Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Would the Committee of Supply come to order, please. This section of the Committee of Supply has been dealing with the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. Would the minister's staff please enter the Chamber at this time.
We are on Resolution 16.1 Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $606,500 on page 33 of the Estimates book.
Would the minister care to introduce her staff present at this time?
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Yes, I would like to introduce the staff members who are with me at this time. I have John Carlyle, Deputy Minister of Education; Tom Thompson, Director of Finance and Administration; John Didyk, who is the Director of Planning and Policy Co-ordination; and Caroline Loeppky who is Assistant Deputy Minister of Schools Program Division. Those are the staff that are assembled here at this time.
Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to begin this section of the department by asking the minister about the pattern of the last few years, based upon the fourth quarter returns from the Department of Finance. I think in the last few years and certainly in the last year there has been a considerable variance in the spending of the Department of Education. For example, in 1995-96, there was a $7-million variance between what was estimated and what was actually spent. In 1994-95, it appears to be $10 million that the department underspent by. In 1993-94, $7 million is noted here as an underspending or a variance. In 1992, it seems to be $7.9 million; $2.1 million in '91-92. In 1991-92, there was a difference the other way, that there was a variance of $1 million over what was actually estimated.
I wonder if the minister could give me a sense of what the pattern is there and why that is happening, and then perhaps we could look at some of the individual years.
Mrs. McIntosh: With apologies, we just had a little trouble with the earphones. I think I have the gist of the question. If I have not, then I do have an earphone now, and we could maybe clarify if I am not giving the correct answer.
The member is referencing a time span and a variance that we would have to go back a few years to look at those figures. We are not aware of any particular trend. If there is a pattern, it is not a conscious pattern; it would just be the way figures fall. But we would have to go back to look into years past with figures we do not have here now. If we are talking about $5 million, I am not sure if I heard that figure correctly. In the whole scheme of the budget of a billion dollars, on a percentage basis, it is not that wide a variation with that large a number.
I do not know if I have caught the question correctly or not. Perhaps the member could let me know if I need to fill in more details.
Ms. Friesen: Well, maybe we should just look at last year's. That would be the simplest one, but what I wanted to indicate was that it was not the only one. I do not think there is a pattern of numbers, but there is a pattern of a variance of between $5 million and $10 million over the last number of years in the fourth quarter unaudited statement of expenditures, Province of Manitoba.
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For example, for the last year, what I am working from is page 6 of the Department of Finance's fourth quarter report, and what it says, as I understand it, is that the Department of Education underspent its budget by $7 million. There are other departments which have also underspent their budget, but, for example, Family Services, which might be the comparable one, the variance there is $2.3 million, and I think that same kind of difference is there in each of the other years.
For example, in the previous year, '94-95, the Department of Education and Training underspent its budget by $10 million, whereas Family Services underspent it by $1.9 million. In the year before, 1993-94, Education underspent its budget by 7.5, I believe--yes, 7.5 and Family Services, again, by 1.7.
So in the overall way in which departments are treating their budgets, Family Services is having a small variance. Education seems to me to be having a larger variance, and there are two levels which I am concerned about that. One is the actual budgeting process. We are in the Administration and Finance section here, so I would like to understand a bit more about the Administration and Finance process; and then, obviously, my second concern is at a time when most partners in education are very concerned about the amount of money they are getting, obviously, something like this where it looks as though the department is spending less money than even it had allocated. Those are reasons for concern.
Mrs. McIntosh: There is a two-part answer to the member's question. First of all, the enrollments for school divisions will affect the amount of money that flows because we flow on a per student basis. School divisions will submit their projected enrollments, and we will base preliminary budgetary decisions or allocations based upon what has been projected. There is a history of school divisions erring on the safe side by overprojecting their enrollment rather than underprojecting. So to ensure that they do not suffer any shortfalls, they will estimate on the high side as opposed to the low. So when the final figures come in, the enrollment figures will frequently be lower than anticipated; hence, that part then will not require the flowing of so many dollars.
The other variation that affects this particular issue is the number of people retiring. We will do a preliminary prediction for budgetary purposes on how many teachers we think will be retiring. It is not always the actual number that do retire so our TRAF, teachers' retirement fund, will swell or shrink depending upon the number that actually do take up the opportunity to retire. Those two projections will sometimes result then in an underspending, because we are not required to flow as much as we had originally thought. On a whole budgetary basis, again, it is considered to be a fairly normal variation. That particular amount is considered to be a fairly normal variation in any particular year.
We can take the issue as notice, and we can come back when we next come to this sitting with a more precise analysis and to go back and check some of those figures. But the general explanation that I have just provided is believed by staff and by myself to be accurate. The main variances are not generally in department operating budgets, but they are in TRAF and in grants to schools which, as I indicated at the beginning of my remarks, are based upon projections and estimates of the amount that we will need.
We do try to, as school divisions do, budget on the most expensive scenario so that we are not caught short, and then if the projections are slightly under that, then we have not run short of what we have allocated. So we can come back with more precise figures if the member would like, Mr. Chairman, with an analysis on that question.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, yes, I would like to see some detailed explanations of some of the examples, and I understand what the minister is saying, that it is, essentially, a very conservative small "c" approach to budgeting in Estimates. But I wonder why the difference. For example, in '91-92 and in '90-91, the variances--in one case it is above and in another case it is 2.1 million below--so it is a very different kind of ballpark than you are looking at when you are getting closer to the present day when it becomes $7 million, $10 million, $7 million. So, if the explanation is (a) behavioural that school divisions overestimate for all the right reasons and the department wants to overestimate for all the right reasons, then why has that changed over the period of the last five years? Then I guess the second part of that is, has there been a rapid increase in the retirement numbers of teachers or, I guess, the unpredictability of the retirement of teachers in those two groups of years before 1990 and after 1990?
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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I thank the member for her comments. The staff has just been advising me that they do not see any trend particularly, but they will definitely go back and look at those figures to pull out what the fluctuations were, that, in any given year, will have the fluctuations. It will be more in one year than another, over or under, depending upon the circumstances. We have people being eligible for retirement who sometimes will retire in greater numbers than we anticipated or not retire in the numbers that we did anticipate. While we are quite certain that the two major factors for the variances would be projected enrollments and projected retirements, there may as well be some other small factors in there--French immersion--I do not know, some of those grants that we will take a look at and provide information back to the member. We will try to bring that if we can for our next sitting or as soon thereafter as possible.
Ms. Friesen: I thank the minister for that. In looking at that, I am trying to understand the process by which the department reaches these Estimates, because presumably you would have a sense of the anticipated population of Manitoba. You would know from Statistics Canada. So these children are going to be in one school or another. They may not be in this division; they may not be in the public system. But do you actually, when you are budgeting--I guess what I am saying is, does the department when it budgets, does it work from Statistics Canada or the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics numbers on the basis of an anticipated cohort coming through, or does it base it simply on the estimates of each division which then may be altered, or is there a comparison between the two?
It seems to me that Manitoba, unlike British Columbia, say, or unlike Alberta or perhaps Newfoundland, has a very predictable population. We are relatively stable, some movement in, some movement out; it goes up and down according to various factors, but not a great deal. For the purposes of school population, I would have thought there would have been some stability there. So how are the numbers arrived at, and what is checked against what?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, there are a number of factors that are taken into consideration, and I will provide a response here but also indicate that, when we get under the Support to Schools section, I will have other staff here that we could provide more detail on that specifically. But I indicate, first of all, that our numbers are provided in draft budgets from school divisions. They would project numbers. We check those against our own numbers, and there are a number of things that will influence the amount of money that flows in terms of change. While it is true that we do not have very much of an outmigration in Manitoba, we do have a fairly stable population. We still will have some people transferring in and out, particularly with our military bases, and that is maybe not so evident with the removal of so many military jobs from Manitoba but was certainly evident in the early years referenced by the member, where you would have a similar number of families but perhaps different numbers of children moving in and out of the Air Command base, et cetera.
Also, within the province when students move from division to division, depending upon which division they are, the same student in Duck Mountain would see more money flow to that division because of that student's presence than if that student moved to another division that did not receive as much because of the funding formula. So as people move about within the province, they will attract more or less money than they might have in the previous division. We also have variations that will occur, because we have anticipated a certain number of students graduating. Some of those students may remain in school for an additional year or may leave school a year earlier than anticipated. So those kinds of things will also affect the projections versus the amount that is actually flowed in the final analysis.
But the bottom line in terms of figuring is that when we talk about $5 million, we are really talking about .5 percent of our budget, and a variance of .5 percent statistically is not that high a variation. While it is money that has been estimated as possibly being needed, a variation of that small size statistically does not really impact as a major change on the overall budget.
But, as I say, when we get to the Support to Schools line, we may have ability to provide more information than this that I have put to the member at the current time, and we can delve more deeply into it at that line if she would like to do that.
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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the minister is using the number five, and I think that was before the earphones got corrected. So, actually, the average or the most common number that shows is seven. Sometimes it is $7.9 million, so the percentage is a bit higher, I think.
There is one year where things are different, and that is 1994-95 and that is a $10-million variance, and it is about 10 percent of the budget, I think. It is a $10.17 million--[interjection] 1 percent, I am sorry. Yes, out of nine. The actual becomes $9.80 million in that case and the estimate was $9.90 million.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I will just say two things to the member. This is '94-95 and we can and we are quite willing to go and get the detail on that for her, but I also wish to stress that 1 percent variation on a budget is not an extreme variation, and I doubt that it has been more than 1 percent. If we look at the examination, we would see the variation being from zero to 1 percent of a total budget which, statistically, is well within the norm, a zero to 1 percent variation on any given budget projects. When you are dealing with uncertainties that cannot be absolutely verified until after the fact, I think, is not an unreasonable variation, but we will check into the '94-95 to get the specifics as to the details on that 1 percent overestimation and provide that detail to her.
Mr. Chairman, if I might just add that we have been talking here primarily about the K to Senior 4 side. Of course, the budget also takes into consideration the post-secondary side, and it could well be that in terms of probable or possible causes for any variation, that we did have a change, and we may have had less request for student financial assistance, so we would budget for the amount that we think students would be seeking and then find that it was not all sought.
So there are other possibilities such as that that could be impacting from the post-secondary side as well, but, as I say, we will consider all of those when we go back to the exploration and make certain that that information is made available to the member.
Ms. Friesen: Yes, and that is why I singled out this year and why I wanted to ask it here rather than entirely in School Programs, as the minister was suggesting, because I think that 1994-95 is when the student loan system changed, and it looks to me as though what that meant was if we take $7-million variance as the norm for whatever reasons, then that extra $3 million is the savings that was made by transferring the burden of student loans onto individuals and the transfer to the banks at the same time. That is what the minister is going to be looking at and seeing if that is the case?
