Date: May 8, 2019 For Release: Immediately
NSTU President Paul Wozney says the elimination of at least 20 Early Literacy Support (ELS) teaching positions will impact hundreds of students. He is again calling on Education Minister Zach Churchill to release the full list of schools across the province experiencing a reduction in ELS next year.
Wozney’s comments come after the Halifax Regional Centre of Education confirmed to multiple media outlets that it’s cutting ELS positions and redistributing them to other areas.
“ELS is a program that helps young children in grades Primary to 3 learn how to read. Because of these cuts, students that have already been identified as needing extra support won’t be able to get it,” says Wozney. “The parents of these children deserve answers which is why we are calling on government to release the full list of schools where ELS has been cut.”
He adds, “It’s really unfair that school communities are being left in the dark about teaching allocations in general. This total lack of transparency and accountability is the direct result of the McNeil government’s decision to eliminate elected school boards”
What has been hurting thousands of children has been the inadequate instruction of literacy in Nova Scotia schools. NS schools use a mode of instruction that employs the three cueing system where students do not learn to decode words. The science of reading acquisition is crystal clear… students learn best when they are taught to read through explicit, systematic and code based instruction. Let’s not continue to be dinosaurs in NS. We shouldn’t be happy with a system that on average is failing 30% of grade three students.
We need a robust fully funded education sysytem that employs the best research and science. Too many children are struggling needlessly.