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The following statement was issued today by Roger Grimes, Minister of Education. It was also read in the House of Assembly:

I wish to issue a statement today for clarification purposes only regarding teacher layoffs. The teacher's Collective Agreement requires all school districts to issue layoff notices to teachers by today's date, May 7. Usually, boards have completed all the necessary assignment and reassignment of teachers for the next school year by May 7. Therefore, layoff notices ordinarily are issued only to those teachers losing their jobs.

Mr. Speaker, the situation this year is somewhat different because of the reorganization of the school districts and the unusually high number of school closings. As a result, government and the Newfoundland and Labrador School Boards' Association requested that the NLTA extend the layoff date beyond May 7 for this year only to give boards the extra time to complete the reassignment process and avoid any unnecessary aggravation and stress to teachers and their families. However, the NLTA chose not to comply with that request.

As a consequence, school districts have resorted to issuing layoff notices to more teachers than necessary in order to guarantee that they can meet the requirements of the Collective Agreement. Over the next couple of weeks, boards will complete the reassignment process and in doing so will recall most of the teachers who have been issued layoff notices.

Mr. Speaker, I have been assured by the school districts that every effort will be made to reassign teachers and to reduce the number that will actually lose their jobs. Let me state emphatically that the number of teachers being removed from the system this year will not exceed the 468 as previously announced by government. In fact, less actual layoffs will occur due to the number of retirements which currently exceed 200.