Mrs. McIntosh: I apologize. I thought it was a comment, but the member has indicated it was a question. We will take a look at that. As I said, I started this off, assuming the member was interested or was talking about what might have happened to the K to S4.
The Student Financial Assistance, I would disagree with referring to it as savings or anything like that because these are demand-driven, and it would be based upon who applies, et cetera. As I say, we will get detail on that, but the Student Financial Assistance Program still provides assistance to students granted with different formula, et cetera, in terms of our dealings with the federal government but still to the same need that was there before, and if there were fewer students applying, then there would be less money handed out, but it would not be because there was a desire to hold back money to save it but rather that that money was not requested in the anticipated amount.
I do not know if that was what you were seeking in terms of your question or not.
Ms. Friesen: Well, I look forward to some more detailed analysis on that, on how those variance for the various reasons--and the minister has offered a lot of reasons--how they are arrived at, why there is a change after 1992 and what the anomaly is in '94-95 and the reasons for that.
Again, still under Administration and Finance, I wanted to ask the minister about the representation of the department in local, provincial, national, international education-related matters. I wanted to begin with the local and to ask the minister what parts of local policy matters is the department involved in, and I am thinking, obviously, of areas like the Youth Secretariat, the urban aboriginal strategy, particularly government functions, but if there are others that the department is involved in, I think we would be interested to hear about them.
Mrs. McIntosh: I do not have all the names of particular staff members, although the deputy is busy writing them down. I will read the groups or the committees or the secretariats, et cetera, that people are involved in and put as many names to them as possible for the member as I can.
We have committees initiated and led by staff from the department Education Information System Stakeholder Committee; Certificate Review Committee; Principals Advisory Committee; and the Psychologist Advisory Committee; Reading Advisory Committee; Social Work Advisory Committee; and the Collective Agreement Board.
We also have committees where staff from the department are members, and these are the ones where the initiative and the leading would come from elsewhere but staff from the department are members: the Ministers Advisory Committee on Education Finance; the FRAME committee; Certificate Review Committee; Principals Advisory Committee; Psychologist Advisory Committee; Reading Advisory Committee; Social Work Advisory Committee; Provincial Evaluations Committee; Board of Teacher Education Committee; the Collective Agreement Board; the Board of Education and Certification; Provincial Evaluations Committee.
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The Bureau de l'éducation française we have again initiated and led by staff in the department we have: Programmes technologiques au secondaire. We have the Recontre sur la réflexion sur l'enseignment de l'anglais dans les écoles franco-manitobaines. We have the Comité 4-5-6 programmation en français de base. Similarly 7 and 8, similarly Comité 7-8 mise-à-l'essai en Français de base, Comité S1 et S2 programmation en français de base. We have the Comité S3 et S4 programmation en Français de base. Consultation sur les résultats d'apprentissage, Normes provinciales de mathématiques de la 3 année, Normes provinciales de mathématiques de la 6 année, Comité de mathématiques Secondaire 1; Comité de comparaisons de documents du consortium de l'ouest et Manitoba, that is the western consortium and we are the province there so there is a lot of involvement on that one, Applied Math 20S, 30S, 40S, Pilot Project: Math 20S 30S, 40S, Vision de l'éducation scientifique, Comité de sciences de la nature 10G, Comité de sciences de la nature 20S, Comité de classes multiprogrammes, Examens de français, secondaire 4, FL1; School Library Committee (FL1 and FL2 - 1 school), Exam Committee Senior 4 - FL1 - Development, Exam Committee - Senior 4 - FL1 - Correction.
We have the Native Education Directorate, and, again, these are committees initiated and led by staff from the department: the Collection Development Committee, the Divisional Leadership Team, Education Indicators Project, Future Improvement of Native Education for Student Success Committee, Information Technology Renewal Project, Native Education Advisory Committee, Native Languages Project Committee, Race Relations Guidelines Committee, Reading Recovery Provincial Management Committee, School Plans Project Team, Special Education Review Committee, Selection Committee - Distance Education.
Then we have some committees under Native Education initiated and led by others but where staff from the department are members: Aboriginal Education Conference Committee, Aboriginal Educational & Institutional Diversity Committee at Red River Community College, Aboriginal Head Start, Aboriginal Teachers' Circle, Care and Protection of Children Committee, which is inter-governmental, Program for the Education of Native Teachers Advisory Committee at Brandon University, Students At Risk Project Team, Aboriginal Education Conference Committee, Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre, Aboriginal History Committee, Inter-Agency Working Group, Youth Correction Services, Interdepartment Task Force on Aboriginal Self Government.
Then we have committees where staff from the department have been invited to participate as associate members but not as full members, and so our staff members there are as observers more or less: Winnipeg Aboriginal Coalition - Observer Status, Adult Correctional Services, National Wild Life Week Working Group, St. James Aboriginal Awareness Committee.
In the Program Development Branch, we have the following committees initiated and led by staff from the department: Biology Curriculum Committee, Chemistry Curriculum Committee, Physics Curriculum Committee--these are all for 30S and 40S, those three; the K-12 Science Steering Committee; Science 20S Pilot Teachers Phase 2; Interdisciplinary Middle Years Multimedia Project Development Team, and similarly the Interdisciplinary Middle Years Multimedia Project Pilot Teachers; the Curriculum/Multimedia Integration Project Team; Science and Biology and Chemistry and Physics, 20S Science and 30S, for the other three Multimedia Pilot Projects; Mathematics Steering Committee; Senior 2 - Mathematics 20S, 30S and 40S Revision Committee; Senior 2 - Applied Mathematics 20S, 30S, 40S Curriculum Committee; the K-4 Mathematics Curriculum Implementation Document Team, and a similar team for 5-8; the Senior 1 Mathematics Curriculum Implementation Document Team; Senior 2 Mathematics Pilot Project; Applied Mathematics 20S Pilot Project; Grade 3 Mathematics Standards Project Team, and similar Mathematics Standards Project teams for Grades 6 and Senior 1; Social Studies Steering Committee; the English Language Arts Steering Committee; the Western English Language Arts Project Development Team. We have as well English Language Arts, five different committees, one being K-S4 Alignment Team, the other being Grade 3 Standards Team, the other being the 5-8 Alignment Team, an S1/ S2 Alignment Team, and an S1 Standards; Interorganizational Curriculum Advisory Committee; Handbook for Differentiating Instruction-I have to pause on that one because I want the record to show how delighted I am with the work that has come out of that one and how well received it has been by the field. I just think it has been an outstanding success, and I want to thank, on the record, everyone involved. Not taking away from the others, it is just so we have had so many compliments on that one, I need to single it out.
And Business Education Steering Committee, Development Teams for ISP/TMP, Race Relations Guidelines Committee, "A Thinking Framework" Project.
Again, where staff are members: Applied Technology 40G Curriculum Committee, Technology Education Steering Committee.
Again where staff has been invited to participate as associate members, there are the SAG groups where the staff have been invited to attend as observer-status type people. The SAG groups are from the Manitoba Teachers' Society: Manitoba School Library Association, Social Science Teachers' Association, Science Teachers Association of Manitoba, Association of Mathematics Teachers, Manitoba Reading Association, Manitoba Association of English Language Arts Consultants and Co-ordinators, Manitoba Association of Teachers of English, Reading Council of Greater Winnipeg.
Again on committees initiated and led by staff from the department, we have the Minister's Advisory Committee on Copyright, an important committee whose work I appreciate, the Provincial Co-ordination of Services Committee, Interdepartmental Committee reviewing Level III applications for EBD students.
Where staff are members: Manitoba Library Consortium, Health of Manitoba's Children Committee, School Library Administrators of Manitoba, Canadian Education Association/Miermedia Ltd. Canadian Education Index Advisory Board, Graduate Studies Committee at the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba.
Three committees with the Children and Youth Secretariat where staff are members is the High Risk Steering Committee, the Juvenile Prostitution Working Group, the Emotionally Behaviourally Disordered Working Group, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Co-ordinating Committee, Co-ordination of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services Advisory Committee, Autism Network Committee, Association d'Arthopedigogue Langue Franco-Manitobaine, Multi-age Committee, River East School Division No. 9 Advisory Committee for Technology Education and Transitions, Committee for Alcohol and Pregnancy which is interdepartmental, the Unified Referral Intake System Committee, Workplace Health and Safety Committee, Computers for Schools Committee, Community Needs Assessment Committee, Project Reference Collection, Mobile Resources Committee, Manitoba Association of Argument Alternative Communicators.
Again, a listing of those where the staff has been asked to participate as associate members or occasional guests, so they are not necessary at every meeting of these following, but they are there periodically: Reading Continuum Committee for French Immersion, Manitoba Association of Resource Teachers Professional Development Committee, Learning Disabilities Association of Manitoba - Transition to Adulthood, and Council for Exceptional Children.
With the Program Implementation Branch and the Regional Teams Unit, committees initiated and led by staff from the department include Divisional Committees for Middle Years Math Project, the Provincial Senior/Standards Committee in the process of developing an Implementation Committee in each School Division in the Region--the one in Morris MacDonald is already in place--Students at Risk Symposium Committee, Reading Recovery Management Committee--that has become extremely admired across the nation and we are fortunate to have Reading Recovery here as the western institute. That is going to take the country by storm, I predict, because it is attracting more and more attention. So I am very proud that we have that here--Provincial Advisory Committee on Child Abuse, Advisory Councils for School Leadership, Guidelines for School Plans, Future Improvement of Native Education for Student Success Project Committee--and there is another committee with a similar name to that without the project committee at the end of it--Math 5-8 Unit Building Project. There is a Strategic Planning for Curriculum Implementation with Souris Valley, Turtle Mountain, Antler River, Fort la Bosse School Divisions, Parkland Emotional Behavioural Disorder Committee and the Westman Emotional Behavioural Disorder Committee.
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Staff are also members on the South East/Interlake Child Abuse Committee, the South East Regional Inter Agency Committee, the Brighter Futures Community Action Program for Children, the Children and Youth Secretariat Adolescence and Pregnancy Steering Committee, Central Region Youth Services (CRYS) Committee, Leadership in Technology Committee, MacDonald Youth Services, Thompson Regional Mental Health Committee, the Special Needs Committee in Mystery Lake School Division, Thompson Speech Language Intervention Consortium, Student Services Administrators Association of Manitoba (Metro), Aboriginal Head Start Provincial Advisory Committee, English Language Enrichment for Native Students called ELENS in the Winnipeg School Division No. 1, (Advisory Committee), Partners in Change Conference Planning Committee, Parkland Education Council, Western Region Inservice Education Committee, Parkland Administrators Leadership Project, International Hutterian Conference Planning Committee, South Central Technology Committee, the Interdepartmental Committee for Emotionally Behaviourally Disordered Students.
