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The Times Advocate, 2005-11-16, Page 7Wednesday,November 16, 2005 Exeter Times -Advocate 7 Principal's message EXETER — The School Council is hosting another ses- sion in our continuing "Teenagers: Under the Influence" series tonight (Nov. 16) at 7 p.m. in the school library. The topic for this month's forum is "Teen Dating: Control, Obsession, Violence. What's Healthy - What's Not," and our guest speaker is Pam Hanington from Women Today of Huron. Pam has delivered informational sessions on dating to secondary students and their parents for several years now. We encourage parents to join us tonight to explore healthy dating relationships and to get valuable insight on how to recognize unhealthy relationships and how to help teenagers recognize the differences between healthy and unhealthy relationships. Pam will also pro- vide suggestions for teenagers on how to get out of unhealthy relationships. If you are the parent of a teenager, you will already know how important relation- ships seem to be to young people: this session should provide you with helpful suggestions on how to cope with the ups and downs of teenage relationships. A notice on tonight's forum was sent home with report cards last Friday. If you didn't see one, then you may not have seen the report card either. I would like to remind parents that this first report card has marks and comments on only the semestered courses. Therefore, students in Grade 9 would receive marks and comments on no more than two courses, while students in Grade 10 would receive feedback on no more than three courses. These students will receive a second report card on their year-long courses in early December. After that report they will be asked to fill out and return the Report Card Response Form, complete with a parent signature. Students in Grades 11 and 12 received marks and comments on all their courses and will be completing the Response Form this week. We would like to have the Grade 11 and 12 Response Forms returned to us by no later than Nov. 25. Also included with the report cards was a short newsletter, which contained information about the report cards as well as a reminder about where to find information about bus cancellations. Winter will soon be upon us, and we will no doubt have to contend with at least a few stormy mornings. When we do have to cancel buses, the information is sent to the local radio stations in London, Stratford and Wingham. We recommend that students and parents listen to CFPL AM 980 or to CKNX FM 102. Other radio stations will pick up the information but we rely on these two in particular to get the notices out as quickly as possible to our students and parents. The bus cancellation information can also be found on our school and board websites: www.amdsb.ca/SHDHS/current/ and www.yourschools.ca. The information is forwarded to these websites as soon as the decision has been made to cancel the buses: so, unless we also have a power fail- ure, the website information should be up-to-date and accurate. The decision to cancel buses is not an easy one and there is considerable consultation with the bus contrac- tors before a decision is reached, starting at about 5:30 a.m. However, Mother Nature is not always co-operative and sometimes the decision is made later than we would like. Unfortunately, this can make it difficult for parents of elementary students for whom childcare arrangements may have to be made. We do try to make the call by no later than 7 a.m., but sometimes conditions worsen sud- denly and we may have to make a late call. Once we have the students at school where they are safe and sound, we will not send them back out on the roads if a storm develops during the day. Sometimes we have parents calling us to report that they have heard roads may be about to close and are wondering if we are sending the students home early. While we appreciate their concern, we prefer not to risk students' lives by sending them out into storms. The local roads crews know our bus departure times and work to ensure roads are cleared at that time of the day. If we send the buses home early, the roads may not yet have been cleared, adding to the danger. Our bus contractors are in regular contact with the roads crews to ensure the roads are safe before we send the buses out. If you have any ques- tions or concerns about our weather cancellation poli- cies, please contact me at your convenience. Finally, I would like to commend our staff and students for two great events this past Friday. First of all, we had a very good Remembrance Day service during which the students were wonderfully well-behaved. Later in the day, we finished our Operation Christmas Child shoebox campaign, and once again our students and staff came through with 400 shoeboxes of gifts for needy children in other parts of the world. The generosity and compassion of our students continue to impress me, and I would like to congratulate them for their involvement in these two activities. JEFF REABURN PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE • HD HS remembers Remembrance Day services were held Nov. I I at South Huron District High School. Mary Thompson and LindaWebber formed part of the colour guard while at right Legion member Jack Brintnell spoke to students and staff on the sacrifices that have been made and (photos/Pat Bolen) TOWNSHIP OF LUCAN BIDDULPH PUBLIC MEETING OFFICIAL PLAN AMENDMENT SURPLUS DWELLINGS DATE/TIME: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, December 7, 2005 LOCATION: Lucan Community Centre (Leprechaun Hall) - 263 Main Street, Lucan, Ontario PURPOSE: To consider a proposed Amendment to the Township of Lucan Biddulph Official Plan The purpose of the amendment is to amend the policies of the Township of Lucan Biddulph Official Plan to permit the creation of residential lots for the purposes of disposing dwellings considered surplus to the needs of a farm. The creation of lots for the disposing of surplus farm dwellings is permitted by the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS). While the merger of abutting farm parcels under the same ownership is not required, no new dwellings may be erected on the lands remaining in the future. The creation of lots for the purposes of disposing surplus farm dwellings is also permitted by the County of Middlesex Official Plan. A pending amendment to the County Official Plan, if ultimately adopted and brought into effect, would result in the adoption of a policy being no more restrictive than the PPS with regard to surplus farm dwellings. In the interim, a consolidation of abutting parcels must be taking place to maintain conformity with the County Plan. While there is no `cut-off' date of construction specified in either the PPS or County of Middlesex Official Plan for establishing whether a dwelling potentially qualifies as a surplus farm dwelling, specifying a date of construction or, alternatively, the minimum number of years that the dwelling has had to be in existence, is being considered for inclusion in the amendment. In the Township of Lucan Biddulph Official Plan, the creation of lots to dispose surplus farm dwellings would, if approved, be the only basis under which a residential lot could be created in areas designated `Agricultural'. The proposed amendment potentially affects all lands designated `Agricultural' and, as such, a key map is not provided. ANY PERSON may attend the public meeting and/or make a written or verbal representation either in support of, or in opposition to, the proposed amendment. IF A PERSON OR PUBLIC BODY that files an appeal of a decision of the Council of the Corporation of the Township of Lucan Biddulph in respect of the proposed official plan amendment does not make oral submissions at a public meeting or make written submissions to the Council of the Corporation of the Township of Lucan Biddulph before the proposed official plan amendment is adopted, the Ontario Municipal Board may dismiss all or part of the appeal. If you wish to be notified of the adoption of the proposed official plan amendment, you must make a written request to the Township of Lucan Biddulph. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION relating to the proposed amendment is available between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. at the Municipal Office or from the Municipal Planner, Mr. Ted Halwa, at (519) 963-1028 (London, Ontario). DATED AT LUCAN THIS 16TH DAY OF NOVEMBER, 2005. Ron Reymer RON REYMER CLERK TOWNSHIP OF LUCAN BIDDULPH P.O. BOX 190 LUCAN, ONTARIO NOM 2J0 Telephone: (519) 227-4491 Fax: (519) 227-4998 E-mail rreymer@lucanbiddulph.on.ca