The Rainy River District School Board’s anti-bullying committee is in the process of gathering input from a group of teachers—skilled in dealing with bullying—regarding program materials needed to implement a system-wide anti-bullying program.
“The goal is to prepare an implementation plan so every school in our system will have some type of program in anti-bullying,” Education Director Warren Hoshizaki said after the board’s regular monthly meeting Tuesday night, which was held at the North Star Community School in Atikokan.
“We want kids to work together and understand each other. We’ll be helping kids at all age levels, especially younger ages, to learn to work and play together,” he added.
In the next month, Hoshizaki said, the panel of teachers will determine what program materials will be needed and take that to the anti-bullying committee to be reviewed and have costs assigned to them.
He believes a plan like this will help with the learning success of students as well as teach them that violence isn’t the answer.
“That behaviour is unacceptable,” Hoshizaki said of bullying.
Hoshizaki doesn’t believe bullying is an increasing problem, just an ongoing one. “I think it’s always been there,” he said. “We’ve just come to understand it better.”
The next meeting of the anti-bullying committee is slated April 24.
Also Tuesday night, Hoshizaki said the board’s monthly recognition of excellence awards went over very well, adding four education assistants were on hand to accept certificates from the board for their work.
He added there also was a presentation on the Later Literacy program and its successes.
In other news, trustees carried a motion at the meeting calling for the west end of the school district to be designated a low population area, which will continue to allow the area to have one more trustee than representation by population normally would allow due to the size of the area and its low population density.
Hoshizaki noted this is a legislated responsibility the board must address every election year, and that this is the third time in a row trustees have voted to allow the west end to be designated a low population area.
As such, Fort Frances will continue to elect two trustees to the board rather than the three that would be normal for the town’s population base.
Trustees also voted Tuesday night to support a local northwestern school board consortium in its efforts to petition the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION) for the ability to use the network for Internet access and resolve cost inequalities.
At the same time, trustees voted in favour of submitting a proposal to the Connect Ontario: Broadband Regional Access (COBRA) program for funding to bring broadband communications to board schools in conjunction with the same northwestern school board consortium.
The board already has submitted a letter of intent and now will develop a proposal.
Also of interest, Hoshizaki confirmed Diane Ross, the board’s human resources administrator, will attend a labour relations symposium in Toronto on March 27-29.
“It’s timely,” he said. “It will be interesting what comes out of it. We’ve got to know what’s going on [in the rest of the province.]”
It is timely because school boards across the province are in labour negotiations with high school teachers over wages and benefits. In fact, teachers here are in a legal strike position and already have begun the first phase of job action to back their contract demands.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
