HANSARD

Special Education (Department of Education)

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Mr. Ronald Chisholm (Chairman)

Mr. Brooke Taylor

Mr. Cecil O'Donnell

Mr. Frank Corbett

Mr. Howard Epstein

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Keith Colwell

Mr. Leo Glavine

Ms. Diana Whalen

[Mr. Frank Corbett was replaced by Mr. William Estabrooks.]

[Mr. Keith Colwell was replaced by Mr. Daniel Graham.]

In Attendance:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Legislative Counsel

WITNESSES

Department of Education

Mr. Dennis Cochrane

Deputy Minister

Mr. Mike Sweeney

Executive Director of Public Schools Branch

Ms. Ann Power

Director of Student Services

Ms. Sue McKeage

Director of Communications

Mr. Alex Bruce

Consultant, Student Services

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2005

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Ronald Chisholm

MR. CHAIRMAN: We will bring our meeting of the Human Resources Committee to order. I would ask that we start by introducing ourselves around the table, starting with Mr. Estabrooks, please, for the record.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I guess the first order of business is the appointments to agencies, boards and commissions. Mr. O'Donnell.

MR. CECIL O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, to the Department of Community Services, Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers, I so move Richard J. Melanson as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Mr. Taylor.

MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Department of Education, Dalhousie University Foundation, I so move Cathy MacNutt, Charlotte Sutherland, Thomas Traves, and Karen Woolhouse as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, to the Halifax Regional Library Board, I so move Shawn Cleary and Betty Thomas as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Department of Health, Advisory Commission on AIDS, I so move Barbara Clow as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, to the South West Nova Health Authority, I so move Tim Alison as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Department of Environment and Labour, Crane Operators Examination Committee, I so move Roderick L. Kerr as a member representing crane owner and Malcolm MacLeod as a member representing crane operator.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, to the Power Engineers and Operators Board, I so move Daniel L. Wagner as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Department of Justice, Human Rights Commission, I so move Narayana Swamy as a commissioner.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, to the Westville Municipal Board of Police Commissioners, I so move Dorothylane Hale as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, to the Annapolis Royal Municipal Board of Police Commissioners, I so move Rion Microys as a member and to the New Glasgow Municipal Board of Police Commissioners, I so move Edward Teiman as a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Office of Health Promotion, Boxing Authority, I so move Mickey MacDonald as chairman and a member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. O'DONNELL: Mr. Chairman, to the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, Public Archives Board of Trustees, I so move William Hastings Laurence and Dr. Bridglal Pachai as members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, to the Treasury and Policy Board, Voluntary Planning Board, I so move Suzanne Elizabeth Drapeau, Mayann Francis and Rick MacDonald as directors.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for the question? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

That concludes the appointments to the agencies, boards and commissions. We do have some guests, I believe, who are in the hallway.

[9:10 a.m. The committee recessed.]

[9:11 a.m. The committee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning. With us we have Mr. Mike Sweeney, the Executive Director of the Public Schools Branch; Ms. Ann Power, Director of Student Services; and Mr. Dennis Cochrane, the Deputy Minister of Education. They are with us today to discuss the issue of special education. Mr. Cochrane, you have the floor.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Mr. Chairman, also with us today is Sue McKeage, who is the Director of Communications at the Department of Education, and Alex Bruce, who is a consultant in our Student Services Division. As you mentioned - you could probably figure out which one is Ann and which one is Mike - this is Ann and this is Mike.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here. It's rather interesting, this is kind of the kick-off this week to Access Awareness Week and one of the issues that they talk about is trying to remove barriers to meaningful employment. We like to think that many of the things we try to do in our school system will remove some barriers for our children as they proceed through the public school system into post-secondary or the workplace.

We are pleased to have an opportunity to speak to you today about some of the initiatives that are underway which we think will benefit special needs students. Obviously, there is a government and a department commitment with regard to helping children with special needs. Learning for Life II, which was revealed by the Premier on May 12^th, does set the stage for more good work in this field. It reiterates the fact and the belief that all students deserve to learn to the best of his or her ability. Obviously, our job and the job of educators in the system is to help all the students reach their full potential with the resources that we have available. The other thing, it's like everything else in the public school system, it is a partnership, we do rely upon parents, we do rely upon other government departments and agencies, our teachers, our teachers' association, the SACs, all those groups to work with our students and so on to allow us to achieve those goals for them.

Just to set the context, we have about 143,000 in the public school system in the Province of Nova Scotia from P to 12. About 20 per cent receive some level of special support and that could be anywhere from a Grade 1 student who is in the bottom 20^th percentile of their reading scores getting assistance from a reading recovery teacher. It could be a child receiving some services from a speech language pathologist. It could be a student who may be in junior high and receiving some resource assistance in mathematics. So it doesn't mean that 20 per cent of our students are students with special needs. It merely means that 20 per cent of our students are receiving some kind of individualized or small-group support as they work their way through the system.

About 3 per cent require intensive support and that 3 per cent, most of whom are on what we call an IPP, which is an Individual Program Plan and that's put together by the professional staff at the school supported by district staff and with the parents, taking a look at what kind of interventions that child might need in order to hopefully succeed and achieve the goals and the outcomes that are set for them in their Individual Program Plan. About .5 per cent of our students benefit from severe learning disability services. In other words, it would be a much more intensive kind of program and a much more intensive kind of service, and about .4 per cent of our students receive behavioural support. So sometimes there is a belief that 20 per cent of the students are in a completely different program. That's not the case. About 3 per cent are on Individual Program Plans but the others are accessing some kind of support.

We also have the other end of our spectrum which deals with gifted children who are also in the category of students with special needs and what we try to do in their case is to challenge them with more challenging aspects of the curriculum. One of the big announcements that came this year in the Learning for Life II dealt with the expansion of the International Baccalaureate program in the Province of Nova Scotia. Currently we have two programs, one at Sydney Academy and one at Park View in Bridgewater. We are going to add nine other sites to those two for a total of 11. We will be starting to give the teachers the professional development, working with the International Baccalaureate organization to get these schools prepared to accept students in the International Baccalaureate program in the near future.

[9:15 a.m.]

One of the things that we attempt to do on our way in trying to develop the kind of services that people need is a fair amount of consultation. A number of you were at the Partners Forum in Truro, special needs and the students with special needs were major topics at that time. We continue to work with the Special Education Program Services Committee, which is a representative group of parents and support individuals who are concerned with the programs supplied to children with special needs. We also do consultations constantly. We had the Special Education Implementation Review Committee report, which had a

number of recommendations, most of which we've taken action on and we can address those perhaps in response to questions.

We just conducted a series of principals' workshops with all the principals in the Province of Nova Scotia. We started two and a half weeks ago with the elementary principals, on to the junior high and senior high last week, and obviously the services and programs being provided for children with special needs were topics of concern to our principals as well.

One of the results of the principals' meetings was that we've agreed now that we're going to track the number of guidance counsellors in our system and provide extra resources to try to provide more guidance counsellors throughout the system. We have a fair number of people doing that job in high school, less in junior high, and probably very few in elementary. It's not one of the core professional services but we're going to add it to our tracking, look at what we have and then establish a ratio that we think will be a reasonable number to provide the kind of services that all of our children need, and obviously services that will be available to special needs children as well.

Our increase in budget this year is obviously fairly significant and one of the interesting things, I guess, is that our budget is increasing when our enrolment is decreasing significantly. That is always a balance and always a necessity to continue to add services to a declining population, although in reality we're finding the challenges of servicing that population getting more and more significant as time goes on.

Our special education funding has increased from about $48,000 in 1999 to $66,000 in 2005-06. That is on top of the regular money that is put into the system with regard to covering the per pupil expenditures, so there is an additional allocation. Boards indicate to us that that's not enough and that they're spending more, and we encourage boards to look at their priorities and if they feel there are some priorities that they would want to make sure that they do. We do agree that from their provincial-municipal funding, boards should look at the level of priority, and if they do find it necessary and put more emphasis on one area than the other, there is some discretion with regard to that.

I guess the question is, is there enough money? I guess it is fair to say there is probably never enough money in our public school system. We like to think we're fairly innovative, our teachers certainly are, and we're looking at programs all the time that are changing to meet the needs of our diverse population. We have to make sure we do the best we can with what we have and I think there's been an emphasis and a focus on that. We do track and monitor our student progress, we do have a number of pilot projects we've introduced province-wide: reading recovery; there are programs to deal with severe learning disability students; a lot of in-service with regard to positive effective supports in the school system; and we continually evaluate the initiatives and make sure that we put some priority on accountability as to what we're doing with the system and so on.

When the SIERC report came out there was a request for an additional $20 million. That really has caused a series of events to take place by which we've added a significant number of dollars over the last three years, and projecting to add a significant number more in the next three to meet the ratios that were set by the SIERC committee. I can give you the summation of where we are on meeting those ratios now. We track the number of teachers in our system that are assigned to the various core professional services as a result of additional funding. We have seen a significant improvement, obviously we want to see more as we continue to provide money into the system to deal with those ratios.

We also have a standard reporting process and a provincial report card for reporting the success of our students on Individual Program Plans. This will come as an attachment to the regular report card. If a student is on an IPP, for example, for mathematics or language arts, there would be a separate report that would be associated with trying to report the progress of that child in achieving the goals and outcomes that were set down in the IPP. We're one of the first provinces that are going to do that and there is a national conference in September that we'll be discussing with our national colleagues how successful that program is, and looking at other best practices and so on that exist across the country.

