YELLOWKNIFE (October 28, 2014) – The Government of the Northwest Territories is responding to numbers released by Yellowknife Catholic Schools (YCS) and the Yellowknife Education District No. 1 (YK1) last week showing the apparent cost of Junior Kindergarten (JK) and its impact on their schools. The boards’ press release contained critical factual errors that risk adding to the existing confusion about the implementation of JK in Yellowknife.

“While I welcome continuing public debate on something as important as public education, I am troubled by the erroneous numbers used in YK1’s and YCS’s press release,” said Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Jackson Lafferty. “I think it is our collective responsibility to ensure we support a well-informed debate about who should have access to education and how it should be funded by providing objective and correct facts,” said Minister Lafferty.

The department of Education, Culture and Employment (ECE) and YK1 and YCS staff agreed some time ago to the financial impacts of JK in Yellowknife and signed off on the correct figures. In a follow-up meeting between department officials and board staff today, boards agreed that there were errors in their release.

Where the error occurred in YK1 and YCS’s conservative enrolment scenario calculations

ECE continues to work with the boards and remains confident that reductions can be absorbed by YK1 and YCS without notable negative impacts on K-12 programs.

Media inquiries:

Jacqueline McKinnon
Manager, Communications and Public Affairs
Department of Education, Culture and Employment
Tel: (867) 920-6222
Email: jacqueline_mckinnon@gov.nt.ca