Again, where we have been asked to participate either as observer members, associate members or occasional guests, the Boreal Distance Education and Technology Consortium, the Precambrian Distance Education and Technology Consortium, Student Services Administrators Association of Manitoba, Special Needs Advisory Committee for Frontier School Division, Education Renewal Committee, Niji Mahakwa and Children of the Earth School, Parkland/Westman Student Services Administrators Association of Manitoba, Western Manitoba Superintendents Association, Parkland Superintendent Group, Brandon University Senate, Encounters with Canada, Community Legal Education Association and the South Central Superintendent Group.
We have also at the Canadian level the Canadian Education Statistics Council, the western protocol steering committee, the Pan-Canadian Science development, the Reading Recovery board.
Internationally staff sit on the OECD education statistics project and Students At Risk. Two new committees are being established as well, provincially led by staff, education indicators and planning co-ordination. As I say, I do not have all the names of all of the people filling those positions here, because some of those names will change periodically from time to time, but they are available if need be. I think the important thing is that we do have staff on those. Some of them I could fill in names for but not all of them, because there is quite a lengthy list.
The staff from the department gather a tremendous amount of information that informs policy and know first-hand about the field issues because they are in the field on so many of these things. I think the staff shows leadership in assisting the field and helping the field grow and learn as they grow and learn themselves as members of these various entities around the province. These, of course, are all in addition to their regular full-time duties as departmental staff.
Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask the minister a number of questions coming from that. The minister wanted to talk I think a little more about, and I am not sure I caught the title of it, one that she wanted to particularly praise, the International Education Committee--did I get the title right? [interjection] No, it was before that.
The minister paused in her discussion of the list of committees to speak of, it was the first one that she singled out, and, that was, I think--
Mrs. McIntosh: Excuse me. Would it have been the Handbook for Differentiating Instruction? I singled out two: The Handbook for Differentiating Instruction and the Reading Recovery Program. Did I single out another? Reading Recovery is an international program.
Ms. Friesen: Partly the problem is not having heard it properly. It came after the five committees in English Language Arts and before the Business Education Steering Committee, somewhere in there. It probably would take a while to figure it out, and maybe we better--
Mrs. McIntosh: I can see the five English Language Arts things here, and if the chairman will forgive us for sort of chitchatting back across the floor, you said it was before the English Language Arts ones.
Ms. Friesen: No, after the English Language Arts, and then there may be a gap in my notes, but then the one that you wanted to talk about and then the Business Education Steering Committee.
Mrs. McIntosh: Well, I will read them again to you. There are five English Language Arts, then there was the Interorganizational Curriculum Advisory Committee, then the Handbook for Differentiating Instruction which I singled out, and then the Business Education Steering Committee.
Ms. Friesen: It must have been the handbook, and I did not catch that. I got something quite different in my notes, and since Hansard takes a while for these, I wanted to check on it.
The handbook for differentiated learning, then, is the one that has already been distributed to schools, the one that we have seen in a gray cover in a series of things dealing with modified programs.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, that is correct, Mr. Chairman.
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Ms. Friesen: I wonder if the minister would like to take a few more minutes to tell us about that. Is it the first in the country? Is there some particular reason that the department has special pride in that?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to give just a few highlights here. When we get to Program Implementation, we would have more information to go into deeper detail if the member wishes, but just to give a quick response outside of that particular Program Implementation area, the differentiated learning handbook that is now in the possession of all teachers in Manitoba.
The concept of differentiated learning and differentiated teaching, rather, is not new, but the guide that the department prepared we believe to be the most comprehensive of its kind in Canada at this point. We had prepared it to assist teachers with differentiated teaching, because we are moving on the premise as Education always has, but we are emphasizing every child has the ability to learn, and that there will be standards we wish every child to meet. They need to reach those standards. So you will need to employ different methods for different children to enable them to reach one size does not fit all in terms of teaching. You do need to have a variation in your methodology to help them reach their own potential in their own way.
While many teachers have done this automatically, just instinctively tailoring their methods of teaching to suit the learner, this is a very clear and precise way of teaching teachers how to teach to suit the learner. Because we are saying now that we will not be sort of dummying down standards, so to speak, to accommodate students, we will rather bring the student up to the standard. Rather than lower the standard to the student, bring the student to the standard, then differentiated teaching becomes very critical to the whole learning process. The staff, who worked very hard and put together this particular handbook, originally sent out a few copies to each school with the expectation that it might be of some assistance. The response was immediate, dramatic and overwhelming in that everywhere we went, every school we visited for a period of time, we were going into the schools and hearing we absolutely love this particular handbook; please, can we get more copies.
So eventually they ran off a copy for every teacher in Manitoba, and each teacher now, 16,000 of them, do now have a copy of this handbook. We are hearing back from them that it is so clear and it is so helpful. Now we are starting to get requests as well from others. So it has been something that has proved to really help in the way the department had hoped it would help, and the impact then we will eventually see with the children. We can, as I say, get into more detail in the Program Implementation part. Because of the positive response to this booklet and also because it was part of the department's original thrust, certainly more knowing that the field wants it so much, the department has dedicated extra effort. So they have dedicated a staff year to the implementation as well as operating, and numerous training sessions have now occurred and will continue over the next year on the whole process of differentiated instruction in Manitoba.
The booklet is actually called Success for All Learners: A Handbook for Differentiating Instruction. As I say, it is a critical component of effective programming for all students, but it is particularly critical for students with diverse needs, including special needs, including gifted and at-risk students, and for struggling learners. The differentiating instruction consultant is planning numerous professional development activities in regions across the province to support the implementation of differentiating instruction. A co-ordinator of Provincial Specialists Unit has met with representatives of the Learning Disabilities Association of Manitoba who have expressed strong support for the effectiveness of differentiating instruction for students with learning disabilities.
We have heard this from parents as well. Some parent councils have received the handbook, gone through it, and contacted us, letting us know that this is the answer that some of them were seeking to some of their questions on, helping their students, again especially those struggling learners, learn without having to be the same as somebody else or having to be taught the same as somebody else. As I say, there are many instructors and teachers who have already been teaching that way, but this gives a consistent framework so that they can all have access to that method of teaching.
We have shared this with other provinces. We have got some copyright clearance issues that others outside of our province will be clearing in order to use the handbook. We have also received congratulations. As I mentioned, we have strong support from the Learning Disabilities Association of Manitoba, but also from the Council for Exceptional Children who feel very much this is a key element that has not been so expressly designated and encouraged in the history of Education in Manitoba, and they feel this will be of tremendous help for their children with exceptional needs.
So what started off here as meant to be some help to teachers has steamrolled into a fairly significant undertaking and I think a significant shift in direction and great comfort for some in the field who had not necessarily had exposure to this in this detail. Elementary school teachers, I think, have an instinct for this and some secondary teachers. The secondary teachers in many instances have, over time, opted for more of the university model of presenting lecture-type classes, so have fallen out of the habit, if it was there, when they entered the high school stream of differentiated instruction. This has been a godsend for them in picking up some of these skills and aptitudes which are easily acquired but, in some instances, need to be clarified for people.
So the way in which this guide was developed was done with such good language and with such clarity that I am particularly proud of the people who put it together and extremely grateful for the positive impact it is having in the field.
Ms. Friesen: I have a number of follow-up questions on that, and what I will do is list them and then the minister could come back with a general answer on it. I wonder if the minister could tell us how it was put together. For example, was it done with a contract, was it done by regular staff, was it put together with the people who are, as the minister says, supporting it, The Council for Exceptional Children, Learning Disabilities Association, et cetera? So I am interested in one group of questions on how such a book was put together.
Secondly, I would be interested in how it is being linked to teacher training. The issue here, at the moment, the minister seems to be suggesting that the thrust is in professional development and possibly a secondary thrust with families and parent councils. How does it make the link to professional development and the teachers of the future? I do not mean just the booklet, but I mean the whole issue surrounding it which this seems to lead to.
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I am interested in the implementation in the staff year. Which part of the department is that in, and what kind of seminars are anticipated this year, although that is possible we could ask that in another area if the minister would tell me which section of the department?
I am interested in the copyright issues and the other provinces and how this fits, for example, into the western consortium. The minister mentioned other provinces, not necessarily western ones. I am also interested in the way in which this links to other curriculum issues. The minister has a number of, well, many, many committees dealing with curriculum. How does this particular educational thrust, how does this particular booklet, link to those? Again, we are in the broader context of finance and administration in the department.
(Mrs. Shirley Render, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)
Mrs. McIntosh: Madam Chairman, this is a big-picture question, and the questions the member asks are important ones. I will give what I can here. As I say, this does actually come up under 16.2.(f), but, as I indicated earlier, under the Program Implementation. However, I can give you as much detail here as I can, and if we wish to delve into it more when we get to 16.2.(f), I would be delighted to do that.
Amongst the questions who developed it, this was developed by a project team in the department, and the lead person was Betty Mueller who was seconded from Pembina Valley School Division, an educator. She was seconded to work on that project team as the lead person. We then had an editor contracted to finalize the project once the ideas and so on were all fleshed out and developed. The development itself was done by the project team with input from the field. We piloted various components of the project with teachers in the classrooms especially at the high school level, so we had the input from the field in a live setting, so to speak, being piloted in the classrooms as the project went ahead.
In terms of linking it to curriculum, it is an integral part, one of the essential elements in curriculum, and you will see as you examine new curricula that we will talk about differentiated learning. It is integrated and threaded throughout curriculum. There will be examples given as you go through a new curriculum saying, you know, differentiated learning in this aspect shall be used here, and then there will be examples given as to how that can be done right in the teachers' manuals. So we say it is an integratable, that we identified it in A Foundation for Excellence. We have several things that we want to permeate learning, and differentiating instruction is one of them, along with certain other things, aboriginal perspectives, et cetera. So it is an integratable that we say must permeate all teaching and learning.
Each of our curriculum implementation support documents contains instructional recommendations that would encompass differentiated instrumental strategies. All of our curriculum documents also present different ways of assessing student growth which is another example of differentiation.
You asked how it was linked to teacher education, and we have been in communication with the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. We have talked to them about the work being done at the Faculties of Education, University of Manitoba being the one I am referencing at this point, but in all our teacher-training institutions, we will be looking at a number of items that relate to quality. We will be looking at, as we have with other issues through the Board of Teacher Education and Certification, BOTEC, and others in terms of the number of credit hours, the quality and quantity and locations and sites, et cetera, for teacher training, the amount of time spent on practicum and all of those items.