We are trying to continue our increased communications with parents and I will be giving you, as we leave, this binder for each caucus. We didn't reproduce it for every member, only because of the complexity of it and so on, but it is a complete document with 20 tabs dealing with various documents and aspects of the special needs services that we provide. I will leave a copy of that with you and obviously, we may refer to it and have questions on it in the meantime. Also included in that is our new transition planning guide which is a very comprehensive document, trying to make sure that parents have a very comfortable level with how this child will progress through the system as we go.

I guess one of the other things that has to be remembered is a lot of initiatives, although they're not specific for children with special needs, do benefit all the students in the classroom. For example, a class size cap of 25 is going to have a positive impact on every child in that room, as opposed to being in a class with 33 or whatever. We've made that priority at the early years because we felt that was probably where we would get the greatest return on that kind of an investment. As we add resource teachers it benefits every student, not necessarily students who would be determined to be in that 3 per cent that would have an IPP.

Student assessments are of benefit to all of our students because they're very diagnostic in nature. It's not just a test we give a mark on, there's a whole series of information that is followed up with our professional staff to make sure that we have been able to identify the nature of the specialty and that enables our IPP team and our professional staff to plan how we're going to deal with those particular issues and so on. A lot of our changes with regard to technology are of benefit to our students. Certainly, reading recovery going across the province is one as well.

We feel there has been a lot of progress. There is much more to do, there's no doubt about that and we want to make sure that we're able to give all of our students a level of support that they need. Certainly, our partners are committed to that, our teachers, our administrators, our professional services, and we know the parents certainly are anxious to see that there is a provision of the support that their children need.

There is a large national conference being held here, in Halifax, in July this year. Professionals from around the world will be attending and we've also included the document in your kit. We're supporting that but it does bring a very high level of interest and a great number of professionals coming to Halifax to talk about the whole issue of special education. It will be a unique opportunity for a lot of our professionals to access an international conference right here, in Halifax, which we'll be hoping that they would be able to do.

They tell me I said $48,000 and $66,000 instead of $48 million and $66 million. Okay, I just dropped a couple of zeros, we all have our challenges and I'm one of them. Anyway, just to correct that number so there won't be - I'm supposed to not let on you told me that, aren't I. Anyway, that was an increase of a significant nature with regard to our contribution. I noticed a couple of funny looks when I said it but I wasn't sure if it was just you were getting ready to shoot me later, or what.

So those are our opening comments. We would be pleased to entertain any questions you might have. If we don't have the documentation - I can't imagine we don't have most of what you'd want here - we'll undertake to get it to the committee and have it circulated by the clerk of the committee. We are certainly pleased to be here to have a chance to answer any questions that you might have.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We will now turn to questions from our committee members starting with the NDP, you have 10 minutes.

Mr. Estabrooks.

MR. WILLIAM ESTABROOKS: Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about frustrations, there are two levels of frustration. The number one curriculum innovation in my career as an educator was in the early 1990s when kids were mainstreamed. Early 1990s, right, Dennis?

You were in New Brunswick. And it was like a bombshell, there was a court case, and this happened.

As educators, you understand what's best for these children and to have special needs children down at the end of the hall next to the furnace room, that's Charles Dickens. Something certainly had to be done and in some schools it was already underway.

And I hear it from teachers who, in spite of my profession call me a friend, who will say we're still catching up, we are catching up a decade after this was done, and the frustration level with many of these people, in terms of a couple of issues.

First of all, when I bring up waiting lists with people they think I have become a Health Critic and heaven forbid I have to deal with that anytime in my political career. But we're talking about waiting lists for children with special needs who wait exorbitant lengths of time. We're talking about speech pathologists, school psychologists and of course, the reaction from the public is, why are you talking about waiting lists, Bill? What does that have to do with what goes on in the classrooms of our province? Once you get people tuned in with the fact that these are very important people in the team, because in your school you have those outside resources, you also have the opportunity to refer children to these special people that you need so desperately. So I want to turn to the issue of waiting lists if I could, please.

Is there a strategy to lower the time of the wait lists? Is it true that in spite of the fact that my child for one reason or another might be on the waiting list but the more severe - wrong word, I take that back - the more extreme students who are facing challenges in the classroom, they are given higher priority on this waiting list. Could you clarify those two things for me?

MR. COCHRANE: Let me first address the question of inclusion. When the decision was made - and I guess it was probably back in the 1980s - at that time there was a decision made with many of the children who were in institutions. We took the special institutions and those children were integrated into our system, some of whom were physically disabled children. That's a very small percentage of our population; in fact, it's a very small percentage of the number of children who are actually getting services. I think we've made major adaptations to deal with the physically handicapped and the system has adapted and those children have been included very successfully.

During the principals' meeting it was interesting, because in junior high it was particularly a very hot topic. Many of the issues are not the children who are in our school system as a result of a court decision back in the 1980s. Many of our challenges were coming from the children who have behavioural difficulties who were never in institutions, but they were never in schools either, because by the time they got to Grade 6 or Grade 7 they dropped out. What we have been able to do - and I guess inclusion is a nice definition - is we've been able to include some of those students by a whole number of adaptations, not perhaps as successfully as we or our professionals would like, but I think it's a bit of - I was going to say bum rap, that will do it.

There are many issues that are facing our system that are challenges that were never students that arrived as a result of any government decision to include certain children in our system. Many of these issues are children who are coming to our system as a result of

society, the changes and the support that they're getting, and causing challenges to our system. That is a general comment with regard to the first part. The second one with regard to wait lists is an interesting question and it's an interesting one that we're concerned with as well.

A wait list is created when someone chooses to put a student's name on a list to get access to a certain kind of service. Many of these students are already on an Individual Program Plan or are already receiving some kind of service. Someone will say, I think I would like to have a test done on this to make sure that we're doing the right thing. We see it in the medical system all the time, it's called a "second opinion" and we get some of that. Or we will have parents who come in and say, I'd like my child to be tested and the answer is yes, we'll try to do that. But most of these never go through the program planning committee at the school, it's on the list but it has never been triaged through the program planning system. That is something we have to look at and it lends itself to the last part of your question.

An extreme situation would get priority because it would go to the transition team or the individual program planning team and they would say, let's move this forward, let's get this done. So we have to look at a way to kind of separate those who say I would like to have this test done, or I would like to check this again for some students who are already receiving service, as opposed to those who are on a list to get access to the service for the first time.

[9:30 a.m.]

One of the things that we've done is we've tracked the number of professionals, and there is a ratio that is ideal, set by the professional associations in Canada. For example, speech language pathologists, the ratio should be one speech language pathologist for every 2,000 students. Now, 2,000 students don't necessarily receive speech language pathology but that's the ratio that we found a way to do that, so that's the recommendation.

When we started to provide funding for the core professional services in response to the SIERC report, the ratio was one speech language pathologist for every 2,773 students. Last year in 2004-05, we got that down to one speech language pathologist for every 2,313 students. We added in the system 7.1 speech language pathologists. This year there is an additional amount of money being put into the core professional services to continue to lower the ratio, so our goal is to get it to 1 to 2,000 students. Similarly, school psychologists are 1 to every 2,500 students. When we started it was 1 to every 3,204, last year it was 1 to every 2,853. We've added four, we're trying to find more to come into the system to bring that ratio to 1 to 2,500 students.

Resource teachers are a good example. In the SIERC report they wanted our ratio to be 1 to 165, we started out trying to get it at 1 to 200. In 2002, we had one resource teacher for every 247 students, and again, that doesn't mean that all these children receive resource

but what it does do is give us a ratio by which we assigned these. Last year, 2004-05, we had it down to 1 to 194, so we lowered our goal from 1 to 200 down to 1 to 165. We've added 138.4 resource teachers in the system; now, some of those were added through supplementary funding in the Halifax Regional School Board, there's no doubt about that, but what we want to do is to continue to work toward the ratios.

Interestingly enough, one of the boards where we gave them more money one year, the ratio got worse in one of the categories which caused us some concern, but I think it was a question of some professionals that left and the inability to get someone in to take their place. Some of these are very sought after, as you can imagine. We also have in Nova Scotia the extra requirement that most of these people are also teachers, whereas some systems will use a psychologist who is not and so on.

We have a lot of work to do, we've done a lot, we're tracking it, we're monitoring it and we're holding the boards accountable for the money that we give them, and we're expecting those ratios to be met - and these are national ratios. Once they do get met, we'll reflect on it and say, maybe we should do something different if our caseload is inordinate in Nova Scotia compared to other jurisdictions, which we don't have any reason to believe is the case. Anyway, long answer to a whole bunch of questions.

MR. ESTABROOKS: You wind Jerry Springer up, you can't take him to commercial. Have you ever seen this guy in action with a microphone? My time is winding down. (Interruptions)

I want to talk about frustrations and I want to talk this time about frustrations with EPAs - whatever they're called, it depends on what board you are with and what the terminology is - the wide range of people who are put in these hugely responsible positions. You are a classroom teacher, you have a special needs child there, and there are so many EPAs, teacher assistants - the terminology for each school - for whatever situations and there is - I think you would agree with me on this, Mr. Cochrane - a wide-ranging level of qualifications, criteria, supervision of these very valuable people.

