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WHITEHORSE – The Yukon Party Official Opposition is awarding the Liberal government a failing grade for handling the school year so far. MLAs have heard several concerns from school councils, parents, educators, and school communities about what has happened this school year. These range from staffing and health and safety to literacy programs and a freeze on capital and maintenance repairs
Yukon Party MLAs continue to hear about teaching vacancies across many schools. Entering this week, there were 62 postings for educators in the Yukon, and the number has trended upward since the start of the school year. Recruitment of Teachers on Call or substitute teachers continues to be a problem. Many schools are reassigning Learning Assistance Teachers or Educational Assistants (EAs) to act as subs, which pulls them away from their regular duties assisting vulnerable students.
Despite being blasted about the new EA allocation process by several organizations last spring and backtracking to the old EA allocation system for this year, the Minister appears to have ignored that commitment, and many schools are now disputing school EA allocations as they do not appear to have been done on a needs basis.
Lead testing and mitigation of drinking water in Yukon schools was initially promised to take place over the summer break but is only underway now. The Minister should explain why the work was delayed and when it is expected to be completed.
Several schools throughout the territory need their public address systems repaired or replaced. Schools have not been provided with timelines for scheduling this work.
The Yukon Party has also heard from school communities that small capital budgets available to be used at the discretion of each school have been reduced to zero and frozen.
On the literacy front, the First Nation School Board has moved away from the Reading Recovery program, and they have seen encouraging results. However, the department's schools are still using Reading Recovery despite mounting evidence that it is ineffective.
“The minister and her government have known about these issues for some time,” Education Critic Scott Kent said. “All of these issues impede student success and strain our educators. Yukoners would appreciate an update from the minister on these issues and hear her government's action to address them.”
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Contact:
Tim Kucharuk
Media Director
(867) 689-7874
