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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1998-03-25, Page 1Your Community Newspaper Since 1860 --- Seaforth, Ontario HPCDSB School changes are on the way BY GREGOR CAMPBELL SSP Staff Next year's March break might not be as long as this year's for area students. Under recent provincial government policy changes, aimed at maximizing instruc- tional days. perhaps the only way the. annual break might last two weeks is if the school year started before Labour Day. which could be' a hard sell here in rural Ontario. That's a busy time of year on area farms. Superintendent of education John McCauley told the Huron -Perth Catholic District School Board's Feb. 23 meet- ing that a decision hasn't been made yet, hut an adviso- ry committee has been, formed, along with the Avon - Maitland District School Board. to study the issue and advise the respective boards. Another committee of .10 has been established by this area's Catholic school board to work on implementation of other recently mandated poli- cy changes by the Ontario government. NO DEBATE Superintendent McCauley told trustees the board met with education ministry offi- cials the week before, and "there is no room for debate within these new policies... just how we can make it work." Optional subjects will become somewhat limited in specific . circumstance's: Grade 9 will become streamed, and subjects that certain students have tried again to get higher marks will he disclosed on their transcripts under the new sys- tem, among other changes. McCauley reported to trustees. The new Tour -year -system becomes effective in Ontario as of September 1999. he said. with thc "lead cl.,,," being this year's Grade 7s. Grade 9 will be "streamed" despite conflicting views as to its merits. Ontario's Royal Commission on Learning, for instance. advised against it. Thirty credits, each of approximately 110 hours (although there is some flexi- bility in'this area) will' be required for a diploma. Of these 18 will be mandatory. FEWER OPTIONS • That leaves 12 options, but the Catholic community requires four religious cduca-,. tion credits, which reduces this number further for stu- dents. Options could be as few as two for all of high school in French immersion, the superintendent of educa- tion warned. "This is a bit of an alert for us," he told trustees. McCauley also said "sci- ence and mathematics" appears to have more value under the new system, at the expense of "arts and social science." He added every course each student takes will be recorded on Grade 1 1 and 1.2 tran- scripts as part of the provin- cial government's new "full .disclosure" policy. "This board will have to decide what is viable in terms of what, you can offer." the' superintendent concluded. Flu victims take precautions With schools reporting high numbers of absentees due to influenza the Huron District Health Unit is advising peo- ple to take the necessary pre- cautions. Public health nurse Shirley Chalmers, on the health pro- tection team says people need to take care and stay home if they're feeling sick 'She outlined the three sur- veillance processes the unit uses to monitor the out- breaks. "What we try to do with our influenza surveillance pro- gram is try to track what's happening." One of the ways is 10 track school absenteeism, then the unit monitors activity within nursing homes. Chalmers said influenza is a reportable disease and physi- cians are required to report it. She said the county school absenteeism rate has been higher this year than it has been for the last couple of years. "It;s to early to tell with the nursing homes. Last year we had five or six outbreaks of influenza which started mid-December and ended in February. "This ycar it's just starting now and may go on for another month." She said this ycar the schools have been hit hard with high absenteeism rates. When the schools first began reporting absenteeism a couple of weeks ago, swabs were taken from ill students which confirmed i nfluenza A was present. • "if you're ill stay al home and try not to expose other people." As a precautionary measure Chalmers says frequent hand washing is a necessity.. For those in high risk groups a flu shot is available, adding it's still not to late fair people to be vaccinated. Huron County is not on its own with the outbreak. other counties arc also experienc- ing high numbers of people with influenza, Chalmers ,•stated. • ' Peter Burtch administrator at the Seaforth Manor says it was closed to the public as a precaution. "We're pretty cautious and we stop public groups coming in as a safety measure." Tracy Nash administrator at the Maplewood Manor says they haven't been afflicted with the flu bug .yet, although she did say there is a sign in the lobby of the home stat- ing: as a precaution visitors who aren't feeling well must respect the residents and schedule another visiting appointment. March 4, 1998 $1.00 includes GST The 1st Seaforth Beaver Pack toured the Seaforth Clinton Ambulance Service Tuesday. Beavers From left. Grant Bolton. Brandon, Prior. Tanya Fordo and Nicole Steep are shown some of the emergency equipment carried on the ambulances by Blaine Lucas, opera- tions manager for Zurich, Scaforth-Clinton Ambulance Services; The Beavers also viewed the inside of the ambulances. ` ' Local pastor leaving for Belize. BYJACKIE FITTON ' Expositor Editor Pastor Rick Lucas preached his last sermon as minister of the Bethel Bible Church last Sunday. He now prepares himself, along with his wife Wendy, and children Tyler. Hope and Nathan, fora two-year