There are other adults in the classroom who are important, and again we go back to that word "team". They are crucial to being there because from that perspective they get, as teachers - I know Leo could join me on this - you know, you're preparing how many lesson plans? In the middle of all those lesson plans you, in addition, have another adult present who can assist you in one way or another. So I'd like you to talk to me about how the department has addressed this issue of - let's call it what it is - an inconsistency across the province in the qualifications and criteria for - let's call them - EPAs.

MR. COCHRANE: You're correct, they're called different things in different places. I usually call them TAs, but it depends. Right now we are tracking them as well and,

interestingly enough, for every 82.2 students in Nova Scotia there is one EPA or TA, that's in 2004-05. This has been a growing industry.

We also have established qualification guidelines for these people; Cape Breton was actually one of the leaders in this and for a number of years they wouldn't hire an EPA who didn't have a program after high school. The provincial guideline is effective September 2005, that have to have had a diploma or program after high school graduation in order to be employed in this capacity in Nova Scotia. That's a recognition of the complexity of the issues that these people are dealing with.

Now there is always a difficulty because of certain seniority issues that some could get bumped into a situation where they may not be as comfortable as we would like. We do provide professional development for them. We do provide some assistance with regard to enabling them to adjust to the situation in which they may be. Across the province we range, interestingly enough, in the ratios we go from 1 for every 65.1 students in South Shore to the high in the province, which is Halifax, which is 1 for every 111 students. No I'm sorry, CSAP, which has 1 for every 133 but they wouldn't have a huge number, necessarily, in CSAP. They have 30 altogether working in the system.

We have 1,744.9 people performing that function across the public schools in the Province of Nova Scotia. It has grown significantly. That was 1,454 in 2000, so we've added 300 more, almost exactly, 290, in the last five years with our school population dropping fairly significantly of about 2,500 to 3,000 a year. It has become an increasing demand for them. Boards find it very difficult to resist the demand and we also, of course, get a number of people suggesting that this would be beneficial in dealing with that particular student.

So we are concerned with the qualifications. We have raised the bar for entry level. We do have a number of people going through the system who were hired at one time when they had high school. Remember, many of them we started with were really hired to deal with students with physical disabilities. Of course, now that has expanded significantly. We are dealing with a lot of behavioural issues, a lot of severe learning disabilities and so on. We have to be very careful that we don't let anyone believe that that is an answer to the problem. It's part of a solution but the ownership of that particular child, and their issues, belongs with the classroom teacher and the professional staff. This is a support but it can't become the system's answer to the nature of the specialty of children coming into the public school system.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, I certainly welcome the opportunity to have staff from the Department of Education here today to deal with special education. Like my colleague, Mr. Estabrooks, with an education background, I certainly welcomed the inclusion philosophy and approach to the education system. However, I also feel that we are still on

a treadmill, trying to work very fast to catch up because we had a number of years where we stumbled, I think, very badly in getting the system to adapt to this enormous and really monumental change.

I think part of the weakness there that was very apparent when we started, and is still there today, and I believe it's in the education of our teachers. If we are going to now have this - and it is entrenched - mainstream approach, I think the half course, for example, or the course requirement of special education for our teachers in a two-year program is very inadequate. In fact, the last survey that was done in the province, in talking recently with a staff member at Acadia and Mount Saint Vincent, they feel that professional development of our teachers is wholly inadequate in dealing with special education challenges and there are numerous that we can outline, from the dyslexic child to ADHD to the child who is developmentally delayed, all of these areas. I am just wondering what the Department of Education is planning and prepared to embark upon to adequately equip the next generation of teachers who will be entering the classrooms of the province.

MR. COCHRANE: I will address the first part of the question then pass it to Ann with regard to the professional development. At the principals' conferences, we invited the university professors who teach teachers because we felt it would be important that they were current and heard what our principals were saying to us. So it was rather interesting as I watched them come forward. I did have a good chance to have a discussion with one of the ones from St. F.X. They assured me there are now two full courses that they are offering to deal with special needs, which I think is positive.

One of the things that we have indicated that we are considering for this year is a review of teacher training in the Province of Nova Scotia. As you know, a number of years ago, we had the Shapiro report and it focused on four institutions. We are now back to six in the business and we think it is probably timely that we do a bit of a review of the two-year academic teacher training program that exists. We have undertaken that if we do that, we will start with the discussion with the deans and the faculty at the institutions, the universities, where we are teaching teachers and then decide whether we are going to proceed with a review.

One of the things that I hear from our professionals, the teachers and the staff that a lot of people enter the system and, again, academically very qualified but missing some of the practical aspects of dealing with the composition you are going to find in a classroom. So we are looking at that. We haven't quite decided yet how we are going to proceed. It gets universities quite excited, as you can imagine. There are issues of two years and things like tenure and all those other issues but our goal is to review it, to see if we can find a different mix that may work well for our students in the future and equip a number of our teachers in a better way to come into our classroom.

I want to make sure I make it clear that our teachers are well trained. In fact, Nova Scotian teachers have some of the highest standards in the country as far as the number of credit hours that we expect our teachers to teach. We hear this complaint all the time as people apply for certification from other jurisdictions where they don't have as intensive a teacher training program as we do but what we want to look at is, is there a different way, is there a different mix, is there a different way to expose some of these people to what is really going on and give them the skills to deal with the kind of child who is there?

I will ask Ann to speak to some of the professional development aspects of what we provide to our teachers.

MS. ANN POWER: I probably should mention two things. First of all, in all the professional development that we do for any classroom teacher now and for probably the past two or three years, what we do is we work with the English Program Services and French Program Services to ensure that when they are doing new in-servicing on any new course, let's say it's English Language Arts or it may be social studies, that when we develop the text with the publishers, when we develop the resources and supports to go with it, as well as the professional development itself, that we consider the needs of all students and so we cover the full gambit of diversity that they may encounter in the classroom and the sorts of strategies that they need to use and so on. So our staff in Student Services works with the staff in English Program Services and French Program Services to ensure that that is happening and very often are actually doing the PD with that staff as well. Then the boards follow suit.

So that is all incorporated in the professional development that we do on any new course. We do specific professional development as well. For instance, all resource teachers in the province have received in-servicing on the resource teacher's guide over time. We are doing extensive training in the area of autism starting this Summer and we will be working in the area of program planning as well, specifically for resource teachers but other teachers also come as well as administrators to that. We ensure we have a diverse group from each school.

I should also mention that we have worked with St. F.X. and Mount Saint Vincent Universities to develop a master's degree which can be done while the teachers are still teaching, so a part time, we call it the resource cohort and for those teachers who are in the system who wish to extend their learning in this area - particularly resource teachers but many classroom teachers take it as well - this will provide, over time, a master's degree. It's designed to fit the needs in our own system and it was co-operatively developed with school boards, the Department of Education and the two universities. So it is a good fit for our teachers across the province.

[9:45 a.m.]

MR. GLAVINE: I guess I would go back there just a little bit longer because I think one of the huge deficits in our education system at the moment, and it's hard for me as an educator to be tough on resource teachers because I know the enormous challenges they have but at the same time, many over that cup of coffee will tell you: I am not prepared to meet the needs of many of the children who come my way. They found themselves, as a resource teacher, in the new model and we have enormous catching up to do. I'm just wondering, is there some other way that we can develop the pre-service and the in-service of those resource teachers and specialists that we need to complement the classroom teacher, because that is where we are right now? I would just like a comment on that, deputy minister.

MR. COCHRANE: Certainly our effort to increase the ratios of professionals available in the system is going to help that, as you have the advice from a psychologist, or a speech language pathologist, or a resource teacher and so on it would be beneficial. There is no doubt that there are some challenges in our system in the assignment of some of our professionals, because of certain criteria that we have. We try to make sure we put people in a subject area where they're content and they're well qualified. We are going to do some tracking this year on the number of professionals teaching outside of their area of expertise.

Sometimes people will accept an assignment that may not be quite their match, in order not to be relocated outside their school or outside their community. We do have some collective agreement issues that we have to deal with there and I think the Teachers Union is sensitive to that problem. I don't believe for a minute that anybody adheres to, here's the way it is and here's the way it has to be, because (a) nobody wants to teach outside their area of expertise, and (b) nobody wants to make them do that, and I understand that.

Some jurisdictions have gone to the need to have a master's degree in order to teach resource. One of the difficulties, of course, is that many of our resource teachers, we expect them to have had some exposure to the curriculum, so therefore they are often more senior people and wouldn't necessarily have that master's degree as an entry qualification. So our goal is to try to make sure that we have the qualified people to support our students, that we have a process by which we can assign the staff to an assignment for which they're qualified, and then support them through professional development once they get there.

I think we have made some progress, we have more work to do. There would be nothing worse, to me, than to go to work every day and do a job that you don't feel comfortable doing or able to do. Maybe people think that I do that, but nonetheless (Interruptions) I think that's something we are concerned with and we want to make sure we do have the right assignment process and the right support for the people. Definitely, entry level qualifications are extremely important to us and we want to make sure that as we need and bring more - and one of the good things is we are bringing on more and more new teachers every year because of our enrolment.

