New Catholic board elects chair, vice-chair

FORT FRANCES—Dryden trustee Robert vanOort was elected chairman of the Northwest Catholic District School Board during its inaugural meeting Saturday.
Fort Frances trustee Anne Marie Fitzgerald was elected vice-chair.
“I’d like to thank everybody very much for supporting me,” vanOort said after the results of the vote were announced.
“I’d like to run the meetings in an open manner and let everyone have their voice,” he added.
vanOort, who has served on the board for four years and was the previous vice-chair, was nominated by Dryden trustee John Borst, with the nomination seconded by Sioux Lookout trustee Cathy Bowen.
Fitzgerald also was nominated for chair by Fort Frances trustee Harold Huntley and Stratton trustee Mark Chojko-Bolec, but she lost to vanOort in a secret ballot.
She then was nominated for vice-chair and was acclaimed.
“I’ve been on the board 12 years and have enjoyed every bit of it,” Fitzgerald said. “Each of us brings distinct talents to the table to share. If we work together, we can accomplish great things for our board.”
The trustees also were sworn in at Saturday’s inaugural meeting, including the board’s one new trustee, Paul Cousineau, who won the third Fort Frances seat over former board chair Gerry Rousseau in last month’s election.
Following the election of chair and vice-chair, the board’s inaugural meeting was closed and its first regular one called to order.
“Welcome to our first meeting. I’m very confident you’ll be a wonderful addition to this board,” vanOort said to Cousineau.
The board then passed a motion to approve the fourth-annual Accessibility Plan and submit it to the Ministry of Citizenship.
The plan outlines work that’s been done—and that which remains to be done—in order to make schools and board buildings accessible to everyone, according to the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2001.
“The Northwest Catholic District School Board is committed to ensuring that its schools, grounds, and administrative buildings are accessible to all students, staff, and public by creating barrier-free facilities,” the board wrote in its report.
Recent barrier-removal initiatives include the installation of a plywood ramp at the southwest entrance of St. Francis School here, as well as the installation of long lever faucet handles and long neck spouts in classrooms there.
The board also is in the process of installing automatic doors on the front entrance of St. Michael’s School here and the south entrance of St. Francis.
Projects to be addressed in the 2006-07 school year include making the kindergarten washroom at Our Lady of the Way School in Stratton handicap accessible, and to install long lever faucet handles and long neck spouts in the classrooms at St. Michael’s.
There are no new items to address regarding accessibility at St. Francis at this time.
“Most of these are very low-cost items,” noted Chris Howarth, the board’s superintendent of business, with the exception of the automatic doors.
The lack of wheelchair accessibility to school stages is the costlier barrier on the board’s list.
Three of the board’s five schools—Our Lady of the Way, St. Michael’s, and St. Joseph’s in Dryden—will require a small lift to gain access to the stage, unless an alternative measure to make the stages fully accessible can be found.
Howarth noted the board is about $300,000 away from completing the plan. “Most of that is elevators,” he said.
Also Saturday, the Catholic board approved the appointment of two new members to its Special Education Advisory Committee—Angela Murray and Trevor Ropek.
“The SEAC committee is like Captain Hook’s crew: it’s mostly vacancies,” laughed Huntley.
Three people have resigned from the committee in the last year, he noted. These two new appointments will help fill that gap.
In the director’s report, Mary-Catherine Kelly noted former trustee Gerry Rousseau and First Nations representative Ralph Bruyere were to be honoured at a special mass at St. Mary’s Church that night “to thank them for all their years of service to Catholic education.”
Bruyere has been involved in education for about 25 years, Kelly noted, while Rousseau served on the local Catholic board for 12 years.
With Christmas approaching, Kelly also praised the board’s schools for the work they’ve been doing in recent weeks to help the needy, including food drives.
“I’m very, very proud of our five Catholic schools for the work they’re doing,” she said. “Our students have been very active in so many actions of charity and love.”
Enrolment numbers as of Oct. 31 also were reviewed at Saturday’s meeting. Compared to June 30, , the board is down 58.5 FTE (full-time equivalent) students.
“There’s a variety of reasons,” Kelly said regarding the decline in enrolment. “We are declining sometimes because we have more graduating students than we have students coming in through the bottom end.”
All boards in Ontario now are required to report their enrolment numbers to the Ministry of Education every October, March, and June.
At last month’s meeting, the board received correspondence from Don Marquis, a candidate in the election for school trustee for the Our Lady of the Way School community.
Marquis requested a recount of ballots due to the close finish between himself and Mark Chojko-Bolec, who won with 53 votes to Marquis’ 52.
Kim Desserre finished third with 44 votes.
The board agreed to conduct a recount, which was carried out Nov. 23, but the results did not change.
The Catholic board will hold its next regular meeting via videoconference on Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. at the board’s office next to St. Francis School.
(Fort Frances Times)