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NEWS GAZETTE
Math. Reading. Success Give your children the tools to write their own success stories.
A report on business in Greater Victoria
Eye on the street West Shore RCMP’s small undercover unit tracks the region’s most prolific criminals. News, Page A3
progress2012 Wednesday May 2, 2012
ANCHORS AWAY The region and shipbuilding
THE S-WORD Business and sustainability
PROTEIN POWER Cutting edge science in Victoria
Inside today How is the economy doing in Greater Victoria, and what will the next year bring for local business? Find out in our annual report on business. ** Distributed in selected areas
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Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Medical marijuana farm targeted for violent ‘grow-rip’
(From left) Lilly Wass, Arthur Smith and Dahlila Charlie are graduating this year. More than 100 aboriginal students are expected to graduate in the Sooke School District, its largest aboriginal grad class yet. SD 62 has become a leader in the province in high school aboriginal education and for its First Nations grad rate.
Edward Hill News staff
mont secondary, Edward Milne and West Shore Annex schools credit part of their success to aboriginal education rooms staffed with teachers and support workers. “(Aboriginal education teachers) put in more time and effort and they don’t act like it is just their job,� Wass said. “With me, home life isn’t that great, and (at school) there is someone willing to help.� Dahlila Charlie, a Grade 12 student, has spent her three years using the services in the aboriginal education room at Belmont secondary.
Police arrested three men armed with handguns and body armour who tried to rob a medical marijuana grow-op in Langford last week. West Shore RCMP and officers from the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of British Columbia (CSFU-BC) had the men under surveillance, and watched them enter and leave the undisclosed Langford property in semi-rural residential neighbourhood. Uniformed RCMP officers stopped the vehicle and arrested the suspects. Officers found the ultimate grow-rip kit: body armour, a Browning 9 mm Luger, a Smith and Wesson revolver, a sledgehammer, duct tape and masks. Police say the property holds a heavily-fortified outbuilding and house that is the location of a licensed medical marijuana growing operation. No residents were home at the time of the attempted robbery. CFSU-BC spokesperson Sgt. Bill Whalen said the suspects came away from the property empty handed. In the past two weeks, West Shore RCMP and the Victoria branch of CFSU-BC have joined forces due to a number of recent, violent home invasions targeted at people in the drug trade on the West Shore.
PLEASE SEE: Aboriginal spaces, Page A9
PLEASE SEE: Guns, body armour, Page A5
Charla Huber/News staff
Banner year for aboriginal grad class Sooke School District doubles First Nations grad rate in five years Charla Huber News staff
When Lilly Wass was in Grade 11 in Ontario, she didn’t bother to go to class, let alone care about her grades. She was barely passing her courses, but now, after spending the past three semesters in the Sooke School District, she is set
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Kumon Centre of Langford-Westshore 250.474.4175 800-ABC-MATH www.kumon.ca
to graduate with an 88 per cent average. “In Ontario we didn’t have an aboriginal education room. It makes a lot of difference,� said Wass said, an Edward Milne community school student. “There is someone you can go and talk to and they see if I am keeping up with my work.� This spring, SD 62 will celebrate its first graduating class with more than 100 aboriginal students. The unofficial count is at 104, up from the 51 who graduated last year. Kathleen King-Hunt, SD 62 district principal for aboriginal education, said the district has worked to integrate aboriginal curriculum into course material.
“The (aboriginal) graduate rate is something we have worked very hard at. The aboriginal enhancement agreement makes a difference in the classroom,� King-Hunt said. “Our success is not just graduation rates.� The district expects the aboriginal completion rate to continue its upward surge. Last year, 73 per cent of all aboriginal students graduated within six years starting from Grade 8, which is close to the overall average of 76 per cent for SD 62 students. The provincial aboriginal completion rate is about 51 per cent. Five years ago, only 38 per cent of aboriginal students were graduating from SD 62. First Nations students at Bel-
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