With our enrolment decline, we changed the ratio significantly this year from 1 to 25, to 1 to 38, but also we have a number of retirements. A side issue to that, I'm not quite sure what the pension issue dealing with July 31, 2006 is going to do, but we're getting ready to make sure that we have enough professionals to take the place of those who may be choosing to leave the system. We know some history and some trends, but this is going to change it a bit because there is a bit of an artificial change in the pension provisions, as you know, as was agreed to by the Teachers Union.

One of the things that we are anxious to do when recruiting our new teachers is to make sure they have the pre-service training that will enable us to work with them through PD and so on to meet those challenges.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Taylor.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, this is a very important topic that we are discussing here today. I think, Dennis, here in Nova Scotia it was back in the early 1990s that the inclusion concept of mainstreaming was actually being promoted and discussed. Initially, there certainly was some resistance to the concept and there seemed to be people who had difficulty with the basic right of all students to receive appropriate, quality educational programming and services in the company of their peers. I trust now that that has dissipated.

More importantly - and keeping in mind that all students have needs, some have average needs, some have extreme needs, and some are perhaps more severe than others - what has the experience been of the children, the students, irrespective of their degree of need, in terms of social inclusion in the classroom?

MR. COCHRANE: One of the things that has been very successful as a result of the program is the development of social skills by all of our students. The other thing that I'm amazed with is how we've created a level of tolerance. At one time - and probably by those of us who started teaching back a long time ago - you saw some of this and some reaction to kids who were different. It's like our generation, we'd peek at the ambulance on the way by but we wouldn't want to see, yet we were still not accepting. It's interesting that that's totally different now and I think it's phenomenal that that's a big side-effect of a benefit that children are much more tolerant of individual differences.

I can remember being a teacher and having a particular child who was very upset one particular day. We got the class out, and I came up, as the principal, and he was taking the chairs and bouncing them off the wall - and they were plastic so nobody was going to get hurt, nothing was going to break. I heard the children say on the way by, what's going on? And they said, oh it's just - and I won't use the name - he's acting up but Mr. Cochrane has it under control. It was like, this is happening, it's bad, we don't like it, but it's okay. I am amazed at how tolerant the children are and how accepting they have been of individual differences. I think it's one of the things that we've taught our children.

Often you will see a child, particularly with a mental disability or handicap, other children help along, whereas at one time they may have been ostracized in our system, and I think we've really seen a very positive side-effect of inclusion and it has been very good in that regard.

MR. TAYLOR: We hear from parents who are concerned about their particular children, students who have, I suppose you would say, average needs, that they somehow aren't, or they are alleging at least - and I know you've heard this too - that they're not receiving what they feel is the appropriate education because of the challenges, and there are many, many challenges that the teachers, EPAs or TA s - whatever you want to call them - face. How do you respond to that?

MR. COCHRANE: There's no doubt that if you're in a classroom as a teacher and there is a disruptive child and your supports are limited, it does cause the classroom trend to be broken and the pace of what you're doing, so you can focus on that particular issue. Our teachers have done very well to respond to that. There is never going to be a situation where we're going to be able to make sure that no child will become disruptive at a period of time.

The other thing is, and it's back to what I was saying a little earlier, the other children are quite able to adapt, it happens and they go on with their work. But there's no question that everybody pays a slight price when those kinds of issues happen, that always was the case. I think it's probably a little bit more frequent now. I do think we have more people in place to deal with the interventions, but there's still going to be some break in that regular classroom pace and what's going on and so on. I think that's a positive.

I think the other thing is that statistics show us that there's no negative impact on academic performance over the period of time, these things happen, the kids get back to work, the teacher focuses again and they move on. So the tracking of the performance of our students indicates that there's no academic adjustment that's a negative situation in that regard.

MR. TAYLOR: I think that some of the teachers seem to have - and I commend all teachers actually and people who are trying to educate our children and perhaps to a similar degree, educate the parents in the system and that's difficult - exemplary teaching methods. Perhaps we perceive or misperceive them to be superior to some of their peers. How do you showcase those teachers who actually have practices that get the results more so than others? How do you actually translate that to other teachers?

MR. COCHRANE: There's been a fair amount of time talking about best practices in the classroom and what works. These are the kinds of teachers - and it's almost a negative in some ways to their class - that we will pull out to do workshops on proper intervention, behaviour modification, all those kinds of things that we do, and we can showcase them in that regard. I think they also get a great deal of satisfaction from doing what they do and

everybody knows that kind of teacher, and they generally help their colleagues. Some people are just much better at dealing with an individual difference than others, some are multi-tasks and do it faster and easier than others, it's human nature. We think we've attracted a huge number of those people into the profession and hopefully, it's an attractive profession that they'll want to continue to come in.

We do have a number of things that we have done. Two years ago in Learning for Life I, we provided $1 million for the first year to do pilots in each of the boards where they would do best practices and how to deal with some of the children with special needs and so on. We provided another $0.5 million and another $0.5 million after that, so we have about $2 million for special pilot projects by which we showcase how the board has come to grips with dealing with some of these students.

The other new initiative that has been interesting, and we've broken a significant trend in the country, is with our tuition support program. We used to have tuition agreements in Nova Scotia, the department held the money and people would apply to the board for their child to have their tuition paid, particularly at Landmark East which was one of the big ones. Interestingly enough, a number of years ago we gave the money to the boards and all of a sudden there were no tuition agreements in the province, but when it was the department that had the money there was a lineup. One of the superintendents made that comment, he wondered what caused that to happen.

I think what the inhibitor was, boards were paying a huge amount of money, some of which was going into room and board and so on. So our new tuition support program provides to those institutions, an equal amount to the average-per-pupil expenditure, to support the parent's child in that particular institution for up to two years. Then, of course, our goal is to have these children back in the public school system, our goal is to develop the resources in the public school system that would enable us to serve these children.

The other issue that's a bit of a concern is it's not universally accessible across the province because there are only three such institutions, two of which are here in metro. We would like to see a little more widespread availability of that particular service, but it has been a very interesting program. It is a recognition that our system is still adapting and that maybe there's a situation where we can't serve all the needs of every child, every day, and that there may be an opportunity for a homogeneous environment for that child to be dealt with by people who are specialized in that kind of service. So that's another innovative side in addition to the pilot programs and so on that we're doing.

We also have a huge development of a whole video series on resource teaching, and co-teaching, looking at teachers in the classroom, how their coping skills enable them to deal with the clients and students that we have. So we've done a lot of work in professional development, and I think teachers are accessing those particular programs. In the Province of Nova Scotia we spend almost $10 million a year for professional development. Some of

that is spent through the union and a contribution we make to them, but much is spent by money that the boards are given, or that we do with the department, in order to provide professional development opportunities for our teachers.

MR. TAYLOR: Are we doing anything differently now in the way we construct our new buildings, new schools, that will reside students? Is there innovation taking place there that is quite significant?

MR. COCHRANE: Certainly, the one that has taken place over the last number of years and it has come from adaptations of existing schools, but in the new design specs, it's the elevators, the accessibility and so on in our schools. At one time you had to schedule it so the child took all of their classes at one level that was accessible and so on, and we're developing as a matter of course, elevators in our buildings to make sure that we're able to adjust to the needs of every student that arrives. That's the physical side. We do have a lot more time-out rooms - and also if you noticed in one of our aspects in Learning for Life II, we're developing youth health centres which is a positive thing for every child, not just children with special needs and so on - not a room without windows in the basement where sometimes you sent a child - but a room where you knew they were secure, that they could be watched and so on.

We do have more cameras in our buildings to watch behavioural trends and what is happening to students, to deal with the question of bullying and making sure any child, let alone a child with special needs, is going to be treated in a negative way. There have been a number of modifications, obviously our washroom accessibility and so on, so a lot of physical changes have taken place in our buildings as a result, which is a thing that has changed over time. Now you take a 60-year-old building and we're going to have to be adapting quickly, as we realize the client has changed, but the new design specs deal with all of those issues.

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.

MS. JOAN MASSEY: Mr. Chairman, this morning I would like to talk about a couple of actual - I can't mention any names - situations, I guess, that involve special education. First of all, I'm not sure exactly how much money the department, through the Learning for Life, is actually putting toward special education, because when you look at that document there seem to be bits and pieces all over the place. I know you're putting, I believe, $9 million towards resource teachers, specialists and eight support workers. I'm hearing that you're actually putting some money towards specialized training for EPAs, correct? You mentioned this morning $1 million for special pilot projects dealing with special needs students. Those are just some bits of money that I'm aware of that are going toward special education in the system.

That's good news, but however, a strange thing occurred about two weeks ago. John Hamm, on May 12^th , which was a Thursday, stood on a stage at Auburn High School announcing and talking about Learning for Life and all the good news revolving around that. On Friday, the next day, Auburn, to my knowledge, lost two of their EPAs, two of their five EPAs were transferred out of the school. This affects one of the students in that school who has now lost his EPA and as far as I know, has had an EPA since he was eight years old; this student is 17 years old now.

This family was not told that the student was going to lose his EPA, there were two EPAs who apparently dealt with this child. In fact, there has been no talk that the EPA will be replaced, or that there is any plan in place for that. At the time, the student was involved in a co-op program that allowed him to travel outside the school, with the help of his EPA as a chaperone, and take part in a co-op program which the student dearly loved and was very happy to go to. He only had three days left in that program when the EPA was pulled, so this person cannot now finish out this program.

