Trustee Ron McAlister made a presentation regarding the Rainy River District School Board’s new anti-bullying pilot program curriculum at its regular monthly meeting here last night.
“I’m extremely impressed with this program,” he told his fellow trustees.
Teachers across the district will begin receiving additional training on implementation of the program Wednesday and Thursday so as to be prepared for the implementation of the curriculum next month.
McAlister also reported the two symposiums on the anti-bullying curriculum held in Atikokan and Fort Frances on Sept. 15 and 16 were a complete success.
He did indicate the one in Atikokan had less attendance than was expected, but that the public input from service groups and stakeholders more than made up for it.
A final Community Partnership Meeting will be held in Rainy River on Oct. 22.
In other news, the board approved a resolution to hold an advance poll for the trustee election on Nov. 1 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. to cover the unorganized areas directly north and east of Fort Frances, including Watten, Halkirk, and Fairnington.
The advance poll will be located at the board office in Fort Frances (next to Robert Moore School).
It was explained that since the town is holding its municipal election by mail-in ballot, the school board must conduct polling offices on its own. In By-Law #155, the board is required to seek a resolution approving an advance poll.
Then on election day (Nov. 10), the poll will be set up again at the board office.
Meanwhile, Superintendent of Education Terry Ellwood announced Tuesday night that a district Professional Development Day will be held here Oct. 27. It will be themed around aboriginal education issues and the keynote speaker will be former NHL coach-of-the-year Ted Nolan.
Also at Tuesday night’s meeting, the report from the finance committee, presented by trustee Judy Eliuk, stated the committee recommended to the board to take unused portions of the 2002-03 At-Risk grant of $138,900 and carry over that portion to be used for 2003-04 At-Risk strategies.
To do so, the board passed two resolutions—first, to provide a provision for an At-Risk Reserve for the balance of the 2002-03 At-Risk grant and second, to withdraw all of the reserve for At Risk in 2003-04 and use in 2003-04 Ar-Risk programming.
Both were carried.
A third resolution was to allow the board to recognize $56,992 into revenue for 2002-03 from aged deferred revenue. It was stressed this was a housekeeping issue and the resolution was carried.
Murray Quinn, the board’s superintendent of plant and maintenance, gave a report ton the status of the J.W. Walker School expansion project.
“J.W. Walker is going very well,” he said. “The gym is nearing completion. We’re working on all aspect of that building, inside and out.”
He added the upper floor is nearly renovated and that “we’ll start to shingle at the end of this week.
“We’re still on budget and on time,” he remarked.
Ellwood also presented his skeleton action plan of the Student At Risk Initiative, which had to be submitted to the province by the end of September.
“The next step is to flesh this out with a little more detail and start attaching budget items,” he said, adding that some of those things will come out of the money rolled over from the previous year, according to the resolution the board had passed earlier in the meeting.
He announced that part of this would be continuing with the later literacy training this week (Oct. 9-10).
“We plan to continue until we’ve trained any teacher dealing with intermediate students,” Ellwood said.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
