increase in class size? I don't understand how that works.
Ms McCourt: I'm sorry, I don't understand it either.
1550
Mr Skarica: No, seriously. How does that work?
Ms McCourt: I'm not being facetious.
Mr Skarica: Neither am I.
Ms McCourt: I know you're not. I went to our principal and asked her what our staffing situation was for next year, and this is what I've got; this is what the board has given her. I can only assume that cuts aren't being made in other areas and that there are bigger cuts being made here. Can anyone else help me on this?
Mr Jim Brown (Scarborough West): What's the class size now?
Ms McCourt: Right now at our school the average class size is 22. I have a kid in grade 3 and one in grade 8, and they're in classes of 21 each.
Mr Preston: What's the new one going to be?
Ms McCourt: The new one is going to be an average of 31.
Mr Skarica: If I could finish, another thing that troubles me is that $2 million, apparently, was spent this year for that retirement gratuity that goes to teachers; it's an average of $32,000 for every teacher who retires. Not a cent of that helps your children. For years, that board, along with all the others, knew they had these payouts, and the trustees apparently have done nothing. There's no reserve, so from now on for I don't know how long -- 20 years, Mrs McLeod said -- there's going to be $2 million or $3 million a year, unfunded, paid out. That affects your children. That disturbs me. How did that happen? Who's responsible for this? That's money coming out of your kids' education.
Ms McCourt: This group is not here today to discuss issues with our school board, so I think we have to set that aside. That's an issue for you and the school board and for us and the school board, but they're not here right now.
Mr Skarica: But that's reality. Basically, they're spending that $2 million.
Mr Jim Brown: What would happen if the school board allowed you to use the school and we gave $5,500 or $6,000 a student to you guys? Could you make it work?
Ms McCourt: A charter school or whatever it is? It goes by a lot of names.
Mr Jim Brown: Could you make it work?
Ms McCourt: A lot of us have talked about it.
Mr Jim Brown: Do you know where you'd save the money and achieve efficiencies?
Mrs Kyle: We haven't worked it out to that level.
Ms McCourt: We haven't struck a budget yet, no.
Mr Jim Brown: But you'd be interested in looking at it?
Ms McCourt: Yes.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much.
NIPIGON-RED ROCK BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Vice-Chair: Before closing, the chair of the Nipigon-Red Rock Board of Education is here. She's been here the whole day, and she wants to make a presentation. We have eight minutes left. I need unanimous consent. Is it agreed? Okay, ma'am, maybe you could identify yourself.
Mrs Betty Chambers: I am Betty Chambers. I am chair of the Nipigon-Red Rock Board of Education. I will take about two minutes of your time. The problem I have is with the process by which you people conduct yourselves, how this whole hearing was conducted. I am one chair of approximately 30 small boards in northern Ontario. I find myself totally alone here today, which came to me as a surprise. This whole thing came to me from the news media yesterday morning when I heard a news clip. When I phoned my director, he didn't know what I was talking about. In a democratic society and with the fact that we have link-ups with fax machines, this is an unforgivable situation. The whole of northwestern Ontario has not been heard at this hearing other than the two Lakehead boards. Those boards, to the small boards, are like the Lakehead board to the Toronto board. You have totally not heard the voice of the north, once again.
We sat with Mr Snobelen here a while ago as chairs of the northern boards and tried to express the uniqueness of northern Ontario. You people, whatever your process was, have blown it, because you did not hear. You do not bring people from Kenora or from Manitouwadge or Geraldton, with a day's notice, to a hearing. I have not come prepared with anything at all other than the fact that the Lakehead board and its presentation today does not represent the feelings of the small boards in northern Ontario. I thank you for giving me two minutes, and I hope you will take that back to whoever comes again to the north to hear us.
The Vice-Chair: We have two minutes per caucus, and Mr Preston wants to say something.
Mr Preston: Mr Patten and I discussed this very matter. I brought the matter up at one of our other meetings in another town. The process is flawed so terribly you would not believe it. But unfortunately what happens is that associations or agencies or what have you hear in Toronto that we're going to do this, probably before we do. Two of them made a fax blitz and said, "Bang," to every one of their affiliates, "this is happening." From the looks of some of the stuff here, they also faxed out the material, because we've heard the same thing over and over and over again. One lady followed us from town to town to town after she had given her presentation in Toronto and gave the same presentation over and over again in each town we were at. That precludes the people we should be speaking to: the parents. We had to fight to get a gentleman on yesterday who represented 30,000 parents, and we only got that on because one of the other guys split his time with him.
The system is flawed. I think this committee is going to look into -- other than what we're looking into here -- a way to change that, because special-interest groups are crowding you out. That's the bottom line.
The Vice-Chair: Any other comments, in 30 seconds, from the government side?
Mr Skarica: That pretty well summed it up.
Mr Patten: I appreciate your comments. We talked a little earlier, and I obviously agree. We had identified the problem a little earlier as well.
I would ask the committee to give some direction to the subcommittee to examine this in the interest of balance, in the interest of truly fair representation that affects all the stakeholders, not just the federations, not just the boards, but parent groups, and we haven't heard from students, for example, -- this kind of thing. If the committee will provide that direction that we address this, we'd be very happy to do so.
Mrs McLeod: I would just hope that as part of addressing it, the committee would invite at least written submissions from area boards that were not aware that the committee hearings were being held.
Mr Wildman: This may surprise Mr Preston, but I agree partially with what he said.
Mr Preston: I agreed with you twice last week.
Mr Wildman: I also agree with what Mrs McLeod has said. Obviously, all groups that were interested can make written submissions, but it is better to be able to give an oral presentation.
Having said that, I want everyone to be clear that the reason we only have four days outside of Toronto is because the government took the position that it wanted the legislation passed by the end of May, and that meant there was only one week available for hearings outside of Toronto. That meant only four communities for one day each. The House leaders agreed on that with the government House leader, and as a result, we have four days outside of Toronto for hearings. Even if what Mr Preston calls special-interest groups -- he means the federations and the board organizations -- hadn't faxed out to get their affiliates to get in line to make presentations in each of the communities, we still wouldn't have had time to hear properly all the interested groups.
Mr Preston: No, we would have heard 64 instead of 32.
Mr Wildman: I would hope in future, when we're going to see major changes in terms of $1 billion being taken out of education in one year in a piece of legislation like this, that we have adequate time for hearings, not four days, outside of Toronto.
Mr Preston: Mr Wildman, I was trying to do this in a non-partisan way so we could do it properly rather than fight about it.
Mrs Chambers: Just a final comment. The boards of the north have always been able to work very cooperatively and we could have made one terrific joint effort before you today. It's unfortunate, but now you will have to listen to us 23 or 25 times, because I'm going to go home and lobby every board to write to every one of you. The Vice-Chair: It's my understanding from the clerk that advertisements were placed in the centres we visited. I know that doesn't help you where you're from, obviously, and I think there's widespread recognition of all the members of this committee, in some of the private discussions as well, that there's something wrong with this process. Hopefully that will be improved in the future. I do appreciate your comments and I'm sure they will be taken to heart.
Mrs Chambers: Thank you very much.
The Vice-Chair: With that, these hearings are adjourned until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning in Sault Ste Marie.
The committee adjourned at 1559.