The mom wants her child's school life back, so I find it ironic that with this announcement of new cash, new money for special education, that this can happen, especially without parents having any forewarning or any communication at home that this was going to happen. I'm just wondering if you can - I know you can't comment on a specific case - overall, isn't there some mechanism that's in place that would allow this not to happen? Certainly, if you're going to lose an EPA, there must be some mechanism in place that would communicate with the parents that this was going to happen.

MR. COCHRANE: Let me answer your first question first, which dealt with the kind of money that's specific in the program for what we've been developing and so on. One of the big ones, of course, is the cap on Grade 2 class size which starts in September 2005, because that is going to be a positive thing. I've often used the story that I was in Hammonds Plains Elementary one day and I went into a Grade 1 classroom and there were 33 students and three adults. I suspected we had probably created an environment where it would be very difficult to teach and very difficult to learn. Interestingly enough, I met that class at an event I was at at Madeline Symonds and they said, gee, they've done really well - it was an immersion class - and it was interesting to see that they didn't suffer any necessarily as a result of that.

The whole class size initiative is a positive thing with regard to the environment in the classroom. One of the initiatives this year deals with - and I often use the analogy - that putting a cap on class size, there's a side-effect. The side-effect is you end up with more combined classes, multi-grade, multi-age classes, because if you have 27 Grade 1 children, you know there's not going to be a class of 13 and a class of 14, there's probably going to be a class of 25 and a P-1 split or whatever. So we do provide some money this year to deal with the issue where you may end up with a combined class, a P-1, with either more than 20 students or an identified IPP that causes the teacher to teach a separate lesson plan, and we

do have a provision for a second adult to be assigned to that particular class. So that's a major initiative to recognize one of the negative sides to what happens to putting on class size caps.

The other thing is we have more and more teachers who are skilled in dealing with multi-age and multi-grade, and a lot of people prefer to teach that. It's interesting, it's more acceptable when you have a choice than it is when you have a school where it's the only option, and I've seen that type of dynamic take place. So, certainly, the class size with regard to the $1.4 million this year, $1.2 million more into core professional services which would be $330,000 in reading recovery, this will enable us to really put reading recovery across the province available to every student. The last board to bring it on was Halifax.

One of the things that we've tried to do in the funding, is if a board made something a priority in the last two or three years - for example, we had reading recovery in several boards but it was never funded by the province - and we've now come on with a provincial program, we give that board the money, the same as we do a board that doesn't have it, to be fair. You don't punish good behaviour.

We have done that consistently, so we think this year, with the last of the money going to Halifax and we will have reading recovery pretty well across the province, we have more pilot programs, as I mentioned, another $500,000 going into that. We have assistive technology money, the second instalment of $300,000. We are also looking at the IB program which, of course, deals with the other end of the children with special needs spectrum; so a whole number of initiatives. It's something in the area of $6.6 million of that $21.4 million would be specific to that area and in addition to that, that whole climate with regard to the number of computers in the classroom, the number of education assistants and so on.

On the specific question, that intrigues me a bit, how it would happen at this time of year. Separating that, one of the philosophies associated with the assignment of an EPA or a TA - and we do have various names - is that you want to make sure that there is some movement of a planned nature. Now that one sounds to me like it wasn't a planned nature because you don't want the child to become totally dependent on the availability of one person. So we try to make sure that we do move some people. I often get letters from people who said, my child had this TA for five years and they are moving somewhere else and I'm upset. Well, there are union seniority issues. They may have found a job they were more comfortable doing. They may have felt they needed a change, plus the fact that we do like to see some movement because we don't want to create a total dependency. Remember, the inclusion of children with special needs is designed for those very social skills that Mr. Taylor asked us about to be developed. They have to start to fly on their own as they go through the process a little bit more. I don't think that's the case in the one that you are referring to.

It sounds to me like a transfer situation that wasn't done with the right amount of notice and the right amount of consultation with the parents, which surprises me a bit because I'm quite aware of the professional staff and the principal at Auburn Drive and they seem to be very much on top of most issues so there must have been something external that perhaps we didn't have a sense of. We can take a look at that - we are limited in what we can share but certainly - to make sure that the provision of services are there for that child. It sounds like they would be the type who would have needed the service but it sounds to me like an external process that may have got in the way of what should have been, perhaps, communicated more properly.

MS. MASSEY: Do I have like one minute left?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll probably get back to your caucus again. So, Mr. Graham, you're on.

MR. DANIEL GRAHAM: There is so much to discuss and there is so little time. I'm going to try to narrow my questions down to two specific subjects on special education but I would like to first start with a little bit of context before we begin. You asked the question, is there enough money? You answered your own question, there is never enough money. Frankly, deputy, that is reminiscent of comments that we hear from the minister from time to time, I'm sure you can appreciate. We appreciate your coming in to share your candid remarks in this kind of a setting and obviously with Mr. Sweeney and Ms. Power as well.

This is an issue that is very complex but it is set in the context of funding for education in the province that has, over the recent history, been funding students at a per capita rate the lowest of any province in Canada. It is in the province that has recently been struggling terribly with a number of challenges through the education system, perhaps most notably the fact that the scholastic scores of our students in relation to the students in other provinces have been trailing and it has been registered as recorded on a number of sort of broad assessments as the lowest academic rating of any students across the country.

So that's the context that I would like to place the question of funding for education in Nova Scotia in before we get to the fact that the government that I appreciate you don't control the message for, purported that this last education budget that was dropped in this past Spring was, according to the front-page headlines, the Education budget. Revenue under that budget increased for the Province of Nova Scotia by a grand total of about 9 per cent but what did we see to be the rise in the education budget in this last budget? Approximately 5.5 per cent.

If one were to purport that this is going to be an Education budget in a province that has the lowest scores, in a province that has the lowest funding, it would seem to me that a rate of increase, somewhere in the range of 15 per cent would have been more appropriate to address the enormous challenges that face the students in Nova Scotia. Specifically, for

those people who live in Halifax, which receives a per student funding that is 15 per cent to 20 per cent lower than the rest of the province - some of that is explainable - that is more troubling and it's even more troubling when you see that there is a $20 million pot that the property owners in Nova Scotia are paying into for supplementary funding that's supposed to go to enhancements for things like music and arts but instead it's going to pay largely for teachers for special education.

There was the SIERC report that you referred to. There have been a number of reviews, including comments in a press conference that was held - I think it was about two years ago in the foyer of the Legislature - from informed people around special education who said that we continue to have significant problems with the implementation of the SIERC report, and I appreciate that in this last budget we have taken steps in the right direction. I don't dispute that. It doesn't go as far as SIERC would have wanted it to go, quite obviously. There have been studies that suggest that the funding for special education in Nova Scotia is lower than it is in most other, if not all other, provinces.

I'm also mindful of the legislation that was brought in in 1995, Section 64(2)(d) of the Education Act that really sets the framework for special education where it says that school boards shall "develop and implement educational programs for students with special needs within regular instructional settings with their peers in age, in accordance with the regulations and the Minister's policies and guidelines;", and it's to those policies and guidelines that I would like to speak. Obviously, as was mentioned, and I think everyone who is close to the issue of special education would appreciate the enhancement that comes to society as a result of inclusion. I think it's wonderful that we have touched on this already in this discussion, that we will have, and we already have, a population of young people who are, in many respects, more tolerant to differences than we were when we were growing up and the policy of inclusion should be credited substantially for movement in that direction.

So this is, in many respects, an opportunity for a social enhancement but in many respects, some people who are in the system feel that it has been treated as a drag on the system and I would like to talk about what it looks like from the perspective of parents who are on the ground every day. Special education is purported to be a system that is intended to help people with intellectual delays but for many people who go through the system, what they find when they are making the application for an IPP or to determine whether or not they are going to get a teacher's assistant, what they are told by their school boards is, it doesn't matter whether your child has an intellectual delay. Whether or not you get a teacher's assistant is going to be principally determined by the following kinds of factors: whether your child has a physical impairment, whether they are a flight risk, whether they have problems with personal hygiene, whether they have behavioural problems and outbursts in the class, and the issue of whether or not they have intellectual delays really is a secondary or in some respects we are told sometimes not even an included issue.

So the first fundamental question that I have relates back to whether or not we have enough money, whether or not we need more, and we need a fundamental shift, and why do we have a system purporting to be designed to help people with intellectual delays that practically, on the ground, doesn't appear to be doing that and really is designed for people with physical impairments and other understandable issues that need to be supported but not so much the question of intellectual delays?

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. COCHRANE: Let me attempt to answer the first comment first, with regard to the education budget versus the health budget. Again, you're correct, we get the money that's assigned to us and so on. Undoubtedly, the province assigns the money based on revenues. I did look last year - not for the first time - because we see the budget in its entirety, the same as everyone else, as a deputy; last year there were $228 million assigned to the increase in the Health Department budget and about $22 million to the Education one. That met our needs - basically paid for what we had committed to and so on, and our increases, salaries and so on.

This year, the increase to Health was about $218 million and we were $71 million, plus we had prepaid the whole university envelope, about $20 million. So we closed the gap significantly and I have learned never to covet what my neighbour has for a budget but what I wanted to make sure was that we put a number of initiatives before the government, that we would have new initiatives that would support new things that we wanted to see happen.

