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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Times Advocate, 2007-09-05, Page 66 Times -Advocate Wednesday, September 5, 2007 Opinion Forum News Please return tent Scotiabank makes available an activity tent for communities and organiza- tions to use at outdoor events. As we have for several years, we provided the tent for use at the Zurich Bean Festival. Unfortunately, sometime during the night of Aug. 25, the top of the tent was removed. It is bright red with "Scotiabank" written on all four sides. We would sincerely appreciate getting it back. If it is not recovered quickly, other communities will have to be advised it is not available. We ask anyone who knows of its location to contact the number below and we can arrange for its return with no questions asked. Thank you. RON ANDERSON Scotiabank 519-902-4617 Patient satisfaction high at SHH Lost and found Thank you to the lady with a small dog who found and returned my camera bag and contents, to my son and his friend. They had just been stolen from my car near SHDHS Aug. 27. I also believe that you found the computer disk with my new grandson's photos. We are very grateful for this return. Of the items stolen, my cell phone is the only item not found. It has been de -commissioned and cannot be p► used by anyone. A Letters to the Editor � Reader responds to rodeo complaint Tammbrey Graham Hensall (Editor's note: The following was written in response to an arti- cle in the Aug. 28 edition of the London Free Press titled, "London hospitals top OHA ranking.") South Huron Hospital Association prides itself on the quality of care that is delivered to our patients by our staff and physicians, so you can imagine our disappointment when we were informed that a portion of our results could not be part of the 2007 OHA (Ontario Hospital Association) Report on Acute Care Hospitals, specifically patient satisfaction. South Huron Hospital Association obtains feedback regarding our care on an ongoing basis through patient satisfaction surveys. These surveys are mailed out to a random sample of inpatient and emergency patients. The feedback that is obtained from these surveys is used to enhance our quality program. Unfortunately, a portion of the results that were obtained during March 31, 2006, and April 1, 2007, were not submitted to the Ontario Hospital Association. As a result a completed summary was not attainable. Since this lapse in submission, personnel has been re -assigned and systems have been implemented to ensure that an incident similar to this does not happen again. South Huron Hospital Association would like to reassure our community that this report has not or will not impact the care we provide to our patients. Our 2006/2007 records show that we have been able to maintain an overall positive response of 91.4 per cent for emergency patients and an overall positive response of 92.6 per cent for our inpatients. We are confident the data missing from this report would have mirrored the same and we are disappointed we were not able to show the rest of the province what a little hospital can do. Debra Hunt, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Nursing Executive Cheryl Pfaff RN, BScN, Corporate Manager, Quality and Risk Manager In response to Mr. Brent Gibson's letter to the editor published Aug. 29, I would comment as follows: First — The Rodeo is held in "Exeter Community Park" — not "Exeter Baseball Park." This park is for the enjoyment of all residents of the "community," not just ball players from neighbouring communities. This event hosts some 4,000 to 5,000 peo- ple each year which surpasses any public attendance to the ball diamonds many, many times over. As acknowledged by Mr. Gibson this provides opportunities for town merchants while the ball teams from out of town bring their own supplies and those from within town provide very little business opportunity beyond those inher- ent in their regular town shopping. Second — I visit the park twice daily, year round and I give a "hats off' to the town staff who patiently pick up water bottles, plastic cups, cigarette packages, papers, old shoes, fast food bags, etc., after every baseball game and patiently rake the dia- monds and keep the grass in immaculate state for the next garbage onslaught. On Monday morning, Aug. 27, there were even six chairs belonging to the chil- dren's playground thrown around both on the diamond and around the bleachers along with hundreds of pages out of a ring binder, and the usual ball team garbage. All this while four garbage cans spaced about 30 feet apart the home plate area stood practically empty. Today (Aug. 31), there were even two legs broken off a wooden picnic table in addition to the usual mess after last night's game. Third — I also visited the park in early evening Sun., Aug. 12, and witnessed two town trucks and six staff members cleaning the park, along with two late departing rodeo participants cleaning up the immediate area around their house/horse trailers leaving the area very neat and tidy. The following morning the only visible damage was areas of trampled grass and some of the fencing not restored. Therefore, one can only conclude that Mr. Gibson was looking at the ball diamond at the end of his own team's game when he says he is disgusted. DOUG FLETCHER Principal's message EXETER — The new school year has now begun and, as usual, there are changes, some of which will be well received and some not. In addition to the new staff I mentioned in last week's column, there have been several changes to the school building itself. The electrical and mechanical upgrades have resulted in new ceilings and light fixtures in most parts of the building and upgrades to