We have talked about differentiated instruction and learning and the various ways in which it can be threaded through the experience at the Faculties of Education. As I say, it is not a new concept, but it is not one that has been emphasized quite the way we are emphasizing it, and it has not been the same need to look at what is essentially developing an individualized education plan for every child. That may be an extreme way to put it, but that is the type of methodology that we are seeking.
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It is demanding for teachers, it is challenging, but it is also tremendously exciting because it means that every child, particularly our struggling learners, will have a chance to meet a standard because they are being taught in ways to which they can respond, and they are being taught in ways that they can understand rather than being in a lecture-listener type situation and a regurgitation-type situation. As I say, not taking anything away from high school teachers because they are dealing with a more mature student, but elementary school teachers have a better feel for this type of thing because they have had more exposure to it.
Now, I am not sure--I think you had asked something else--how did it fit with the curriculum? I think I have answered that.
Ms. Friesen: Yes, I had also asked about the staff year and implementation and you had answered that at the beginning.
Mrs. McIntosh: I have neglected to indicate the response to the question about--well, no, I guess I did answer it--how many other groups were involved, like Council for Exceptional Children, et cetera. Basically it was piloted in classrooms. The input that we received was a summation of all that we have heard in so many different presentations over time, not direct necessarily but, for example, I will meet with the Council for Exceptional Children on a regular basis, say once a year.
With many of these groups we have an annual meeting or periodic get-togethers just to touch base and talk. Of course, we have staff people involved on many of these committees as I indicated in reading the list of committees that we belong to.
So from all of those things we have learned from them over the course of time, this was developed, piloted in classrooms with practising teachers, and then presented them more or less as a final project, but obviously it has met with their high approval. So we have captured what we have learned over time from them in the development.
Ms. Friesen: Again, two or three questions and if the minister could perhaps answer them all together. I am interested in how--and again we are still in this 1.(b) where we are looking at Administration and Finance--that is communicated to the teacher education facilities. The minister said we had conversations and we talked to them, we can work through BOTEC and the issues are credit hours, practicum, et cetera. It would seem to me that that is kind of skimming the surface, that there must be more to it than that. So I am interested in the administrative process of how that happens.
The second thing I would like to know is how long this took. This is something which the department is very proud of. Can the minister give us an idea of how long it took from the idea, or at least the priority emerging from New Directions to the actual, I guess, beginning of the implementation stage?
And finally, a content question I guess. I wondered if the minister is moving in this area to individualized plans for each child. She mentioned it as a possibility but as an extreme possibility, and yet it is the root that many countries, states have gone, is that children with particular kinds of--and I think they tend to do it with disabilities rather than with so-called gifted children--that they do require, sometimes in legislation, an individualized plan for each child. Is that the direction that this might lead?
Mrs. McIntosh: The member had three questions, and she asked how long it took to develop the handbook. Our estimate would be about a year and a half. That year and a half would be from the beginning of the process to the initiation of--from the decision that we should really put together a handbook to help the field with this issue to the handbook actually being in their hands was about a year and a half. There is still follow-up going on, of course, with that because we are now following up with workshops, et cetera, and with going out into the field consulting with them on the work that is in the handbook to make sure that they are learning from it as we had hoped and as they indicate they are.
You asked about the Faculty of Education. I say, first of all, just for clarification that which the member knows and I know, but we just put it for the record that, of course, there is autonomy at the university. So we do not control it in the sense that I as minister would control the department so to speak; however, we do have responsibility in the K to S courses for ensuring that teachers come out well trained for the field. So we have a number of things happening right now simultaneously.
First of all, going back over some time, the deputy minister at the request of the minister has communication with the deans of faculties formally and informally. Formally, for example, through BOTEC, the Board of Teacher Education and Certification. They all sit as members and they will discuss a variety of issues there, and I will come back to that in a minute. Informally, the deputy, for example, when we bring out a document such as New Directions or Path to Excellence, and we characterize what we feel we need in the schools: What are the characteristics of a good teacher, for example; what are the characteristics of an effective classroom; what are our expectations for standards for outcomes; how is our new curricula going to alter the way in which learning occurs. Those will all be shared. The deputy, for example, will visit with the dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba, and say here is information on our new curricula, our assessments, the fact that we have adults in the schools now, the needs we have for using technology as a tool for instruction, and these are things that we are now expecting in the classroom.
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There is music floating down from somewhere. Is it just us? Heavenly choirs?
But these are expectations for the classroom. Your teachers will be entering classrooms that have those expectations in them, and then, through BOTEC and other vehicles, arrangements will be made to bring the faculty along.
Now, in some cases it will happen that, and we are probably in that kind of period right now, where a new curriculum has been developed, assessment tools, et cetera, are coming in, differentiated learning, very much a part of the new curricula shared with the faculty, and then they take care that their program reflects what the needs are going to be once their students graduate.
There are a lot of key players in moving to these changes at the Faculty of Education. There have always been changes that have occurred over time, but we are in an era of fairly hefty changes in terms of things that are happening in the classroom. So there are other key players that will be needed to help us and that are prepared and have offered to assist us with renewal of education at the Faculty of Education.
The Manitoba Teachers' Society, for example, has a great interest in the topic and obviously a great deal of expertise in what is happening in classrooms right now, because they are the people who are in the classrooms right now. So they will have first-hand exposure to any gaps that might be there between what is being taught at the faculty and what is being expected in the classroom because of New Directions.
So all of those people, some are already helping us, some we have just recently invited to help us, and some, more arm's length but, again, having sort of an indirect impact, will be the reports from people such as Dr. Shapiro, et cetera. His report has been distributed widely so that most people that we would contact to gain assistance here are familiar with what he has recommended because it is a high interest of theirs.
So basically right now it is the informal communications from the deputy to the deans and the more formal communications through groups such as BOTEC, et cetera, and the documentation, the documents that have been created that are shared back and forth.
You talked about individualized education plans, and new curriculum documents do a lot of talking about differentiated instruction, as I said. We are moving towards not seeing students so much as groups but as individuals, and that of course, as I say, has been done. I am not saying that is new or unusual. It is just getting a stronger emphasis.
(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)
I do not think at this point that we will be seeing individualized instruction plans for every student, although that would be a wonderful ideal, but it is quite possible in terms of utilizing the techniques of differentiated instruction to recognize that you may have small groupings you can pull together to instruct. In many cases it may be that teachers would put together a plan for particular students or plans for particular types of students so that you know you have a student with a particular disorder and you know that a certain type of technique has worked with students with that type of disorder. You would then be able to utilize that same technique with several students, still meeting the student's individual need because it is similar to another student's.
I think that would allow teachers in a classroom to be able to target their students' needs more appropriately, more efficiently, and then once they have success, success builds upon itself, as you know. Children can then benefit to a greater degree because we have got that diversity of instruction.
It does not necessarily mean however that there would be each child being taught individually or each child being taught differently but, rather, there would just be a lot more strategy and more strategies available for learning than are currently utilized in the classroom now. The topic of differentiated instruction can take a lot of research, a lot of time. The handbook that we gave teachers gives them a solid handle on a short-term basis to implement the blueprint so that they themselves do not have to do the research; and the time, it has been done for them so that they can very quickly pick up a guide that will lead them through what to do, a how-to booklet that capsulizes things in a very clear and explicit way.
BOTEC, I made reference earlier to changes at the faculty, and I apologize if I am sort of skipping back and forth a bit here, and those kinds of groups, they will refine and they will explore those kinds of concepts further so that the faculty teachers will ultimately be exposed to some of that research and have more time to delve into the topic which will be a more in-depth presentation than the handbook, which is a here-is-how-you-do-it. We would hope that once the full renewal is completed at the university that the research and the understandings behind it would be well taught in depth as well.
Again, there are many, many teachers who already do know these things. I am not taking that away. It is just it was inconsistent before.
BOTEC will also provide recommendations to the minister on this issue, on other issues from the point of view of what is required at the faculties to provide the type of teacher for today and tomorrow that we are going to need. I think it is probably obvious to the member, but again just for the record, you are looking at students that fall within a normal range of activity and a normal range of performance, plus those that fall outside it in terms of special needs, both at one end of the spectrum and at the other, like the gifted and the strugglers. We have taken to saying struggling learners, informally, and I rather like the phrase because it sort of gives everybody a chance that they are learners and they are struggling for some reason, but they are all learners and they are all learning. You can struggle and achieve your goal.
In many aspects, some of our gifted students are also struggling, as they learn, with a whole host of things that have nothing to do with their ability to acquire knowledge, but have a lot to do with some of the psychological problems some of those kids face. Because they can move along so much faster at a pace that is not like the norm, it makes them stand out, which they often do not wish to be doing--multicultural needs, learning styles. Sometimes students have--and this is I think something that is helpful for teachers. If you talk about learning styles, you know, some people are visual learners. I always have to write everything down; some people have to hear it. If I write it down, somehow it seems to stick in my brain; if I do not, it slips away.
An Honourable Member: I know the feeling.
Mrs. McIntosh: You know the feeling, right. Some people have to hear it, they have to have it repeated, so they are auditory learners. So it is nothing to do with their ability or their intelligence, it is just their style and their way of learning. Differentiating instruction will also address those types of things.
I think I have answered as best I can. Again, I say, when we get to that 16.2.(f), we can hit that line with a little harder impact should the member wish, but those are sort of capsule responses to those three questions that she asked in her last grouping.
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Ms. Friesen: We began with a list of the committees that the department is involved with, and I think it would be actually very interesting to see that in print, because it is not a different take on the department, but it is I think an indication of things that you do not get from announcements of staff years and particular position locations. So it is an interesting view of the department.
I wanted to ask the minister about a couple of the committees and, again, in the context of Administration and Finance, and I know that we will be coming to particular levels of that, but the ministerial advisory--[interjection] Do you want to table it?
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, I will just table the committees there so that the member does not have to write big long lists there. That may help the Hansard staff a bit, too.
Ms. Friesen: Yes, I think that would be very helpful and probably helpful for Hansard, too, because some of it went quite quickly.