Our new initiatives in Learning for Life II were $21.4 million in the Education Department and another $2 million-point something over in the Office of Health Promotion, for a total of about $24 million. When I went to the lock-up with everyone else I saw the new initiatives in Health were about $6 million, so I think we have made some leaps and some gains. There is no question that Health has an expanded population accessing the system and we have a reducing population. I think we moved along, we provided some good information and the government provided some good funding. That is one of the ones that we're concerned with. I think we have made some gains and we have got some projections as to what we are going to do in the future.

The question of teacher assistants or EPAs, I think you have fallen into the trap. I know that's not going to make you happy. But what we find out there is that all of a sudden there is a belief that this is going to solve the problem. Very often, a teacher assistant or an EPA provides, in the case of physically disabled children, some attendant care, but they're not teachers, they're not professional services that we think should be the prime owner of the particular issue as educating children. They are support, and that's good.

We've grown significantly in that area and we have raised the qualifications and the bar to get people more qualified into the system but it isn't a replacement for a well-trained teacher working with a class of children, knowing fully what the nature of that child's specialties are and so on.

MR. GRAHAM: Mr. Deputy, you know as well as I know that for many of these students, almost all of the time that they spend inside the classroom or within the brick walls of our schools is spent with their teachers' aides and many of them aren't with teachers in a teaching environment. So if these students - if we're talking about teacher assistants and if what you're saying is that teacher assistants' responsibilities aren't to teach, and it's really to support those broader social questions around whether or not this person can function in the school, then I think that it's not just a trap that I, as somebody who understands this issue pretty intimately, would have problems with, but I think many Nova Scotians would raise enormous questions about whether or not the priorities are in the right place.

As you have said a little bit earlier, we have our teachers being required in other provinces to have a master's degree. We often tout, and recently we have spoken about the increased training that we have provided to our teacher assistants and that increased training is around teaching these young people how to function and how to learn, and what their process of learning is. To on the one hand say, we're doing great jobs to enhance their understanding of elements of teaching, and then when it comes time for parents to say, I want a teacher assistant because my child has an intellectual delay, you put up your hand and you say, sorry, if they've got a toileting problem then that's why we'll provide you with a teacher assistant. We're not going to provide it because of the intellectual delay.

It's a false scenario to pretend that these people are better trained, and as a consequence, better able to provide a teaching experience, especially when many of them are together for 80 per cent of the day, and then say, sorry, this is about whether or not you're functioning socially. I would suggest strongly that the shift needs to be toward - and I'm not going to get to my second question . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, we may have a chance to come back to you. We probably will.

MR. GRAHAM: Anyway, I will just conclude with this. I think the argument that the Department of Education is using on this front, that teachers' aides aren't about teaching, is not unlike the minister's arguments that it is not all about money. These seem to be convenient rationales for the circumstances and the policy needs to be that these teachers' assistants do apply to people with intellectual delays.

MR. COCHRANE: If I could speak to that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, quickly, Mr. Cochrane, if you could.

MR. COCHRANE: There are obviously two philosophies. You have one and I have another. But we are not going to relegate the children who have the greatest problem, either learning, behaving, or physical activity, to a paraprofessional when they should be dealt with by a professional. That is unfortunately not where we should be going.

MR. GRAHAM: There's no argument there.

MR. COCHRANE: I could understand the argument if there was not an infusion of money to additional professional resources. We have added speech language pathologists, we have added resource teachers, we have added TAs, we have added core professional services to support our teachers in dealing with some of the situations they are facing in our classroom. It is a significant issue. There are children who do need a great deal of attention, but the ownership of that issue should rest with the classroom teacher who hopefully is well qualified and well supported in trying to deal with that issue.

We have a combination. We are trying to find a balance but the balance will not be allowing more and more teacher assistants to come into the system at the expense of core professional services and qualified professionals to deal with the nature of those problems. We are trying to make sure that we keep our professional services up to speed and increase the numbers of them available in our system to deal with these children.

It is sometimes a placebo and what we don't want - and you made reference to it - is, they are not in the classroom, they are not with the teacher, they are somewhere else with their teacher assistant. That is not an answer to dealing with the intellectual delays that our children have. It is a coping skill but what we really want to do is continue to add to our core professional services and the people available in our system to deal with these children, to give advice to TAs so they can be supportive. The problem should really rest with our professionals and our obligation is to make sure that we have them well qualified and enough core professional services to support them. We've got work to do, we know it, we have a four-year plan, we're going to continue to add resources as we have in the last three years.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you. Mr. O'Donnell.

MR. O'DONNELL: Just a quick question. You mentioned "gifted" students. I know of students who were, I guess, classed as gifted in the school. I also know a lot of students - and probably myself included - who probably weren't so gifted in school, but once they got out in society they did fairly well, financially secure, fared in the community well. So how does the department describe its gifted students, I guess, is what I'm trying to say?

MR. COCHRANE: There is a definition and I don't have it with me right now but we can find it. We have a document called Challenge for Excellence. We do have in Nova Scotia a number of advanced courses that we make available to these students. They may have extra abilities in a particular subject area so we try to give them a higher level course if they want, to enrol in mathematics, language arts, history or one of the others. So we're developing more and more advanced courses.

We do have a number of schools that have brought on what we call advanced placement, which is an American system really. It's really extra teaching and extra attention to certain aspects of the curriculum, and then there's an external test which is not, perhaps, the one that we would like to see developed, which, of course, is the International

Baccalaureate more so, but we are providing more and more opportunities across the province. We are trying to use distance ed also to provide some core options to some of the students who may be particularly gifted in a subject area but not have enough students in the school to form a class or to provide the professional staff that we need to teach them at that level. A number of these things that we're doing is to make sure that we're able to provide for a challenge for some of these students.

I guess one of the things that we do is there's no one criterion to develop a definition of what is a gifted child, but what we're looking for are students who have average ability, creativity and high levels of task commitment, and the task commitment side is part of which also will indicate that. Some of the characteristics of gifted learners and what we would look at are those who have rapid learning, they're easily bored by repetition, they are independent or abstract thinkers, they desire to solve real problems, and they have a wide range of sophisticated interests, and those aren't just the things but those are some of the signs of what we would look at as a student who might fit inside that definition.

Our goal is to try to provide challenges for these students. We do have independent study operation opportunities, we have challenge for credit, which is not used as much as I would like to see in the Province of Nova Scotia. We are now looking at developing more independent study credits to recognize some of the things that our students are doing outside the system that involve learning, students who may be from an Italian home who are taking a course in Italian. We think we should be able to recognize, as an independent study, a credit for that kind of thing.

One thing we would really like to develop is a credit for volunteerism, to make sure that we instill with this generation the desire to help others, and provide some of their talent and time for other people. So there's a whole number of things that we're doing, no one thing is the answer, and IB by itself isn't the answer, but we are trying to make that available to more students in the province. Between the advanced courses and some of the volunteer credits, the independent study credits, distance learning, and IB we have, I think, been able to challenge more and more of our students.

Many teachers, on a day-to-day basis, are providing adaptive curriculum and materials for these students to keep them interested, to keep them challenged, and to advance that particular student's abilities and interests. So it's happening all over, we're doing more, and obviously we want to make sure we challenge these students and keep them actively engaged in learning in our system like everyone else.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Estabrooks.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I want to return to that theme of frustration, this time away from the frustrated parent, adult, teacher, to the frustrated student. You've said before, and I think we've discussed it personally and publicly, I want to talk about discipline problems.

Let's call it like it is, many of the kids who are in these high-need situations, aside from the fact I'm not going to ask you what you did with the kid who threw the chairs against the wall, because there's more than just suspension of students. As I've said many times, if we're in situations where we are removing children from our public school for a period of time, time-out rooms, or whatever, it's almost a reward, it's not a suitable remediation of behaviour.

I'm wondering if you could clarify for me and the committee the current status of the tracking of suspension records, not necessarily by board - and it's an issue, particularly for my colleague, the member for Halifax Needham, as she has, to put it candidly to you, not received a lot of co-operation from the Halifax Regional School Board on this topic, because immediately they begin to say that's personal, we can't go down that road, it could be in some situations racial profiling, whatever else - but you've said somewhere, or told me anyway, personally, that you are tracking behavioural studies and suspensions. Could you report to us the status of that tracking?

MR. COCHRANE: A number of things are happening. Some of the boards have a very effective method of tracking. I had a chance to visit Chignecto-Central and they had a very interesting tracking system about the number of suspensions, the background of the students, what they were suspended for, the average number of days, the interventions, and so on. We are in the process of developing a student information system in Nova Scotia, which would be uniform for all the boards, so we would have provincial data in this regard.

[10:30 a.m.]

The budget includes $415,000 to develop a program to come to some conclusion as to what software program is the right one. One of the things we want to make sure of is that it's user-friendly, the last thing we need is hours and hours of inputting data into a system, but we do want to track those kinds of interventions and what's happening. That's part of it.

