Inside
◆ Care confusion P. 6 ◆ Hospital update P. 3
◆ Hello/Goodbye P. 4 ◆ Ski/Board team P. 12
PHONE: 996-8482 www.caledoniacourier.com
WEDNESDAY, March 14, 2012
VOL. 35 NO. 03 $1.34 inc. GST
NEWS BRIEFS Save the date The Enbridge Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel has announced the date for oral statements to be given in Fort St. James. Oral statements will now take place on Thursday, July 19 at David Hoy Elementary School. The presentations will begin at 9 a.m. and registered participants will be contacted by email, phone or mail to arrange individual scheduling. For questions regarding scheduling oral statements, members of the Process Advisory Team may be contacted by email at GatewayProcessAdvisor@ceaa-acee. gc.ca, or by toll free telephone at 1-866-5821884.
Police Report During the week of Feb. 29 to Mar. 7 the local RCMP detachment received 75 calls for service. Of those 75 calls for service, 26 were alcohol related. Persons offence occurrences: 5 Property offence occurrences: 6 Drug offence occurrences: 1 A trend the local detachment is seeing right now is a high number of abandoned 911 calls (six in that week alone). The RCMP would like to ask that people make sure they aren’t carrying their cellular phones in such a way that they can “pocket dial” 911. As well, if you do accidentally call 911, explain to the operator that it was an accident instead of just hanging up, as in each case valuable resources are used ensuring the call was false and no one is in danger.
Striking teachers were out on Stuart Drive last week, waving at vehicles and waving signs during provincial job action. Ruth Lloyd/Caledonia Courier
Local teachers rally in Spirit Ruth Lloyd Caledonia Courier Teachers in Fort St. James were on the sidewalk in Spirit Square instead of in the classroom last week. For those who missed the action, teachers took shifts on picket lines all across the province of British Columbia. In Fort St. James, teachers from all the public schools gathered at Spirit Square, waving at passing motorists, holding signs and garnering honks of support from some drivers. Both sides - the B.C. Government and the B.C. Teacher’s Federation - have been slinging statistics and claims back and forth in the media, and the B.C. Government was working on passing Bill-22 last week, which would fine both teachers and their union for continued strike action. But teachers on the line in Fort St. James were more straight forward. “It’s not about the wages,” said Travis James, local teacher and a local union representative. According to James, across the province, one of the main issues teachers are fighting for is class size limits. The Province is pushing for no legal limits on class sizes, with 30 being a “limit” which can then be overridden by special approval from principals or school board superintendents without teacher consultation. A second key issue is support for special needs students. Class composition requirements would be eliminated, meaning a larger number of special needs students could be placed in any class. Numbers of special needs teachers is a sticking point for the union, but the Province is touting high numbers of education or teacher assistants (EAs) to help teachers with special needs students in the classrooms. However, their hours have reportedly been cut back, which Kelley Inden, a teacher of Humanities courses at FSJSS, said erodes the ability of teachers and EAs to communicate and work as a team. “Our EAs are incredibly important at our school,” said Inden, also
pointing out EAs had been eliminated from professional development days, which allow for further training and skill development. The final point James emphasized teachers are fighting for is the ability to negotiate a collective agreement. After one year of talks between the Province and the union, the Province has given no concessions and made no movement in their offers to the teachers, so striking was all the teachers were left with, according to James. “The teachers were forced to do this,” said James. Inden and fellow teacher Marilyn Gammon, both long-time teachers, noted they have seen the erosion of extra but important programs in the schools such as full-time librarians, which has been shown to be critical in reading achievement in students, as well as music and fine arts programs in elementary schools and accelerated programs for advanced students. They also said teachers are spending more and more of their own money to bring in technology they see as important for education in the digital age. Possibly adding to problems locally is the decline in student population over the years in Fort St. James Secondary, which then shrinks the budget, making it harder and harder to provide all the courses and programs the students might like to have. “We don’t have the economies of scale,” said Inden. While e-learning programs can help offset the loss of some courses or programs for some students, this style does not work for everyone and Inden also worries this erosion of the interactive aspect of working in a classroom as well as the oversight of a skilled professional teacher could erode rural education. “We have to be careful that it doesn’t become the fall-back,” she said. Teachers did not expect to see their strike action continue past Wednesday of last week, and were back to work Thursday before a professional development day on Friday.