I wanted to ask the minister about the Ministers Advisory Committee on Copyright, and I know that the minister has been dealing with this in legislative terms within the province, and that is something obviously we will discuss in the context of bills and committees on bills. I am interested in whether or not that committee looked at the federal legislation. Again, this is a section of the department that looks at national education related matters and there has been some very, I do not know what to call it, but certainly divisive, I would say, very divisive issues around copyright in the last moments of the last federal government. I wondered if the department had made any representations on that? Had it received representations from people within the province, and does--well, maybe we will stop there.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, we did take a look at the federal legislation, and we submitted a mailed-in written submission at the time. I do not have specific details here. Again, that is the 16.2(f) thing, but that committee on copyright did, indeed, explore all of the virtues and pitfalls of federal legislation in this area, and we did send, over my signature, to the feds to see if we could effect change there. I do not have that here.
Ms. Friesen: The minister said that that could be dealt with in detail in 16.2.(f) under School Programs. That committee then was staffed by people from School Programs.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, that is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Friesen: Is the submission that the government made public, was it made in a public sense and, if not, can it be tabled?
Mrs. McIntosh: The presentation was a written submission. I do not see any reason we could not provide it to you. We do not have it with us, but we can look it up, obtain it, and bring it. It was given to a federal committee with the federal government. So it is not something that is being held in confidence or anything like that. So we will peruse our files, as they say, and provide it to you. It is a written submission over my signature. It was not done in an in-person presentation, so we should have a pretty accurate transcript of it since it was done in writing.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, does the minister have a general take on that federal legislation at the moment? Did Manitoba offer a position? Were we offering just comment? Were we offering some discussion of how it would impact on our colleges, universities, high schools, et cetera?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the staff member that assisted on this is not at the table but easily accessible, and if the member wanted to give us a little bit of time we could probably get the information back to her before we finish today. We just need to send a note out and get it brought forward. So if the member is willing, and we could hold the response to that until we get our staff person to bring that forward, we could give her then a better answer. As soon as it comes in, if she is willing, I will interrupt and just present it at that time.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, that would be fine.
I wanted to ask the minister in this section about--and really this is how we got onto this--was local participation. I am interested in the government's urban aboriginal strategy and the department's participation in that. This is one of the departments of government which has had a long-standing connection with aboriginal issues and not only that, but aboriginal issues in the city. I did not hear in the minister's list a connection with that urban aboriginal strategy. There is a committee which is going out now to meetings to hear things. Is the department involved in that? Will the department be involved at a later stage? How is the government drawing on the expertise and the linkages which have been there in education?
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Mrs. McIntosh: On that particular committee, I am the member, so that the minister is the member, but we also have--I say the minister is the member. I am not the only member on that committee. There is representation from the department. Doris Mae Oulton was at our initial meeting, as well as Juliette Sabot. Now, I may not be sure which ones were visiting guests that day and which ones were full members, but Juliette Sabot, Doris Mae Oulton. John Carlyle, the deputy, has spoken with the group or has been invited to speak with the group, pardon me.
As well, I have a staffperson whose name, forgive me, I simply cannot recall at the moment. She is a young staffperson who is working on sustainable development in the department, who is doing some graduate work in sustainable development, who is also part of that committee, but she is on it via the auspices of the Department of Education. She is not a full-time employee, but she is associated with us. She is doing her doctoral thesis on sustainable development and is working to help us integrate sustainable development as one of the integratables in our curricula and is on this urban aboriginal committee. We have so many different names I probably do not have the name correct, but she is there, as well, because sustainable development is very much a part of what we are doing on that committee.
So we have involvement there at the ministerial level, and it was felt with that one, that because of its significance, its overall look at urban aboriginals and a strategy for them, that we have several ministers involved and the Minister of Northern and Native Affairs (Mr. Newman) being an integral lead minister in that capacity.
There was another part to your question which I have forgotten. I wrote down the first question. I was trying to think of names, so I was writing names instead of the question.
Ms. Friesen: No, I think that covers the gist of it. I was interested in--it was really that I was adding a number of reasons for involvement of the department in this, that it is one of the departments with the longest-standing connections with aboriginal people, as well as with urban aboriginal people.
In the press releases on the urban aboriginal strategy and in the press releases which talk about the locations for meetings and with the people who are on the committee, not just from the provincial government but from elsewhere, I could not see the link to education. It did not seem mentioned; it was not clear. Sustainable development was there, and, obviously, there is an educational component of that, but I could not see that next step either at the K to 12 level or at the post-secondary level.
So that is really what I was looking for some clarification on. The minister's indication that this is being dealt with at the ministerial level is helpful. Is there anything else that perhaps we should know on the departmental involvement?
Mrs. McIntosh: Just that the deputy has given a presentation to them, Deputy Minister Carlyle, K to S4, and also I understand that there are subgroups being formed with that particular initiative.
We have a number of things going on in the department with respect to aboriginal perspectives and aboriginal learnings and awarenesses, and I think we have mentioned it before, and that is that we want aboriginal perspectives taught not just to aboriginal students but to nonaboriginal students as well, as part of a whole learning experience for cross-cultural awareness and understandings.
So we have several things that I am very impressed with, with Juliette Sabot from our department, whose expertise in this area seems to grow more steadily all the time. She is now being called upon for a lot of help from other areas as well, and she has been working quite closely in recent months with the Department of Native and Northern Affairs, Minister Newman's area.
They always have had the connection of course, but the ongoing contacts are more frequent as of late as we try to co-ordinate a lot of our activities so that we do not have--like we have the Family Services, we have Education, we have Justice, we have Native and Northern Affairs. So many of those departments will impact with aboriginal needs. Health as well, there are some high health needs associated, specifically with aboriginal health problems.
Diabetes, as the member is aware, has become a real enemy of the aboriginal people, and there are a number of things that we need to do in education that are good for all students to learn in terms of diet and lifestyle and so on in terms of the prevention of diabetes. Those are good for all students to learn, but since it has become so severe a problem in the aboriginal population it is particularly important that aboriginal students learn that.
I think you are probably aware last year some of the schools had the great bannock bakeoff--I do not know if you were there; I think you were--where they did a whole huge map of Manitoba made completely of bannock, but the recipe that they used, and all of the recipes they had for the foods that were prepared that day were made from ingredients that were good for people who were at risk for diabetes. So they were able to prepare traditional recipes and traditional foods, but all with the proper recipes and ingredients that would lead to healthier lives for them.
Well, those kinds of things crossed several areas for students: Health, Education. It still had the cultural component because the foods were foods that were typically used in aboriginal cultures.
(Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)
I am also trying very hard to seek out literature--this is a little off topic but sort of related. I had the opportunity to attend a book opening not long ago with Don Philpot. He is a teacher, and he had written a book called The Moons of Goose Island, so I will give his book a little plug because it is a wonderful book. He has taught up north for quite some time, and what he did was he wrote this beautiful story about a little boy whose mother had died.
The whole story was about how this child coped with the grief of losing a mother. Nowhere in the book did they say this is an aboriginal child or this child is using aboriginal spiritual strength sources to sustain him through the period of grief, but all the illustrations, it clearly was an aboriginal child. Clearly the spiritual dimension was of aboriginal, cultural, religious background beliefs, but basically it was a story about a little boy coming to cope with grief. But because it was done as beautifully as it was, it is a wonderful story for any child.
Placed in a school library in the inner city of Winnipeg where we have a lot of urban aboriginal students, they would pull out a book that deals with this story that identifies, without making a special point of identifying, that that child looks like him or her, and the beliefs and values that are in there reflect his or hers, but it is a beautiful story for anybody.
That we need more literature like that is my point, and we are trying to seek out that kind of literature. There is not a lot of it, but there are some really good examples abounding, and that book by Don Philpot is one of them.
So, when we look at what we are doing in aboriginal education and urban aboriginal students' needs, we are also looking for textual material that will be suitable for all students, that will make the aboriginal student feel more included and more part of the mainstream without singling him out. That is just a little tangent off to the side for which I apologize, but I just think it sort of reflects the kind of direction in which we wish to go, and we are not there yet, but we are trying to get there.
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My deputy has just handed to me just a couple of others that will not take long to go through, but in terms of the inclusion and integration that I keep talking about as opposed to taking kids out and saying, okay, today it is three o'clock on such and such a day and we are now going to have our aboriginal education piece, so this should just be sort of through it. Aboriginal perspectives are being integrated in all core subjects as mandatory learning for all Manitoba students.
An aboriginal education curriculum steering committee has been established to oversee this development into the curriculum and, more than that, the curriculum framework for aboriginal languages is being done with the Western Protocol. We have our Western Protocol partners involved in developing that for a framework for aboriginal languages, and we hope to have an annotated bibliography of Manitoba-based ancestral language resources printed and distributed sometime fairly soon in the next few months.
We are partnering with the University of Manitoba and the Winnipeg School Division No. 1 with the teachers from the Winnipeg School Division No. 1 to hold a summer institute on native education. We are also partnering as a department, that is, with the Aboriginal Teachers' Circle, R.B. Russell Vocational School and the Manitoba association for multicultural education to hold an aboriginal education conference right about now. Do we have a date? We do not have the specific date, but that is coming up soon as well.
So we are putting in addition to that, because we know that we have some students at risk, we are giving $4 million, a little bit over that, for English language enrichment for native students. These would be from our Students at Risk funding, which is available to all school divisions, but it is mostly concentrated in areas like Winnipeg School Division No. 1, Frontier School Division, and divisions such as those where there are high numbers of aboriginal students registered. So that is just a little additional piece of information that might be of interest to the member.
Ms. Friesen: The minister had also mentioned participation in the interdepartmental committee on native self-government--if we could get some information on that, what the mandate of that committee is, how long it has been in existence and what the departmental participation is.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, that is the interdepartmental group on aboriginal self-government. The lead minister for that would be the Minister of Native and Northern Affairs, Mr. David Newman. We do have our staffperson, Juliette Sabot, who really has become our expert in this area and works with a wide variety of groups now on Native Affairs; she is on that committee. That task force committee--I am not sure of the official name--they will be working, and I think they have already begun to work, with aboriginal leaders in terms of talking about aboriginal self-government, how it will come about, what it will look like, and what our role will be then in relationship to the aboriginal people in Manitoba.
There are a variety of groupings within the aboriginal community, as the member knows, and they will each be impacted in differing ways. So as they go through their work, we cannot predict at this point what their end model will look like, but we know it is very important that we maintain good communications with the aboriginal people as they move towards self-government so that we have smooth transitions and that we have harmonious relations as the way in which governance occurs changes.
I know that we probably could get a lot more information from Native and Northern Affairs, or when we get into this area in terms of our own directorate here in Education. We have Juliette actually here to provide a lot of this information.