mis- sionary term in Belize train- ing other pastors. Missionary work is the completibn of something he has always wanted to partici- pate in. Belizb - being thc ideal location. ' "It's Latin American and it's also English speaking," he said. While being an exciting venture for tate family, it's also the experience of a dif- ferent culture "It'll be a culture shock," he admits, "hut we're excit- ed, and we do have concerns about things like spiders and snakes." But living in the capital city of Belmopan, Pastor Lucas says wildlife may not tend to be a problem. He has been the minister of Bethel Bible Church since the ,fall of 1990. Prior to that he worked with young offenders in the London area. It's a job he will return to for a few more months until the family has raised the rest of their financial support. "In our association we -are involved in the Faith Mission which is not a denomination- al mission. We are going with the Gospel Missionary Union and have to raise our own financial support to 'go," he said. Following the two-year position the family will return to Canada although it may not be to Scaforth. "We're coming hack to Canada and back into the pastoral missionary in Canada somewhere." A search committee by the church is presently .up and running to find a predeces= sox. Pastor Lucas admits it will. •he quite a culture shock. from ' Scaforth to Belize. They will arrive in April to 105 degree weather. "It will be quite a shock to our systems. but I think we'll adjust pretty well." Due to lack of space at the church, which was the former Egmondvillc Public School. the more than 110 -strong congregation hold Sunday services at the Seaforth District High School. "We moved out of this building two years ago. The church itself is used for a meeting place for the youth groups. worshipping practice and bible study groups. • In the future, he said. the- church will he looking to build a new church which he says is exciting for the con- gregation' The church has seen quite a bit of growth during his near- ly eight-year. tenure He said there arc lots of young people anda lot of young families with children. "This is a terrific congrega- tion. they won't have any trouble attracting a new pas- tor and I know the church will continue to grow." Although the family is excited about' the move. "We'll miss our friends. because we've enjoyed our time in Scaforth." Positive financial news for school board Positive financial news for the Avon Maitland District School Board was presented last Tuesday that, according to their press telease, "virtu- ally eliminates the need to reduce, operating expendi- 'tures further than the previ- • ously announced $2.4 -mil- lion reduction to the capital plan" for this short or "stub" fiscal year. The recently amalgamated new board, the lowest spend- ing public board in the province, says "it looks for - Correction, apologies to Clinton A front-page story in the Feb. 25 issue of this paper head- lined "School board staff oppose town location incorrectly stat- ed in the first paragraph that Clinton board staff oppose a move to Scaforth. This is not true. Only the Stratford office of the Avon -Maitland District School Board has gone on record .nit ,in opposition to a Seaforth location for a proposed new adttrinii- tration centre. 'the complete text of the Clinton presentation to the board is on Page 5 of this week's edition. The Homo Expositor regrets the error. Stub year reviewed by separate board Trustees reviewed a prelim- inary stub year (Jan. I to Aug. 31) budget for 1998 at the Feb. 16 meeting of the Humn-Perth Catholic District School Board. "We have no large concerns of being grossly underfunded for the short year," superin- tendent of finance Gerald Thugs says. "It looks pretty good " "The actual regulations 'have yet to be provided, how- ever the revenue estimates are based on the 1997 revised estimates filed with the Ministry of Education and Training," management com- mittee chair Mike Miller's report states. He says the preliminary fig- ures involve a lot of "guessti- mating." 4 ward to thc promise of equi- table funding for its students when the government announces its new education funding model to be effective for the (next) school year" that starts this Sept. I. Preliminary 1997 okrating results for the former Huron and Perth boards were pre- sented to the Avon -Maitland at last Tuesday's meeting. "Although all items have not yet been finalized, it appears that the former Huron board will be in a break-even position," accord- ing to the press release. "However, the former Perth board is anticipating a sur- plus of approximately $1.6 million. "Some of this can be attrib- uted to the net savings from the teachers' withdrawal of services in the fall ($.2). In addition, retirements were fewer than expected resulting in an excess of $.2' million .savings in gratuity payments. "Lower salary expenditures and non -replacement of staff save $.3 million. "The balance can he attrib- uted to a concentrated and continued effort to reduce expenses." , the Avon - Maitland board press release continues. "in the early fall, the former Perth board was aware of thc possibility of a shortfall in funding for the 1998 short year period and every attempt was made to mitigate the loss." The new executive for 1998 elected during the Scaforth Agriculture Society's annual meeting were front, Icft, Lynda Vincent, 2nd vice-president; Jim Floyd president; Marie Hickncll, Homecraft president; hack, left, Andrew McBride, 3rd vice prdsident; Paul Dodds, outgoing president and Gord Caen, 1st vice president. (Fitton photo)