City ConCerned about CPr station
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LoCaL hair saLon first to go green
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teaChers working to avoid CLosures osures
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wednesday
February 13 2013 www.newwestnewsleader.com
Prime Minister stephen harper wants to ensure the dangerous mentally ill are kept behind bars. See Page a10
‘Harper proving NDP’s case’ Recent actions show why Canada should abolish Senate, say local MPs Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
MarIO barTeL/NeWSLeaDer
Catherine erofeeva has rediscovered her love for learning at the Power Program. after dropping out of burnaby south secondary school in grade 10, she’s preparing to graduate and hopes to go to university to become a cardiologist.
POWER program helps get lives on track New West alternate education program celebrates its successes on its 20th anniversary Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
“Everybody has a story. That’s why POWER is what it is,” declares Catherine Erofeeva of the educational program that changed her life. There will be plenty of stories like hers to be told when POWER, a New Westminster school district alternate high school education
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program, celebrates its 20th anniversary at its Columbia Street centre on Feb. 21. The acronym stands for planning, ownership, work, education and respect. Jim Russell, the program’s department head, has taught there for 17 years after teaching in small schools up north as well as urban schools. POWER, he says, is the best of both those worlds. “It’s relationship-based, where you get to know the students,” says Russell. Erofeeva’s parents moved to
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Montreal from Russia when she was a baby, but their lives were turned upside down with the unexpected death of her older sister when Erofeeva was 12. Three years later they moved west, dragging Erofeeva kicking and screaming with them because she loved Montreal, her school, her teachers and her friends. They found a home near Burnaby South secondary where they enrolled Erofeeva in Grade 10 at the start of the school year. By December she had left. “I couldn’t fit in. I was upset at
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the whole situation. I didn’t really understand the situation,” recalls Erofeeva. So she signed up for online studies instead, but was easily distracted and when her mother discovered she wasn’t doing the work, chaos ensued. More than a year later her mother was given a POWER pamphlet and Erofeeva decided to give it a try because she had nothing to lose. It took a while, but the small class size and the high level of interaction with teachers, even outside school hours, began to work for Erofeeva. Please see POWer, a3
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The federal New Democratic Party thinks Canada should scrap the Senate. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his party continue to provide more reasons why that should happen soon, says Burnaby-New Westminster MP Peter Julian. In recent weeks the residency qualifications of Conservative senators Patrick Brazeau, Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin and Liberal Mac Harb have been called into question. On Thursday, Harper removed Brazeau from the Conservative caucus after he was put in jail while police investigated reports of domestic violence. “The poor character of the people he has chosen has done more to tarnish the reputation of the Senate than anything before this,” said Julian from Ottawa on Friday. “What he has done very effectively is he is making the case for abolishing this very see ‘IT’S juST’, a8