We do have a new code of conduct that we've been working on, professional development and so on, and tracking and identifying the nature of suspensions and so on with regard to that is part of it. In addition to that, we have a positive/effective behaviour, which is a four-year professional development opportunity in high school, and part of that is also identifying and tracking. There is an interesting form - and you'll see it, it's in your tab 12 - talking about behavioural incident tracking form, it gives all the information, tells the nature of it, the incident profile on what happened, the intervention that went on and so on. This is the form that's available and, of course, once we get a provincial tracking system we'll have that data available at our fingertips. Many boards have much of that now but what we're looking for is a uniform system across the province to deal with that.

When you get your booklet - and you mentioned about the whole student service teacher resource with regard to behavioural interventions and challenges - there's also a staff professional development resource associated with behavioural problems in our school

system. A lot of information. We do provide professional development in this regard. We do provide this information to teachers and it's always the problem, do you have time to read it and deal with it. I guess our concern is that these are real problems that they're facing, these are some strategies and some information that we think will help them deal with those particular problems.

We're concerned about the tracking, we're also very concerned about the intervention. It's one thing to measure what has happened, but another one to make sure you have an effective way of dealing with it. So we do think that we're on the right track.

The whole student information system is interesting. We spend a lot of money on making sure that we meet our payrolls, we have human resource information and so on, but it's our core professional function to make sure that we know what our students are doing, what has happened to them, what the incidents are, what the interventions are and also, the nature of the student, I think that's extremely important and probably one of the things that I think you are referring to, so we are developing that.

In addition to what the boards have individually, we do want to have a uniform provincial system, the boards have been engaged in that discussion. It's interesting, the couple of boards that have a sophisticated system think theirs is the best and what we're now trying to find is what one system will deal with meeting the needs of the province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll turn to Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: I don't want to take too much time because I'd like to be able to turn the floor back to Danny Graham, because he has some further questions. I just didn't want to let this go by, Mr. Cochrane, without asking you, how can you say that there's no academic impact from behavioural problems in schools? I can't believe that you can say that, with evidence, so I have to challenge you on that and ask. You said it clearly earlier in your talk and what we're talking about are obligations to the students, obligations to parents and teachers around inclusion.

I think we talked earlier about many positive aspects of that, many students are enriched, both those who have been brought into the schools who wouldn't otherwise, and their peers who have gotten to know them, meet them and learn their value, which is so important. But we did inclusion with an understanding with teachers and parents that there would be supports in place. My sense as a parent is that oftentimes, the supports are not provided and that's why the classroom does get out of control at times, some places. I'm not saying how widespread it is, but we need to support teachers and if they don't have the supports needed then clearly, there will be an academic impact. So maybe you'd like to just back up what you've said.

MR. COCHRANE: I don't know how many students would have been brought into the system when there was a decision and the legislative change to provide for an inclusionary environment, it may have been 200 or 300 across the system that were served somewhere else, and that's a very small percentage. If you look at the number of IPPs being 3 per cent, we probably have 4,500 or so students that would be on an IPP. So it's way beyond what people looked at as what group of people were meant to be included by inclusion. I think we're dealing with many of the issues associated with behavioural, we provide the resources as best we can and so on.

What we have to separate is children with special needs, special education services and behavioural problems that we have in our school system. They are two totally different topics. And I think, unfortunately, people say, well, it's because of inclusion or because of special needs children that we have these problems and that's so unfair. That's not what is causing most of our problems. Most of our problems are coming from, unfortunately, children who come to school without an appreciation of other people and interaction of other people, and rules, what you do and how you behave. Some of them can't control it and we know that's an issue.

MS. WHALEN: Well, if I could comment, you're talking, perhaps, about kids who have ADHD or conditions like that.

MR. COCHRANE: In some cases, yes.

MS. WHALEN: Well, those are measurable conditions. Those are not just that the child is misbehaving. They have their reasons for that and that would be part and parcel of the support we need to provide. So if my child had that kind of a concern, we would want to see that they had the right support in the classroom. I think, oftentimes, it's not there. Again, my sense is the problem - those kinds of conditions are more identified today - may be more prevalent but certainly better identified.

As you said earlier, people want their children to stay in school. They're not going to withdraw their children from school, which might have been the case 30 years ago, different times. It's much better to keep them in school. I'm not talking about, perhaps, the children - you're mentioning the 200 or 300 that might have been brought in at the initial, but there are many more children that are in our school now, perhaps, for societal reasons.

MR. COCHRANE: I think it's a change of society. I think it's also a good thing that there is a value on education, that parents want their children to remain in the system. At one time, they were gone. All these things bring different issues and different problems into the school system and I think our professionals are dealing with them very well with the resources we have. As I say, could we use more resources? Yes, we could. We are trying to make sure we move our way along in the guidance counsellors, the speech language pathologists, the resource teachers, the psychologists and so on.

There is a combination of interventions going on. We are bringing in the core professional services. There has been an increase in teacher assistants. All these things will continue to be developed. Although, society will continue to challenge us more and more as well with the kind of problems that are coming in.

MS. WHALEN: Let's get back to academics. How is that not having any impact on the academics when we live in a province where we know our results are not really in line with the rest of Canada? I'd be happy if we were in the middle of the pack. We're not. I mean, we have to aim higher.

MR. COCHRANE: One source does not an authority make. Today's Parent had an article that I know one of the members has read and has adapted to, the whole thing. Our testing results on international scores, the PISA results, the OECD scores and so on show that we are about seventh - not where we would like to be, but generally ahead of the other Atlantic Provinces - but we would like to do better. We would like to make sure that we continue to put value on students doing well in everything that they do, including tests that don't specifically count on the report card which is always an issue.

One of the interesting things is, we have not covered anything up. The math test, for example, in Grade 12. We've had difficult results but we've known - every teacher knew for years that there were a lot of children not succeeding. But we don't cover it, we lay it out. I can tell you, it would be a lot easier for the minister and the department if we didn't tell anybody but we have laid it out in the minister's report to parents about testing and scores, we have highlighted our scores provincially, nationally and internationally, and we have used that evidence to make evidence-based decisions on where the resources should go into the system. That's the best we can do, barring a whole bunch of money that comes all at once.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you. Could I go back again and just say, when you make a blanket statement . . .

MR. COCHRANE: There are some studies with regard to that and we will get you the information on the academic achievement, and the difference now and the difference then, and what we have been able to find. I don't know if Mike knows the name of the study but there is one and we'll get you that information.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, it is a Nova Scotia-based study based on our own results here in Nova Scotia?

MR. COCHRANE: No, it's not just ours.

MR. MIKE SWEENEY: It's research based on the impact of inclusionary practices on the educational outcomes of (Interruptions)

MS. WHALEN: There may be a question of whether or not we provide the same supports as other jurisdictions across Canada or across North America. (Interruptions) Well, I think it's important that it be provided to the committee because, you know, certainly, we would love to have that assurance that everything, academically at least, is status quo from the previous. But you agree with me that we have to aim higher, right? I hear that as well on the scores. But we're not going to go down there today because we're talking about a different subject.

MR. COCHRANE: I assure the government every day that we could use more and if they give it to us our system will spend it effectively and efficiently.

MS. WHALEN: Could I pass my time to Danny?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, we have Ms. Massey, and then we'll have time for Mr. Graham.

MS. MASSEY: We know that in 2003-04 there were over 6,000 children waiting for student services, correct? Well, it's close to that. I mean, the documentation that I have . . .

MR. COCHRANE: That's what the boards are probably reporting on the . . .

MS. POWER: The principals report that. It's right from the school level.

MS. MASSEY: There's a group of children waiting to get services that they have already been identified as needing, but isn't there another hidden waiting list of children that

the program planning team hasn't even looked at yet?

MR. COCHRANE: That's right. But that's the problem.

MS. MASSEY: Isn't it true that right now in Nova Scotia, what we are doing is we are setting up a privatization of the education system? People who can afford to pay to have their children assessed, evaluated outside the system, by somebody privately, are doing that. Parents who cannot afford to do that are not doing that and their children are wallowing in these wait lists. There are people going out who can afford to pay $1,000 or more to have their children evaluated, and once they are evaluated they're told, here's your child's disability, and then the school system cannot even touch that with a 10-foot pole. I mean, there are no services available. These same parents are going out and paying out of their own pocket to have professionals work with their children after school. They're paying by the hour to have this done. This is a whole other privatization. The same thing is going on in the health care system as within our education system.

I know you're putting money towards non-teaching adults in the classroom - I think, $1.8 million, to put a second non-teaching adult in the classroom and there are things like this going on. But my concern is - I know of one - there are lots of situations but one where the problem has not been recognized until this child is in Grade 3. This is just unacceptable in this day and age. I just want to get that out and have my say on that. I think there is another whole group of children that we don't even have numbers on who are waiting to even get involved in the whole system at all. If their parents have the money, they're getting help.

There are parents out there - and a lot of them live in my constituency - who do not have $1,000 and do not have money that they can pay for tutors after school, and these sorts of things. These children are not assessed at a level where they need an EPA. They're not going to get an EPA, they're never going to get an EPA. There is just no help for them, basically, in the system right now.

MR. COCHRANE: The whole question of wait lists is an issue. There is no doubt that there are many people put on the wait list who need assessment. Our suggestion is that the program planning team should be the ones to take the list and identify those who really need the testing, the assessment and so on.

