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Q. Do you have any strategy to deal with the empty student spaces (55,000 in Southwestern Ontario school boards alone) across the province?

A: Our focus right now is on Bill 48 (Safe and Supportive Classrooms Act), the legislation we introduced (on Oct. 25) . . . we are upholding a moratorium on any school closures until we have an opportunity to reach out to our stakeholders.

Q. Last week you announced math will become mandatory in teachers’ college. What else can we expect in the future?

I very much appreciate that the Ontario education system is respected worldwide. But other jurisdictions — this is a key message — have caught up or surpassed us when it comes to the fundamentals of getting back to basics of mathematics. So we want to make sure that Ontario can still lead the way. We’ve already provided a resource guide to teachers to transition from discovery math that they have been teaching over the last number of years to help them to tie in fundamentals and getting back to the basics. And we’ve also provided a fact sheet for parents as well.

Q. How would you describe the consultation process? You’ve had some criticism.

I’m very, very pleased with the direction we’re headed. Our first phase that we introduced right out of the gate was an opportunity for people to comment with written submissions on all of our seven themes : jobs skills, life skills, distractions in the classroom, math, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), and health and physical education. We just released 10 additional dates for telephone town halls to ensure that people have a chance to participate.