We know we have to work in close partnership with First Nations representatives. We are pleased that we do seem to have dialogue beginning, and that it is a very positive kind of dialogue in its initial stages with certain aboriginal leaders in the province, and for us there will be some initiatives and perspectives that will impact on education. Right now, of course, the member, with her knowledge of history, is probably more aware of some of the details here than I am even, but the history of education being delivered for aboriginal peoples, traditionally a federal responsibility, has had a history that has had some very low points as well as some high points. When we talk about the children who are in schools in the city of Winnipeg, who essentially are part of the urban population of Winnipeg, we have a different kind of need emerging and a different kind of expectation that the families have even for education delivery. So we are currently trying to identify ways from education that we can respond appropriately to recommendations that might be coming out of that interdepartmental initiative.
We need to strengthen educational opportunities for aboriginal peoples in any way we can and in as co-operative a way as possible. So that will be our goal as members of the education community in there. It is on the periphery, but it cannot be removed from the whole picture.
Ms. Friesen: Well, I am sure the minister did not mean to say on the periphery. I mean, I know what you mean, but I do not--anyway. Obviously, it is fundamental to the kind of change we are going to have.
But what I had been thinking of when I heard the minister speak of that was the labour force development agreement and the specific proposals in there for aboriginal training. I was wondering if that was the link for the department and how that was to be made, the changes in the nature of training, perhaps, but certainly the delivery of training. The minister suggested that her representative on this is Juliette Sabot, and the discussion centred around, essentially, K-12 programs.
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Is there an additional role there for the department, and is this the route that it is going to take, through this committee?
Mrs. McIntosh: When I speak of Juliette Sabot, and I talk about the work she is doing, she is primarily associated with and assigned to kindergarten to Senior 4. That is her area of daily work, and the member is quite right. When I say on the periphery, I am really referring to the fact that the lead jurisdiction, the lead department for it, is Native and Northern Affairs, and the other departments are brought in, I say in quotations, "on the periphery," not that their job is on the periphery but that we are being subservient to the lead minister. But we are all in there because each of the areas that we bring to those discussions is critical, as the member points out, and so I am just agreeing with her. I appreciate that clarification.
The member asked a question about the labour market and the agreement we have with the federal government on the devolution of power, et cetera. We have planning underway which is not yet complete. We are going through a transition period for a number of things on that agreement, and so we have a transition committee within the Department of Education.
We have Luci Grechen and Mary Lou Kuxhouse and people such as those who were part of the negotiating team who are now working along with others on the transition. One of the things that we will be seeing put in place, the details of which are still being worked out, is a separate agreement, a separate bilateral understanding as to the aboriginal people's needs in terms of training.
Ottawa has agreed to this. What we are working on right now--as I do not have the detail here that I am sure she would like to have right now, and I may have more when we get to 16.5.(b) once those particular staff people are here, but I also may not have much more than I am reporting here today. It has been about a week and a half since I had my last briefing and at that point they are still working to develop the terms and conditions of an agreement on aboriginal training. But the federal government is committed to that, we are committed to that, and all that is left to do--although it is a big thing but having agreed to the principle is the first key component--is to put in the details, how will this occur, and what are the specific things that we can and will be doing with money provided by Ottawa for training for our aboriginal people.
We maintain--and that is why this is not part of the agreement itself because it is a little unique and different, and that is why we are looking at something aside from the labour force agreement itself--that we have a unique situation in Manitoba, shared perhaps in some similar way with the province of Saskatchewan but with no other. That is, we have in terms of per capita, 10 percent or so--I am rounding off--per capita population representation of aboriginal peoples. Many of the--well, the member is familiar with the statistics, and they are fairly alarming. Well, they are alarming, they are not fairly alarming. They are downright alarming in terms of the needs in that community, the number of children in care, the suicide rate, the health problems, the number of people in our correctional institutions and all of those things.
The statistics are alarming and we need to turn them around. We have known that for many years. Various things have been done, but this year, and I think it was reflected in the throne speech where we have said we have to really move with vigour to address some of these problems and turn those statistics around so that this particular grouping of people in Manitoba will have healthier statistics in all areas. I do not mean health just in terms of health, but in all areas in terms of successful, productive lives.
Saskatchewan, to a lesser degree, has a similar problem, but the other provinces do not have it to the same degree. So I think we are a bit unique there, and we need to have made-in-Manitoba solutions, and it is going to require a lot of work and a lot of co-operative effort. I do believe it is one area where the government and the opposition do have similar feelings of concern and similar desires for action, perhaps even similar kinds of solutions that would be proposed.
Having said that, if not similar solutions, at least sympathy for the types of solutions that are coming forward as suggestions from either side of the House, because this issue is one that is not unlike the flood in terms of its severe impact and common concern. Everybody can relate to this, and everybody wants to see the right thing happen.
Therefore, we are waiting for negotiations to be concluded on what kind of bilateral understanding we will come to with the federal government, but the commitment is there. The feds have made the commitment. We are grateful for it. We just now need to see what shape it will take, and it will probably take a few months yet, because as we look at all aspects of transition, we are taking over the federal employees--taking over the federal employees, that does not sound right--but we are accepting the federal employees as well.
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We sort of have to almost look at the whole package of transition to see that the impacts are correct and that the harmonization of all of our efforts is a good blending. We know Manitoba has been chosen as the place, the lead province in which the administrative responsibilities for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs federally will be devolved to First Nations communities, and while that may not be going as quickly or in quite the way that either the federal government or the aboriginal people envisioned, we will be impacted by that as a province. We need to focus our attention, as well, on the need to strengthen ties and opportunities for aboriginal peoples. That would include, as a key component, educational opportunities.
Ms. Friesen: I have, Mr. Chairman, just as a matter of process, a couple more questions for information in this section. Then we could pass it, and if the minister would like to take a five minute break, and staff as well, okay.
The questions I have relate to regional committees. The minister talked about departmental participation in regional teams, and one of them that she mentioned was involved with school divisions in the southwest, Fort Labosse and two other divisions in developing a strategic plan. I am interested not so much in that strategic plan but in how and why the department gets involved in particular regional initiatives like that.
For example--I guess I am interested in that particular one--is this something that the department is looking for as a way of combining school divisions, a way of assisting them in the kinds of joint purchasing or whatever the things were that the minister had hoped for from the boundary commission's plan?
Mrs. McIntosh: I would indicate, first of all, that this is not a substitute for the voluntary amalgamation or joint efforts type things that divisions are doing. We have a number of efforts going on where regional superintendents, recognizing they can do more collectively than individually in some instances, approach us from time to time. So this effort, while it does tie in nicely with the voluntary amalgamation or joint co-operative venture things, while it ties in nicely with it is really not a part of that.
In this particular example, which is one of several but is one referenced here, the regional superintendents there ask the department if we can assist them in collaborative strategic planning. Whenever we get those kinds of requests, we always say yes. So they will form committees or teams or projects, whatever terminology they use, will find a staff person, and they will work together to assist the region in a consultative way as a member of the team. The regional teams work with divisions. They work with regions. They allocate time and resources on a responsive basis. In other words, we get asked; we respond.
Now, there are some other things we do where we will reach out but in these particular ones, they ask and we respond. In addition, we have collaborative efforts that between and amongst school divisions are undertaken with professional development. They will all get together and rather than have six divisions and each bring in the same speaker one week after the other, which has happened in certain instances in the past, they are much more inclined now to say we are thinking of having such and such a speaker in, do you want to go together with us and we will have a joint professional development? They all save money. They all get the benefit of a topnotch speaker. So they are not duplicating or overlapping, and they are being more cost effective. Those are initiatives they do on their own, but the collaborative strategic planning they will sometimes ask for assistance on, and the department is very happy to be able to do that with them.
The regional managers meet with superintendents regularly, and they on a yearly basis will identify regional priorities. Then the department can align resources to meet the priorities that have been identified. Having said all that, in terms of reference to what we are doing now instead of the mandatory amalgamation, we do have several divisions beginning to take a look at voluntary amalgamation. Two obvious ones that are probably well known are St. Boniface and Norwood. But we also have some others in other parts of Manitoba that are beginning the exploration stage and have asked for departmental staff assistance in helping them begin initial discussions. I do not want to go into a lot of detail on those because they are in the initial stages, and they are still, at this point, divisional initiatives. I am just indicating to the member that we are ready and able and willing to go out there as facilitators or consultants and help those things happen.
Just before we have our break which would be nice to have, I do have this copyright information. Do you want me to give it to you now or after the break?
Ms. Friesen: The minister I think is going to table it, and, yes, it would be useful if we tabled it beforehand. Thanks.
Mrs. McIntosh: Right now?
Ms. Friesen: Yes, sure.
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Mrs. McIntosh: Just for the record so you know what it is I am tabling here, this is the letter that was sent to the federal government regarding copyright legislation, which was Bill C-32, an act to amend the Copyright Act.
For background, the letter, as I indicated, went over the minister's signature. We had staff in my department involved in helping prepare this response. This response that was sent was sent, not just by me as minister, but by me and my colleagues on CMEC. So all of the ministers signed off on it, but the government of Manitoba approved it as well. So it went out as both a government, ministerial, and cross-provincial, pan-Canadian correspondence.
So this letter has a fair bit of approval behind it in terms of the number of people that support the perspective in it. As I say, my staff was instrumental in helping prepare the response, and I think they did a very good job. Maybe I could table that and get the original back in case the member wishes to discuss it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Dyck): Before we recess, you want to pass some items?
Okay, then. 14.1 Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $606,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $128,500--pass.
14.1.(c) Planning and Policy Co-ordination (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $354,300.
There will be a few questions. We will have a five-minute recess.
The committee recessed at 4:52 p.m.
The committee resumed at 5:06 p.m.
Mr. Chairperson: The committee will come to order. Item 16.1. Administration and Finance (c) Planning and Policy Co-ordination.
Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask the minister on this line, which is Planning and Policy Co-ordination, about the changes in regulations for Regulation 68/1997, the March 24 one. This regulation carries some new definitions I think for principals and new responsibilities for principals. I wonder if the minister wanted to comment on that. I want to deal with principals first, and then the regulation also looks at responsibilities for teachers. It is the only area I could think to discuss this under. The deputy minister is here. It is Planning and Policy, so if that is all right with the department, we will look at it here.
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Mrs. McIntosh: Actually, the deputy has some pretty good knowledge of this, as do I. The staff person who is not here would be Mr. Hansen, and that would be back under 16.4.(b), which is called Education Administration Services. We can, if you would like, if you wanted to ask some questions, answer them to the best of our ability here, and then if we need further details beyond what we are able to give you today, we can hold them over until 16.4.(b). But if you want to go ahead, we will give it a shot now.
