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The Citizen, 1995-09-27, Page 11Congrats The Brussels Mite Girls were the A champions in their division. With coaches Peggy Aitchison, left and Jayne Ross are, middle row, from left: Jenna Fischer, Laurie Prior, Brooklyn Wheeler, Lacey McCall, Nicole White, Katie Aitchison, Brittany Kellington, Jody Sellers, Amy Bridge, Racheal Speers. Front: Catrina Josling, Carolyn Exel, Angela Nichol, Cathrine Cameron, Candice Ross, Rachel Elliott, Heather Little, Ashley Keffer. Molesworth WI hears nutty talk Firewood Hard Maple or Ash SLABWOOD Limited Time Offer - Call now - $130./17 cu. yd. Truck Load Delivered within 20 miles Mileage charge Beyond That Large Quantity Discounts When You Haul!!! Craig Hardwoods Ltd. 519-526-7220 Auburn. Ont. CENTRAL HURON DEVELOPMENT AREA The Central Huron Community Development Committee consists of representatives from the Village of Blyth, Townships of Hullett, McKillop, Tuckersmith, and the Towns of Clinton and Seaforth. MISSION Statement The function of the Central Huron Community Development Committee is the self promotion, assistance and development of our recreation, business, industry and tourism. We accomplish this by marketing our current information, resources and potential for the enhancement in the quality of life of Central Huron. We are looking for your assistance in identifying potential projects. If you have an IDEA to promote economic development & tourism in Central Huron we would like to hear from you! Please submit your idea(s) along with your name and address by October 13, 1995 to: Carol Leeming, Coordinator c/o Huron Business Centre, Box 1120, Seaforth NOk IWO or by phone 527-0305 or fax 527-2240. We gratefully acknowledge all submissions!! THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1995. PAGE 11. Letter to the editor Christian school wants education tax share THE EDITOR, The Clinton and District Christian School (CDCS) opened its doors on Sept. 5 to another record enrolment. This year 233 students from 98 families are attending a school which is the first choice of their parents because the school's Christian ideals and morals and its academic expectations agree with those of the family. That makes CDCS truly a parental school. With rising tax costs and with many families reeling from the effects of a slow down in the economy, some parents, who send children to CDCS have found more and more need for prayer and financial support in order to meet their obligations to the school. Some parents and supporters of CDCS have recently become more vocal in their objections to the blatant injustices perpetrated upon them by the government of Ontario. The CDCS membership meeting held on Monday, Sept. 11, showed a budget for this school year with a substantial deficit. Parents were informed that tuition this year is close to $7,000 per family in order to enrol their children at the Christian School. While parents remained committed to the By M. E. McMahon Eileen Baker of Bluevale gave an informative, interesting talk on cashew nuts and the people of Guatemala at the agriculture meeting of the Molesworth WI at the home of Marguerite Beimes. Eileen and Alvin Baker have a farm in Guatemala where cashews as well as sesame, pineapple, oranges and bananas are grown. She said the people of Guatemala are very poor—and do a lot of weaving and pottery as well as farming to exist. A machete is their multi-purpose tool. The tree that grows the cashew nut is called the Thankful tree. The cashew fruit is eaten by the natives and the nut is exported as a seed, until it is finished here for marketing. Cashews have liquid cholesterol and the raw cashew nut is very nutritious and healthy. Eileen passed around a jam made from cashews, orange and pineapple for Christian Day School and while they unanimously passed the budget, there was a sense of a growing concern about the costs. Why is it that so many families sacrifice so much in order to send their children to a Christian school? The answer to that question lies not in any description of a public school or in an examination of the quality of education in a public school system. If such were the case, if Christian school supporters were concerned about t.:•.; quality of education in their local public schools, many of these parents would quite naturally become more involved with their local public schools. Christian school parents do not see themselves as parents who have withdrawn their support from the public school. As a matter of fact, they have no quarrel with the public schools. They believe that public schools exist in their own right and it is their prayer and their greatest wish that, for the well oeing of our communities and of this country, such public schools must thrive and continue to grow to be effective educational forces in our society. The public school and the teachers in these schools are constantly in the prayers of Christian school supporters. The parents who send their everyone to taste, as well as