SPORTS: Ski Club celebrates 25 years
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RCMP search warrant course By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
PINK Shirts
Photo submitted
Staff at the Houston Health Centre showed their support for the fight against bullying by participating in Pink Shirt Day 2013. Pictured (l-r): Doreen Vanrhijn (Reception), Kathy Knight (ADP Activity Worker), Joanne Kilback (Radiology Technologist), Gwen Kirkby (Housekeeping), Sally Sullivan (Site Coordinator), Mike McAlonan (Physiotherapist), Cheryl Thornton (Physio Reception), Tim McCosker (Physiotherapist), Roberta Willson (Lab Technologist), Norma Delege (Reception).
A local RCMP course brought in 19 police officers from Prince George to Prince Rupert early last week. Houston RCMP Sgt. Rose put on the search warrant course in the Houston Fire Hall last week Monday and Tuesday, along with three other instructors from Burnaby, Kelowna and Prince George, he said. Sgt. Rose says the course was the basic of three RCMP search warrant courses and was targeted at teaching general duty officers how to write a search warrant. Officers and instructors travelled into Houston Sunday and stayed overnight Sunday and Monday, leaving after the course was completed Tuesday, said Sgt. Rose. On the last day of
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Over 20 officers from Northern BC attended the seminar.
the course, officers wrote a search warrant based on given information, and if it met the legal requirements to be issued, they passed the course, said Sgt. Rose. Sgt. Rose says he organized the course in Houston because of the number of local officers who didn’t have the training, and three Houston members took the course. Sgt. Rose says now almost all the Houston officers have the search warrant training, and they will likely not hold more courses locally until after more officer turnover.
“Significant decline” in school district enrollment By Percy N. Hébert Black Press
Although the current school year is barely beyond the midpoint, school district 54 is projecting a 4.3 per cent decline in enrolment for the 2013/2014 school year. Steve Richards, secretary/treasurer with
SD54 school board, made the announcement during the Feb. 18 school board meeting. The projected enrolment for the 2013/2014 school year is 2,169.625 full-time equivalents (FTE), down about 95 FTE from the current school year.
The Ministry of Education requires the mid-year projections and uses them to determine funding for the following school year. The decline in enrolment is not expected to affect all grades equally. In fact, almost half of the drop in enrol-
ment, about 46 FTE, is projected to occur in the K– 3 grades, Richards said. “That’s a significant decline,” Richards said. Enrolment is also projected to decline in the later secondary grades. “But that is sort of an expected bubble
movement,” Richards said of a larger than normal cohort of students moving through the system. The extent of the decline in K– 3 enrolment is a first for SD54, Richards said. “It’s a significant decline, typically I would expect a 1.5 to 1.75 per cent decline,”
he said. The decline in enrolment in primary grades is not unique to SD54, it’s a province-wide phenomenon, SD54 board chairperson, Les Kearns said. In SD54, Kearns said much of the decline in K– 3 enrolment is the result
of parents deciding to send their children to private schools. The motivation behind the move isn’t clear, but Kearns speculated it could represent some degree of dissatisfaction among parents regarding labour issues.
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