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FEBRUARY 19, 2015
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Vol. 120, Issue 28
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Page 9
PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALMO
Teachers to fill gaps in on-call EA schedule
MLA says West Kootenay ignored in latest budget BY SHERI REGNIER Times Staff
BY LIZ BEVAN Times Staff
School District 20 (SD20) has been trying to figure out a way to fill gaps left by too few educational assistants (EA) in classrooms, and now, it has a plan. Teachers teaching on call (TTOC) are being given the option to get their name added to the on-call EA list, allowing them to step in for a day or two wherever they are needed around the district. Over the past year, the school board has made many attempts to fill the open EA spots, and while some hires were made, the district still found themselves short of needed personnel. Andy Davidoff, president of the Kootenay Columbia Teachers' Union says the new plan comes after plenty of collaborative talks between unions and the board. “We have had a huge problem with EA shortages in classrooms and the board has tried all kinds of things without success, so what we've done, is working with the Canadian Union of Public employees (CUPE) and the KCTU and the board, we have negotiated a way that we can fill those absences,” he said. Roger Smith, president of the CUPE local 1285 in Castlegar, says the pressure on current on-call EAs with the shortage of personnel has been stressful for union members. “The current practice is burning/stressing out the regular EAs,” he said in an email interview. “This is also not a good situation for the most fragile students in the system. So hopefully by adding more CUPE casual EAs with current district TTOCs, it will add some consistency for the students and ease the work and stress load for regular EAs. (With this plan), there will be less shuffling of personnel within the individual schools when there are not enough casuals available.” See RECRUITING, Page 3
LIZ BEVAN PHOTO
Joy the goat is celebrating a year in her honour as the Chinese calendar rings in the Year of the Goat. See additional story on Page 8.
It’s the Year of the Goat BY LIZ BEVAN Times Staff
While western New Year's 2015 parties may be a memory for most, nearly 1.5 billion people in China are celebrating the beginning of the year 4713. Starting today, it is the year of yáng – a Chinese word meaning goat, sheep or ram (a male sheep). The traditional Chinese calendar works on a 12-year lunar cycle and associates each year with an animal like a snake, pig, rat or horse. People who are born in a given year are thought to possess the same traits as that animal. According to Chinese folklore, people born in the years 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003 and new babies in 2105 are amicable, social, persevering, hardworking and considerate. Goat and sheep people are known to look gentle from the outside, but are fierce on the inside.
But, how do those characteristics appear in a goat, sheep or ram living on a farm in the Kootenays? Richard and Marg Malcolm of Rainbow Recovery Farm in Casino say they can see some of the same traits in the animals they raise on their land. “They are so friendly and personable,” said Marg. “They can actually get into a bit of trouble if they don't have enough to do. We had a goat climb a ladder and I though she was going to jump and hurt herself, but she just turned around and climbed back down.” Richard says the couple knew they had to get at least two goats if they were going to get one. “When you get a goat, the recommendation is that you get more than one, or at least spend a lot of time with them,” he said. “They really like to be sociable.” See GOATS, Page 16
The finance minister referred to B.C.'s 2015 budget as a “hat trick,” but according to the NDP MLA for the Kootenay West riding, this region was shutout. “There really isn't anything for the Interior,” says Katrine Conroy. “He (Finance Minister Mike de Jong) kept referring to the budget as a hat trick, because there is surplus in the balanced budget,” she explained. “My question is 'Who's paying for that?'” She maintains working families in the Kootenays are paying for the surplus because the region pays more for rates, such as hydropower, which allows the government to fill up its coffers. “Who's benefitting? The top two per cent of people, they are getting the benefit of it all.” The MLA was referring to the province's move to reduce income taxes for the top two per cent of wage earners in B.C., which amounts to $230 million. In 2013, the province made a commitment to apply extra tax to income over $150,000 annually, then remove it in two years. “But they've made commitments to a lot of people that they haven't followed through with,” she said. “So this is the hardest to accept, because once a tax is implemented, people expect it to keep going.” Another troubling aspect to the budget, says Conroy, is the increase to Medical Service Plan (MSP) premiums, which will have an average family forking over $1,725 this year. “That's gone up 100 per cent since 2001,” she said, noting that year the annual premium was $864. “The concern for me is that this is a regressive tax, because someone who earns $30,000 a year pays exactly the same as someone who earns $100,000 a year. It just doesn't make sense.” See TAX, Page 3
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