pieces of yogurt with raisins and nuts. Violet Smith thanked Eileen for her presentation and presented her children to any Christian school, understand Christian education to be a type of schooling that, theoretically, is impossible to be acquired in any school that is not identified as a Christian school. Parents at CDCS believe that in Christian education the Christian faith must permeate all of the instruction and the entire curriculum of the school. They believe that it does not do justice to Christianity to relegate faith to only privately held opinions. The Bible speaks to priv441.: lives as well as to public life. It follows that everything that is taught in a Christian school is taught in the light of the Christian faith. This is why these parents have continued, and will continue, to support Christian schools despite the unfair taxation imposed upon them by the Ontario government. It explains why these parents will not bail out, but, rather, will band together and call on all Christians for prayer support. It has always been the goal of the parents and the CDCS directors to try to reach as many children from local Christian families as possible. The directors believe that CDCS can offer a Christian education for all Christian families in the 1990s, at a time when finding such an education has become theoretically with an hibiscus plant. The October meeting is a car tour to the Staffa Oat Company. impossible in any public system and any public school. Just as the Separate School System retains the right to teach from its perspective and the public school as the right to promote a perspective which separates matters of morality (right and wrong) from personal faith, it seems unjust that Christians who believe that their faith relates strongly to all matters of life are financially penalized for wanting to practice this in their schools. It causes the parents and our rectors a great deal of anxiety that because of double taxation by the province, many families cannot afford to have their children attend CDCS. Many other parents, who currently send their children to CDCS, do so at great personal expense and with a great deal of sacrifice. Often the normal privileges of the Canadian lifestyle are not within reach of Christian School families until "the children are all through school". All of our parents pay property taxes as well as provincial taxes in order to support their share of the local public' schools. In return they get nothing. Currently one of the most frustrating issues for Christian education is in the one regarding the transportation of Christian school children to their schools. There is, for the Christian school students, absolutely no funding for busing. It is ironic that all of these Christian school parents pay heavily through their taxes for the very buses that run by their homes daily to the local public schools. With recent steps by the school boards in Huron County to streamline and lower the cost of the busing system, many of the Christian school students board these public school buses at their farm laneways and they are subsequently deposited at the local public schools where they would go if they did not go to the Christian school. An equitable system might suggest that at least this far, these students ought to get value for their parents' tax dollars by getting a free ride to their local public school. One might understandably argue that such Christian school students, who subsequently ride buses from their 'normally designated public school deposit location' to the Christian school in Clinton or in Lucknow, should not justifiably do so at the taxpayers expense. But to make parents pay twice for those first few kilometres from their farm gates to their designated public school is an outright and a blatant, inexcusable injustice. During the recent provincial election, discussions were held with several of the local candidates regarding this inequity. All showed a sympathy for the plight of the supporters of the Christian school especially in this area of transportation. The time has come for our politicians and our school board leaders to do something to rectify this blight on the Ontario educational scene. Citizens of Huron County, many of your friends and neighbours who believe strongly enough about the connection between their family's Christian faith and their children's education are being relegated by the economic action, or inaction, of the Ontario government, to a position where they are summarily denied access to busing for which they have already paid in their taxes. What a shame it is that supporters of Christian schools are made to suffer from the economic disparity imposed on them by our province and our Ministry of Education through its local school board. Clarence Bos. Microman, The Ultimate Computer Store Full selection of computers, accessories and stationery supplies. We are an authorized IBM, AST, CANNON, COMPAQ and H.P. dealer Sega & Nintendo 135 Wallace Ave., N. LISTOWEL (519) 291-9633 Fax 291.9634