The Chair of the Anglophone East District Education Council is happy with a three hour long meeting with the Education Minister.
Harry Doyle says their members didn’t get any firm answers from Dominic Cardy, but Doyle felt it was a very productive evening.
“I was very pleased at how it ended. We were all smiling at one another. Everyone seemed to appreciate that we have a chose to do in education,” Doyle says.
The meeting covered a lot of ground, and Cardy did a lot of listening to the concerns of the members. Doyle says he also seemed very interested to hear suggestions from the members on how things can be done differently.
“The atmosphere in the room was very receptive. I have never seen a Minister stay with a DEC meeting for three hours. I asked if he was in a hurry. He said it was his last meeting of the day, and we had him for the evening,” Doyle says.
Each member of the council brought up a different concern, ranging from the budget, a need for more Educational Assistants, order and violence in the classrooms, and concerns over aging schools.
Doyle says they did get one answer from Cardy that relieved some concerns, “We asked him straight up if there will be DEC elections in the spring and he says yes.”
On the issue of budgets, Cardy did says he would get back to the DEC in January.
