Education minister talks coming changes
When asked why the McNeil Liberal government is moving so swiftly on implementing changes to the education system as recommended in the Glaze report, Education Minister Zach Churchill had a quick answer.
“We don’t think our kids can wait and we do think it’s time for bold and decisive action on education reform in this province,” he said in a phone interview Thursday.
“We don’t want to repeat the same mistakes of the past where reports have challenged us to take on difficult issues and make transformative changes have just sat and collected dust on a shelf.”
On the same day that a Nova Scotia Teachers Union-organized public forum on planned changes to the education system was taking place in Sydney, Churchill was in town meeting with educators and parents to discuss the measures.
However, he said he wouldn’t take the NSTU up on its invitation to attend the forum because he had meetings of his own already scheduled.
When asked how it was determined who he would meet with during these sessions, Churchill said arrangements were made by superintendents, with representatives from each school and school advisory councils, “to come and have a frank and open and tough conversation.”
Churchill is travelling the province to discuss the coming changes to education based on the recently released report by consultant Avis Glaze. Only a day after the report was made public, Churchill announced the province intends to act on them.
“This is about getting out, meeting with teachers, principals, community members, senior management in our board offices to talk about the changes, to talk about how we can ensure a smooth implementation and to obviously gather concerns and questions from people to bring back to my colleagues,” Churchill said.
He acknowledged the reaction to date to the province’s intentions has been mixed.
The two measures that have attracted the most attention are the plan to dissolve the English-language school boards and removing principals and vice-principals from the NSTU.
The NSTU has indicated it intends to hold a strike vote next week. Churchill has warned that the union and individual members could be fined if illegal job action is taken. NSTU Cape Breton District local president Dayna Enguehard said this week, “it seems to be an attack on teachers.”
The changes are coming on the heels of a bitter labour dispute and resulting work-torule campaign by teachers last year. The union has said the changes will not improve classroom conditions.
“I think a lot of the recommendations in the report, particularly around getting more resources back into the classroom from central offices, giving teachers more say over course materials and curriculum, that there’s broad-based consensus on,” Churchill said. “Of course, there’s a couple of key recommendations that do cause concern for people and people have important questions to ask about it and obviously have different opinions on whether it’s the right course of action or not.”
The reorganization of the education system will not be a repeat of the amalgamation of the province’s district health authorities, Churchill said. The move to a province-wide health authority had led many both inside and outside of the health system to complain of a loss of a local voice and local autonomy. He described the situations as being different because this is not an amalgamation.
Churchill stressed regional offices will remain open. Decisions about weather-related school closures will continue to be made locally. He noted board math and literacy consultants will be redirected back to the classroom. The recommendations also call to better empower school advisory councils. A similar pledge to beef up community health boards was also made in advance of the health board amalgamations and that hasn’t prevented a feeling of disenfranchisement among some.
Churchill said the councils will be given funding that they can direct into their own school communities and will be connected to regional offices through families of schools.
Churchill said the changes will also empower those on the front lines of education who have complained of having lost some authority over their work. Teachers will be able to choose course materials and they can have more input into the provincial curriculum, he added.
There are essentially eight different education systems operating within Nova Scotia, Churchill said, and student outcomes vary from region to region.
“We want to unify the system so that whether you’re in Yarmouth, whether you’re in Halifax, whether you’re in Antigonish or Cape Breton that you’re getting the same level of education and you have the same chance to achieve high outcomes like others in the province,” he said.
“For far too long we’ve been performing at or below the national average.”