Ms. Friesen: With reference to the principal, one of the concerns that I have heard is that Section 30 of the new regulation says that a principal is to participate in the hiring, assignment, and evaluation of teachers and may have regard to parental and community views when making recommendations about those matters to the school board. I think the issue is the evaluation of teachers. This appears to be a new aspect to regulation and the issue of what evaluation is is not defined in this regulation, and as far as I know, not in other regulations either. So what is it that the principals are being required to do there? What will the department be looking for?
Mrs. McIntosh: I indicate, first of all, that the principal is defined as the instructional leader in the school. That is part of our new directions in terms of leadership, et cetera. There is a traditional role for the principal that has been in place for many, many years as the lead teacher or head teacher, master teacher, whatever the terminology is that is customary for people to use, but in that role, which is traditional, the principal has done performance evaluations both for formative purposes to assist teachers in improving, or some other aspect of their work, to become better and better and better performers in the classroom. The role there for performance evaluation has been there for formative purposes. In some school divisions, it has also been there as a summative evaluation under the direction of the school division, because the school board ultimately is the body that has the ultimate accountability for hiring and firing, et cetera.
What we are saying, some divisions have always included principals, in some cases parents as well, on selection committees, et cetera, for hiring of teachers. This says that the principal is to participate in the hiring, assignment, and evaluation of teachers and can take community views, parental views into account. It means simply that with school plans, where there are school advisory councils on school leadership or where parents are involved in the school plans, that the parents may say that they wish to have a teacher who has a particular characteristic, or that they may wish to have an aboriginal, or they may wish to have a woman, or they may wish to have some other kind of characteristic.
Those recommendations, then, the principal can make to the board. The board, of course, will still be the final authority in terms of the hiring. Without question, the literature and research supports the role of the principal in this area as the instructional leader. It is a key theme in the education of administrators, how to lead the school to higher and higher quality of instruction. Of course, that would include performance evaluations and work with staff to continually improve their abilities in the classroom. But this section does not usurp the board's ultimate responsibility for employment and evaluation. The board retains that right, retains that responsibility. This just allows and encourages more people into the planning process. The principal being present in the school on a regular basis has opportunity to have closer contact with teachers as they go about their assignments than the board of trustees would, for example.
This has not to do with compensation. This has to do with improving the role of performance in the classroom. When we had these regulations ready, we took all of these regulations in the categories the members mentioned, duties of principals, duties of teachers, to the minister's advisory council on the implementation of educational change. That committee, as the member may recall, this was requested by MAST, MASS, and MTS. When New Directions was about to be implemented, they had approached me and said that they were concerned about the rapidity of the changes coming down and the new regulations that would have to be written and asked for the ability to input.
So with each of these things, as regulations were ready, we took them to the implementation committee. Now, we expanded the committee beyond MTS, MAST, and MASS and included the president of the association of parent councils, a parent at large, a couple of educators at large, and a couple of people from the department. We also have on there representatives of MAP, the principals' association. So we have two principals at large and two representatives from MAP, plus two from the Manitoba Teachers' Society.
We went through these regulations line by line over the course of several meetings. The meetings are half-day meetings held about once a month. This particular item took several meetings to go through because it was complex. We analyzed as a group the wording of each aspect of the regulation. The parents, the teachers, the principals, the trustees, and the superintendents all argued with each other back and forth over what they really thought they should say. We in the end made some modifications to the wording as a department, but we are content that these regulations fit what we were looking for but in a way that is more acceptable to the group that was there. The parents are very supportive of this particular initiative.
We wanted the principals to be involved in the assignment and hiring as a way of reflecting the expectation of a lot of people in society that staffing in the schools and instructional practices in the schools have to be sensitive to local school needs and characteristics, and we felt it builds a better team.
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That is a bit of the background on all of those regulations. This one in particular is meant so that the principal can do what in many cases he or she has always done, but this makes it an imperative. We believe that it is a strengthening of leadership functioning in the schools and provides for a greater consistency of approach in the schools, so students moving from Grade 2 to Grade 3 will never have identical teaching methods.
We do not want that because everybody is unique, but they will have some consistency of application of discipline and classroom management and so on.
Ms. Friesen: I understood the minister to say that this had been reviewed by this committee, but I was not sure that the minister said it had been approved. So is that the situation, Mr. Chairman, that the committee approved all of these regulations?
Mrs. McIntosh: It is a hard question to answer because--I will maybe run through the process; that might help explain it. This is an advisory committee to the minister, and what the stakeholders have been requesting was the ability to sit down with me and take whatever time was required to explain their understanding of the impact of whatever it is we are examining at any particular meeting, and they can bring items to the agenda, too, and add items that they wish to see struck. We can then explore those as well. So we will explore any and all agenda items that either we would like to bring forward or that the stakeholders would like to bring forward.
How we operate, it works this way. We bring forward the regulations on principals and teachers. The committee will then go through them line by line, argue back and forth about what they think the regulation says, and then argue back and forth about how they feel about the regulation. We try to operate by consensus as much as we can. We have tried to be as accommodating as we can.
When concerns come forward, we will take the concerns, and we will go back to legal counsel and see if we can draft--we will note the concern in detail, take it back to legal counsel and see if they can draft the regulation to address the concern, which sometimes legal counsel can and sometimes legal counsel cannot. Where they can change it without destroying the intent, then we are quite happy to do that. Where legal counsel says, well, I cannot change it without destroying the intent, then we take it back, and then we will talk some more about the intent and how we feel about the intent.
There are many, many items that we have gone through where we have come to a clear consensus where all members have said, okay, that is good; I can live with that. But if you look at these regulations, for example--and I do not know who supported what. We do not vote. As I say, we try to go by consensus, but if you take a look at the regulations on principals and teachers, you would find that if there are 10 items, that we probably would have been able to come to consensus on about five of them maybe, where everybody says, okay, I have a comfort level now. Everybody has made a little modification, and we now have a comfort level where, on five of them we can say we can live with this. On the other five, you might have the principals agreeing and the teachers not, or the parents agreeing and the teachers agreeing and the principals not.
So we have always had two or three of the parties at the table saying they have a comfort level. We do not always have total unanimity on every item. What we are trying to do is come as close as possible to overall consensus as we can reach.
I do not think there have been any where there has been a total rejection. We have come to some where there has been total approval. On this one, to be quite honest with the member, I do not recall this particular one being a problem for principals, per se, although they might have had some concerns about how do we have to do this. Our answer was, well, that is not something the regulation will spell out. That is something that divisions and principals can decide sort of division by division. Different models will work for different areas, et cetera. Teachers would have been more concerned I think with this one, because of a concern, well, what does this mean to be evaluated?
Again, it depends on the jurisdiction from which they come. Some divisions have regular full-blown performance evaluation procedures that are designed properly. We talked about what we meant about that when I say designed properly. Good performance evaluations should always be there to assist the person being evaluated, to help them build on their strengths and strengthen their weaknesses. So for people who have been through that on a regular basis, there is a comfort level. There is a trust level between administration and staff, there is a comfort level. Where there is concern is where there is not a good trust level between administration and staff, or the whole concept of a formal performance evaluation is new and frightening, because it is a worry that perhaps it might not be what we desire it to be which would be to help build on strengths and weaknesses, but rather you did this wrong, you did that wrong kind of approach.
We see it in a good performance evaluation that if there are areas that need strengthening, that there should be goals set, and there should be assistance provided by the instructional leader to say, okay, here are some ways you can help fix up that thing that is troubling you. How about we get together now in a few months, we will see how you are doing and if I can help you some more here and here, ultimate goal: improved performance, increased comfort level for the classroom teacher and the administrator.
So we did a lot of talking about what is a performance evaluation, what is its intention, why should we be using it, how are the ones that are in place being used, are they being used properly right now. So a lot of these things are being talked about in educational circles as constructive, helpful things. Instructional leaders in schools will require the ability to do really positive constructive performance evaluations. I say that, again, if we look at administrator's certificates, we look at what is being taught at the Faculty of Education, we look at people who are training to be administrators are getting their credentials for administration. This would be an area where we feel there needs to be some concentration, some assistance.
The implementation committee has a mandate and this may help in terms of is it full approval. The mandate is to provide recommendations to the minister on implementation strategies related to the actions articulated in The Action Plan. This is with New Directions. Its terms of reference is to examine each of the six major areas of activity related to New Directions, receive information from other departmental committees working on the topics, and write short-, medium-, and long-term implementation recommendations for the minister's review. The field was adamant that this be an advisory committee to the minister, not to the deputy or to senior officials but to the minister herself. So hence the minister chairs the committee, which necessitates the minister being there and fully familiar with the agenda, then I will be part of the discussion. I am mostly a listener to sort of guide the direction. I do not enter into the debate too often myself, although I will from time to time if we get into an area where people say, well, what do you really mean by this and why are you doing it? Then I will enter it, but more by way of clarification.
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We have gone through a number of areas. I do not know if you are interested in knowing the types of things we have done so far. It is not an overly long list. I will just bring you up to date on it. We have done the regulations on advisory councils for school leadership. Those I would say we pretty well did have unanimous approval on, probably not in every single instance there, but it was a pretty good consensus on those regulations, as I say, maybe not unanimous, but pretty positive response.
Updates on Renewing Education: New Directions time lines was one thing that they had asked for. They wanted the time lines for New Directions initiatives shown in a flow chart so they could get a handle on when we are expecting to do certain things. They would ask for slowing down in certain areas. In fact, we have done that, because we recognized, as the field was getting going on some of these things, that they were having trouble keeping up. It was such a lot all at once, so we have slowed down some things on their advice, which we think has helped them and us because, when you get too much all at once, it is hard to get everything going all at once. They needed more time and we have given that.
Program implementation planning initiatives, right now for example we have before the implementation committee our technology plan, our overall provincial technology plan. We presented that to them. It has been presented to them a couple of times actually, and they now have a final plan in front of them, as do other people. We have given that to other people as well to take a look at it. It is a fairly detailed plan.
We have got the English Language Arts exams and the examination process and the assessment, and we have been going through that with them, the regulations on the responsibilities of principals which we are discussing right now with the member opposite.
The Grade 3 standards testing, professional development is a big issue. We have had some good preliminary discussion on that already, and we will undoubtedly be having more as time goes on, the new designs and dates for Senior 4 examinations.
We have talked about some things, and here is where we do not have unanimous approval, and that would be on the dates on exams and so on. Maybe we will get a common understanding as we go through, but it has been complicated by a number of things, the semester system, et cetera, and the need to want to try to get marks back in time for the next semester or for university applications. So the choice to make as to when to have the exams is one we do not have unanimity on. But we are talking about it.