As we continue to add to our professional services - and we are getting very close to the national ratios that were recommended in the SIERC report - presumably, they will be able to meet the demands in the system which should be no greater in Nova Scotia than they would be in our sister provinces and so on. We are continuing to bring that forward and provide more and more professionals, as I outlined, with regard to the documentation that I talked about.

We are concerned with the list of people. What we want to do is make sure that we have the support, the professional services to deal with the people who need to be assessed. Some people will be assessed and there will be no determination that there is a problem, or no determination that there is another support that is going to be provided, but that's up to our professionals to kind of come to those determinations. What we have to do is to make sure that we have enough professionals in the system with those kinds of qualifications. We are making significant gains in that regard and we have more to do.

But the wait list issue, it's different across the province, it's different in some boards, but I guess what we would like to see is that the significant cases that are brought forward by the teachers are dealt with by the program planning team so that we can provide the resources that we need to do this assessment. There will always be people who will access services outside of ours. I don't doubt that that is going to happen. I don't doubt it has always happened. It's not our goal, it's not something we aspire to do. Our goal is to provide the level of service that meets the demands and needs of our population and we are working toward that.

[10:45 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll now turn to Mr. Graham.

MR. GRAHAM: Mr. Chairman, I would like to turn to a slightly different subject but a related subject but before I do, I would like to say, first of all, that the comments that I have made from time to time about the scholastic scores of Nova Scotians isn't based on a magazine article. That magazine comes to the same conclusion. It comes as a result of a determination of what is said in the School Achievement Indicator Program, the SAIP, which, as I understand it, is the most comprehensive cross-provincial assessment of how students are doing academically and if we are doing seventh, deputy, I would be delighted. So my first question is whether or not you can provide to the committee, through the chairman, the support documentation to tell us how you arrive at the conclusion we are about seventh with respect to the academic achievement of Nova Scotia students in relation to the rest of the country.

A related but separate question that I would ask that you provide to the chairman, please, is the SAIP tests, as you would be aware, test math, language arts and science for students in different grades at different times. They are done on staggered years. It would be helpful if we could have the most recent results of math, science and language arts on the SAIP tests for Nova Scotia students in relation to the rest of the country, at the two levels that it's being done, in comparison to the other provinces. If we could have that it would answer this. I can assure you if that concludes that in fact Nova Scotia students are seventh instead of 10^th in academic achievement, then I will be the first person to say that that is so.

Let me turn to something related to the first question and it relates to intellectual delays and whether or not the system is centred on the individual needs of students with intellectual delays. I would like you, if you could, to take off your deputy's hat and wear your educator's hat and consider this question. For some people with intellectual delays, it may take perhaps 26 years to learn what they need to learn in order to go out into the great world instead of the 13 years that we presently set out for people, or 15 years if we hold people back for a period of time. But clearly, for some people, they are continuing to learn beyond the 13 or 15 years that they have had in the public education system and their intellectual delay has held them back and the best thing for them is to stay in a learning environment instead of going into a training environment for a period of time so that they can get the fundamentals that help them be a more productive, happy, prosperous and contributing member of society.

So as a general, and frankly more philosophical question, should we not have an education system that is centred on the needs of the individual, particularly those with intellectual challenges so that if it takes them 20 years to learn what needs to be learned for them over a sustaining period to make a big contribution, instead of saying, sorry, the assembly line has ended, it matters less that you have learned to a Grade 7 or Grade 8 level,

it matters more that you are 21 or 22 - I forget the exact age - and it's time for you to move on.

Now I know that you have recently done a transition document and you're focused on some of these issues but I think that we need to, from a philosophical perspective - if I could use that word twice in the same little monologue - surely we, with a student-centred orientation, would break down the barriers and say no longer do you have to leave school at a particular chronological age. Instead, you should be allowed to stay if you're continuing to learn and try, and you are going to be in a better place in the learning environment than a training environment - even if we did have good training and, of course, we have many complaints about whether or not those people have a place to go for training, but that's a separate subject for Community Services.

MR. COCHRANE: As you know the Act dictates high school graduation and an age of 20 or 21. The transition document does refer to moving on into the community, and moving on into other institutions and so on. We do provide some real supports, at the community college particularly. Universities - although through the Atlantic Centre at Saint Mary's and some of the other initiatives we are making adjustments with regard to an opportunity for students to move to post-secondary education and so on.

One of the issues that we deal with all the time in the school system is when you're with your peers at a certain age group. This is one of the issues and you see a child who may be in Grade 4, who is 14 or 15, you don't see that anymore and maybe some people would like to have that, but I think there is also a benefit on the social side, the developmental side of being close to the group of peers who are similar in age and interests.

I'm sure if there are individual cases we do look at them as we go through, but we do try to provide an opportunity, at the community college, or in the community learning institutions and so on to deal with that. Philosophically, should a 25-year old be in Grade 6, Grade 7, or Grade 10? I have a hard time with that. We perhaps have not met their needs at that point and there may be some other environment that would be more conducive to them accomplishing the developmental needs that they have, the social development and so on. But we do try to make the adaptations on the way through.

The transition document is very good on talking about moving into school, up through the grades, and then into the community or other post-secondary institutions. I guess, philosophically, I would say it would be very difficult for me to accept that a 35-year old, or a 25-year old would be better served by the school system than maybe some of the other organizations and institutions that we support either through - not as much through educational as it's post-secondary, but through Community Services and a number of other organizations.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, I guess that pretty well concludes our time for questions from our guests. On behalf of our committee, I would like to thank the deputy and staff for coming in today and presenting to our committee. There has been some information requested, maybe if it is possible to have that sent through, we will see that our committee members get it. Again, on behalf of the committee thank you very much for showing up and if you have a few closing comments . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Thank you for the opportunity. I can never underestimate the problems that our system faces. There are a lot of challenges that come to the school system. We try to provide the resources, the trained professional staff to deal with them and the support for the people that we have in our system.

I remember one of my ministers used to get very frustrated when something went wrong. I used to say, you must remember there are about 200,000 parts in the education system, most of which are human and most of which are moving. We try to respond to those issues and I think our teachers, our administrators, our professionals, do a very good job. We have to strive to meet the needs of all the students and when there is an issue we have to respond to it, we have to take a look at the individual needs of our students, and try to respond to those. I think our professional staff do very well. We have more to do, we have more money that we're going to assign to supporting what the evidence tells us are areas of the system that need support, where additional resources will make a difference.

I do appreciate the opportunity to be here, we have prepared this whole binder which we will leave a copy for each caucus and if one member wants an individual copy, we certainly can make that available, as well. We will undertake to provide the information that we indicated that we would and we will find the study with regard to inclusion and the results, and circulate that through the clerk to the committee members. Thank you.

I want to thank my people who are here, I guess I answered most of the questions but they were giving me information and so on, but I do thank them for the support and the preparation of the information. What I really thank them for, along with the professionals, is each and every day they are trying to meet the challenges that society throws at the education system and we can try to continue to support that. Your questions, if they show that there are areas where we need more money, that helps us in convincing our masters that those are areas where we should put it, so thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We do have a little bit of business that we have to conclude here. Our next meeting is June 7^th and that is going to be at the Chamber, dealing with the Workers' Compensation Board and the Department of Labour, they will be coming in as guests. Also on June 28^th . . .

MR. TAYLOR: We meet next Tuesday then?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Tuesday at nine o'clock in the Chamber. The university tuition people, we have asked them to come in on June 28^th, they haven't confirmed yet so we are waiting for confirmation that they can make it on that date.

MR. ESTABROOKS: They all have student jobs, Mr. Chairman, they haven't the time to come to committee meetings.

MR. TAYLOR: Who's coming in on behalf of WCB?

MR. CHAIRMAN: As far as we know right now, the Deputy Minister of Environment and Labour as well as Louis Comeau. Other than that, I'm not sure. (Interruption) That is sort of a follow-up that we asked him to come in as part of the three people who had resigned from the board. Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Not about the WCB but about the university tuition, I'm wondering if, given that they have some difficulty in June, could we have them early in September?

MR. ESTABROOKS: Suggest it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Suggest it, yes.(Interruptions)

MS. WHALEN: They are busy in the Summer, some of us may miss . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: They are next on our list after workers' compensation. So for the end of June they are scheduled. If they can't make it, we will just transfer them to - I take it the committee doesn't want to have anybody in during July and August as witnesses. (Interruption)

MS. WHALEN: I think it would be better just to move them but we normally meet the end of September. I would be quite happy to see them the beginning of September when they are paying their tuition. Let's talk then. Let's hear it when it's fresh. I also have a daughter attending next year so I will be going through that myself. I will have a new perspective myself. (Interruptions) So, anyway, I would like to see them moved, if we could, to early September. Could we offer them that option?

MRS. DARLENE HENRY(Legislative Committee Clerk): I could tell them that and see what they - but this is on that survey, remember they wanted to present the . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. This is dealing with a survey that they have done and they are wanting to make the presentation to the committee as soon as possible, so we will see what they come back with and we will deal with it.

The other thing is that the ad campaigns that we've had, there is some information in your package today, some of the results that we have with the last campaign, some of the changes that have taken place. I think they are quite significant, a lot of them, and if you want to have a look at that maybe at some point in time we could have some more discussion on that as well.

Is there any further business? If not, a motion to adjourn.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I so move.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The committee is adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 10:58 a.m.]