most of our washrooms. The large gym has lost its suspended ceiling and the new look is cleaner and brighter, a description that applies to most of the building. As I mentioned last week, the custodians have done a great job under difficult circum- stances to get the school cleaned, shined up and ready for business. There are a few things left to be completed, but these should be finished by the end of this week and they will hopefully have caused only minimal disruption to our school programs. The biggest change for some students has been a timetable change from a four period day to five periods, and I would like to explain how the new schedule operates and why I found it necessary to make the change. The times for the day have been modified slightly so that we begin the day five minutes earlier and have a slightly longer lunch hour. For Grade 9 and 10 students and for many students in Grades 11 and 12, the only visible change is the times. However, in each semester we will be running six to eight Grade 11 and 12 classes during what has tradi- tionally been the lunch period. The lunch period has been increased to 75 minutes so that it is the same length as the other four periods of the day. The reason for the change is a program one. In the previous timetable we had eight time slots or periods, four in each semester. That meant that in each classroom we could schedule a maximum of eight classes, four in each semester. As you probably know, our timetable scheduling is driven by the courses that students choose each year. When I looked at the choices last spring, a problem became apparent: in two specific classroom areas, we needed to run nine classes if we were to try to meet the students' choic- es. In both cases, the classroom was a tech shop and, as you may know, we have only one of each type of tech shop. I was faced with a timetable dilemma for which there were only two alternatives: cut one of the nine classes in each area or find a way to run more periods. I opted for the second choice, which meant running five peri- ods in each semester, giving us 10 time slots instead of eight. It might have been easier to just cut two of the classes, but I believe it is my job to try to give the students the classes they want, as much as is reasonably possible. I had a similar situation last year and had run one class during lunchtime each semester. The students involved did not like the fact there was only one class running at lunchtime because they had few friends sharing their lunch hour. I discussed this predicament with our department heads and we decided that if we were going to run classes at lunchtime, it should not be just one or two and should not be limited to tech classes. So, when I created the timetable, I programmed the computer to random- ly place some Grade 11 and 12 classes into the third period, which has tra- ditionally been our lunch period. For students taking four classes in a semester, this meant they would have to eat lunch in one of the other four periods. For some students that meant either the first or last period of the day. Rather than have them stuck with this situation for a whole semester, I changed the period patterns so that (with the exeption of the third period, which will always be in the middle of the day) classes would move through all four periods. So Period One, for example, is first period only once every four days. It moves to the second, fourth, and fifth time slots over the course of our four day cycle. This is true for all periods in our timetable except for Period Three, which could not be changed because Co-op stu- dents need to have their two Co-op periods back to back, either in the morning or the afternoon. Having the periods rotate through the different time slots also means that students involved in extracurricular activities should not miss as many classes in any one subject. Also, they won't always have the same classes first thing in the morning or at the end of the day. While this type of timetable is a little more complicated than the one we have had for the past few years, we have run a similar rotation previously, and students and staff seemed to adapt to it quite well. The new timetable provided another benefit: we had fewer timetable conflicts and were able to provide more students with the courses they had chosen than would have been possible with only eight periods. Timetabling phys ed and science classes was also easier with two additional periods in each science lab or gym. To make it a little easier for the students who have a third peri- od class, I will be asking their teachers to relax our stance on food in the classroom for third period classes only. Students will be permitted to bring a snack to class, provided that they eat without causing any major disruption or leaving behind a mess. Naturally, I expect this change will not be liked by some students, but I think that could be said for almost any significant change we make. When I started teaching with this school board, for example, the school I taught in had year-long classes. A few years after I started, the program changed to the semester system and many students and teachers were upset with this change. A few years later, we changed back to a year-long program: students and teachers did- n't like that change either. The same was probably true when we switched from 40 to 75 minute periods. My point is that we often react negatively to change, just because it is change. Once we become accustomed to it, it doesn't seem so bad. I think the same will be true of this change: some students won't like it initially, but once they get used to it, they might even grow to like it. That's my hope anyway — I guess I will find out in a few months. JEFF REA PRINC MESSA BURN !PAL'S GE