We understand different perspectives that are being brought forward. Unfortunately, the ones, a committee member will bring one perspective forward, and it will not be the same as another committee member, and it may not be the same as the department's. But we are wrestling with them and we figure the longer we sit and talk and wrestle, the more likely they are to come up with a satisfactory solution.
We are looking at common curriculum framework for English Language Arts and the Western Canadian Protocol. We have had discussions and will be having--well, we have had discussions on the International Baccalaureate Advanced Placement courses. Also, the regulations on responsibility of teachers which ties in with the ones on principals, they have helped us with three sets of regulations right now: The advisory councils on school leadership, duties of teachers, responsibilities of teachers and principals. The regulations have in each instance been altered and modified because of the input of that committee. Whether or not it is to its full satisfaction, I cannot say, but they have definitely caused us to make changes in response to some of the things they have brought forward. Not everything, but a fair bit.
So we have communications protocol which we have put in place, and I hope it is working well now. We were having confusion in the field, because documents were going out and sometimes the documents would go to the school, and the superintendent would not have received it, or vice versa. So they asked for a communications protocol that would stipulate that when you send out this kind of communication, it should be sent simultaneously to the following groups, those kinds of things. Because something would go to the school, and then the superintendent would get a call and they would not know what it was about. So I hope that we have been able to meet the expectations there. I believe that we have. I have not heard any complaints for a while, but we will keep making adjustments as we need to.
The other one that we talked about at some length, I think we did end up with a unanimous approval on provincial transcripts. I believe that we ended up there finally with a consensus. We have talked about schools of choice, and we are talking about teacher education. Those are the topics that we have gone through so far. We have been asked to include the Vision to Action document in future agendas and fair student assessment practices on future agendas, so they are pending on our agenda items.
Usually at the end of each meeting we say, what do you want to talk about next, if we have concluded an item. There is no shortage of topics. There always seems to be something that the field wants to discuss. What I very much appreciate about this committee is that we have the presidents of all the stakeholders groups on it. We did not designate people. We designated positions, so we have the presidents of the stakeholder groups and the members at large.
The members at large consist of one parent representative, and I say that because we have the president of the Manitoba Association of Parent Councils on, but not all schools have parent councils, so we have also chosen a parent at large that does not belong to the association, just a parent. We have two educators at large, both of whom are principals, one rural, one urban, in addition to the MAP representatives and the MTS representatives. Then we have a regular guest in the person of Carolyn Loeppky who is the ADM. She is not a member but she is a regular guest. The two members from--[interjection]
That is how we have it put down as, our regular guest Carolyn Loeppky, but Carolyn is there most meetings, and we really appreciate her input.
But from the department, officially, we have Erika Kreis from the department, and John Carlyle, the Deputy Minister, attends with me. Then, of course, as I say, the presidents.
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We have two MAST--oh, just for clarification, we have, from the stakeholder organizations, we have the president and we have the CEO. So from MAST, for example, we will have the president plus the executive director, and from the MTS we have the president plus Carole Basarab who is a senior staffperson. We have the president of MAP, Peter Narth.
Those names will change. Ken Pearce, for example, will soon be stepping down for Diane Beresford. Superintendents, we have Gail Bagnall and John Beaumont right now.
So that is who is on it. They are very direct. They do not hold back. They speak very clearly. They are very strong-minded people, and I find it fascinating to listen to the debate go back and forth with the differing perspectives that come out, and, yet, I am always amazed at the commonality they do have, even with those different perspectives. I very much appreciate the counsel they provide.
Ms. Friesen: If I might summarize what the minister has said on evaluation, and the minister can tell me if that encapsulates it, that her definition of evaluation is one where the responsibility for defining evaluation remains with the division, that it may include formative and summative versions of evaluation, as it has formerly, and that this regulation is not intended to introduce new duties to the principal.
Mrs. McIntosh: The member is correct. It is new opportunities for involvement, and in many cases, this was being done, but this now says that we expect it to be done. The member is correct on all her interpretations there.
Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask about another part of that regulation which dealt with professional development. It is under responsibilities of teachers, that teachers have a responsibility for ongoing professional development.
I wonder if the minister could tell me how professional development is defined. How would a teacher know when they have fulfilled that responsibility? Who is to define it? How is it defined, and, in a sense, I guess, who is going to measure it?
Mrs. McIntosh: The member has asked a good question and may be seeing a pattern in my responses here in terms of we are saying these are your responsibilities and duties in a variety of areas, but we are not prescribing rigid criteria.
What we are saying is that teachers have a responsibility to stay current, and teachers will tell you they do this now anyhow. They engage in professional development activities related to, in most cases, what they are teaching. Now we are codifying that. It may be in conjunction with the instructional leader in the school, the principal, or at the request of the school division. If the school division maybe is undertaking a whole integrated technology system through the division, the school board may set up professional development seminars and ask their teachers to attend them. The teacher would have then a responsibility, formal responsibility to attend and become part of that professional development exercise.
The teacher may define for himself or herself an activity that would be pertinent to their professional development, the acquisition of reading material. That is a professional development exercise. I have often thought if teachers submitted at the end of a year a list of the bibliography they have read during the course of a year, in terms of techniques in the classroom, whatever, they could probably put together quite a library of materials or reference materials. In fact, many reference materials are developed just that way by teachers saying I have read this incredible book, or this pamphlet or this guide or whatever, and they will tell their colleagues in the staffroom about it, and then other people will read it too. Hence it gets shared.
So the teacher can define what kind of professional development the teacher feels would help them, engage in that activity. Perhaps it is a night course at the university or a summer course or whatever. It may be the professional development seminars put on by their division or the SAG Groups. It may be that the principal in the school would say, we want to, in our health curriculum start talking about nutrition and diabetes with our aboriginal students or something, so could you please attend that thing that is coming up next week wherever it is and pick up that knowledge and bring it back?
We are not saying here are the rigid rules for what you must learn and how you must learn it. We are saying the responsibility, which most already undertake--I think we are codifying practice--but we feel it is important enough that it needs to be stated; it needs to be written down, because we made very strong emphasis on instructional leadership and all of those elements that make up instruction.
When we talk about evaluation, we are talking also about the things that people do to enhance their knowledge so that they have things that are worthy of being evaluated, and we will get positive feedback on it. We have the blueprint emphasizing increased participation by teachers into the instructional decisions. So they are leaders also. We have an instructional leader who is the leader of leaders. Teachers doing their own professional development will also then be making indirect decisions that will impact on their evaluation ultimately.
It may be that eventually there may be some definition around what constitutes a really good professional development exercise. Right now, we are just saying that it is a responsibility. We have the Scurfield committee right now looking at that whole compensation package for teachers. I do not know what they will come out with because I have been standing back with a hands off approach, but they have there the president and CEO of the three organizations, MASS, MAST, and MTS working with Mr. Scurfield. I am not saying they are going to do this, because I do not know, but it is quite possible, if they are looking at compensation that they may come out with some indication of what responsibilities entail in terms of compensation which may put some parameters and definition around performance evaluation. This I do not know. This is not an expectation, it is just something that could come out of that.
So we, right now, are indicating professional development would be the attending of classes, seminars, workshops, courses, the reading of material, the networking, et cetera, that takes place when people are attempting to acquire new knowledge to help in the classroom.
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Ms. Friesen: I understand what the minister has done is given us a range of common or acceptable elements of professional development, but I think the issue for people that I have talked to anyway is the issue of, when it is codified, one can also be found wanting, and when there is not a minimum or a maximum, then that I think does create alarm.
The minister has indicated that might be forthcoming. It might not. She is not sure yet, but as it stands now there is not one. So what I understand the minister to be saying is that the responsibility for enforcing that remains with the principal and the school division, not with the minister.
Mrs. McIntosh: I thank the member for that, and the ultimate responsibility, as I say, for hiring, et cetera, is the school board, but right now in the act, under general responsibilities, we have items such as "a teacher is responsible for providing an effective classroom learning environment." That is in the act now. In the act right now it has "a teacher is responsible for ongoing professional development." We have added that on, but we had, prior to that, "providing an effective classroom learning environment." Those are, in terms of the concerns the member mentioned, very similar. What is an effective classroom learning environment? Who determines that classroom learning environment to be effective, and what happens if it is good and what happens if it is not?
Obviously if it is a good learning classroom environment, we presume that would be the normal course of events because that is a teacher's responsibility. But that kind of phraseology in the regulation has not posed undue difficulty along the line the member has mentioned because it is always assumed that the principal of the school would ascertain whether or not there was an effective classroom learning environment, vague though that may be worded, and would help take corrective action if it does not occur. It does not tell the teacher how to provide an effective classroom learning environment. It does tell the teacher though that it is the teacher's responsibility to ensure that environment is there.
So I think there are very similar kinds of expectations, and, yes, they do imply that if those things are not provided the teacher has not lived up to the teacher's responsibility. The expectation is there that it must be provided.
Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask about the question on the suspension of pupils. The minister--or perhaps it was a previous minister; yes, it was--introduced a bill from which these regulations flow. I am not interested in this case so much in discussing the content of the regulations, but I am interested in the amount of information that the department is collecting on this.
Does the department know, has the department a way of collecting the information on the number of students who have been excluded from school, and is the department keeping records on that over a period of time? I recognize that it is the division's responsibility and that formal motions must be passed, but it seems to me it is an educational issue which the department or the government raised. It is an issue of concern to them.
I know that in other jurisdictions there is an increasing tendency to exclude students. Not all jurisdictions have facilities for those students. So is there a pattern that the government is interested in following here, and can it do so?
Mrs. McIntosh: In answer to the member's question, the department has not taken these suspensions, expulsion statistics in its history. I presume we could do it in an indicators project if we felt that we needed to do that, but we have a decentralized authority system with local autonomy, and I know that divisions have always had expulsions and suspensions.
The rules for suspension are somewhat different now in terms of teachers being able to suspend from the classroom for two days. That still has to be reported to the principal and to the parent, but they have never been reported to the department. We have a general sense of suspensions and expulsions but not specific data. Right now that is in the purview of the local autonomy and the decentralized authority.
We have a number of items actually that we do not trace within divisions, because they are deemed to be local division control. We will trace those things related to funding and progress for learning, et cetera, which we feel we have a very strong provincial mandate for. But suspensions and expulsions, suspensions normally are short term; expulsions will usually result in the removal to a different school. We get those figures through transfers or the arrangements that are made with Marymound or some of the other schools for receiving students who have been expelled. So truancy problems--
Mr. Chairperson: The hour now being six o'clock, committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
IN SESSION
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Marcel Laurendeau): The hour being 6 p.m., this House is now adjourned and stands adjourned until Tuesday next at 1:30, as previously agreed.
Thank you, and have a good weekend.