The Province of Ontario has recently published the new rules, regs and best practices around how School Boards should police the ways a school raises money for school purposes.

For the most part, it is a pretty innocuous doc. But the two bullets in bold concern me.

III. Best Practices
Fundraising activities can benefit schools and their communities by fostering stronger community and school partnerships, increased student and community engagement and by providing support for student or charitable organizations. The contribution of the school community towards these benefits is of value to schools.
School boards should consider the following when developing board-wide fundraising policies:

• Supporting schools to develop fundraising plans;
• Setting a limit on the number of and extent of fundraising activities in each school;
• Co-ordinating activities across schools and community organizations;
• Limiting the impact on classroom time for staff and students and administrative time for school principals and support staff;
• 
• Supporting donations to board-level funds, or matching programs among schools and/or school councils (for example, a percentage of every dollar raised is allocated to a central board equity fund or put towards board-wide programs that benefit all students);
• Addressing shortages, overages, and cancellations; (students participating in fundraising activities should not be held responsible for any loss that may be incurred);
• Depositing fundraising revenues in school accounts as opposed to accounts held outside the school, to mitigate risk; and
• Minimizing administrative expenses associated with conducting fundraising activities.

What really worries me is that we will see a hit to fundraising totals if donors see that a portion of their generosity is being funnelled from the school to a central fund. It will also be hit if we are forced to cut back on events because of an arbitrary limit of the number that we are allowed to have.

The purpose of the central fund is to provide other – less affluent, I suppose… or maybe with an inactive parent community – schools to be able to access monies (that were generated through the efforts of others) to “level the playing field”. Or, as I like to call it “lower the bar”.

And what about fundraising efforts that are already underway? Will they be grandfathered?

The existing Board policy is not at all that detailed and will have to be re-written to deal with this new reality.

Lots of questions but no answers so far. I’ll be keeping tabs on this issue.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

As some of you know, I have a deep interest in and am involved with Ottawa’s childcare community. One of the working assumptions we have had in our forward planning discussions has been that Full Day Kindergarten would be fully implemented by 2014 / 2015.

But now, I’m betting that the Government will delay implementation of FDK in the upcoming Budget as a compromise solution… thus throwing some of our working assumptions out the proverbial window!

Interesting times…

For the record, I really like his health care recommendations. With a 40% slice of the provincial budget pie, this is the area that needs to be scrutinized and adjusted… but carefully and using evidence-based reasoning.

Posted: Feb 15, 2012 2:49 PM ET

Last Updated: Feb 15, 2012 5:43 PM ET

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… Drummond did not recommend eliminating Ontario’s wasteful and discriminatory duplicate education system?

Anybody?

As well, it was good to hear the Chair of the OCDSB note on CBC this morning that the Board is still in support of 1 school system in Ontario.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… give the Liberals another election victory!

Great news that the PC’s walking-talking campaign disaster has been given the nod to continue to “lead” the party... probably into another election!

Awesome! That is just about the best present that the Liberals could hope to receive! They get to trounce Hudak ONE MORE TIME…

Woo-hoo!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Rob Ford! That’s who!

TORONTO - Mayor Rob Ford came out swinging at left-leaning councillors Tuesday.

“These people are all two steps left of Joe Stalin,” Ford told AM 640 host John Oakley in a radio interview.

Ford specifically referred to Councillors Adam Vaughan, Gord Perks, Janet Davis, Paula Fletcher and Josh Matlow when making the comment.

The good Mayor should research what Josef Stalin did during his reign and honestly assess whether these Councillors are comparable.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… anti bullying legislation has brought out of the woodwork some prime examples of how narrow-minded self-interest can trump common sense and compassion.

Essenatially, the proposed legislation puts into place mechanisms that will mandate schools to act aggressively against those who bully. It also lays out some ground rules for those Boards who have students who wish to set up a club or organisation that supports alternative lifestyles. For the record, this is what the Bill – The Accepting Schools Act says to this:

   303.1  Every board shall support pupils who want to establish and lead,

  (a)  activities or organizations that promote gender equity;

  (b)  activities or organizations that promote anti-racism;

   (c)  activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people with disabilities; or

  (d)  activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including organizations with the name gay-straight alliance or another name.

And that last clause is what has certain (though not all) religious folks all in a slather.

The religious leaders say that agenda is driven by gay activists (snicker suppressed). Yup. The gays are behind everything evil, I guess.

“When you are forcing teachers, Christian teachers, Jewish teachers, Muslim teachers, to teach things that are contrary to the values that they hold, to teach that there are six genders and that you are not attached to the gender of your anatomy, do you not find that that may be an offence to a lot of Ontarians?” asked McVety.

Rabbi Mendel Kaplan of Chabad Flamingo Synagogue in Toronto said he also believes that parts of the anti-bullying bill aimed at making schools inclusive and tolerant of gay lifestyles are offensive to many families.

“This legislation proposes that children be indoctrinated to reject their parents’ faith and their parents’ family values, and that’s an affront,” said Kaplan.

“What nobody here in good conscience can support is a law that calls on people of faith to abandon the beliefs that we consider sacred, all in the name of political correctness.”

Other religious activists say there will be a mass exodus of kids from public and separate schools if the anti-bullying bill with its sexual accommodation provisions is not amended.

But there is nothing in the text whatsoever about Boards and schools being “forced” to set up these groups which scare them so… only that they shall not get in the way of a student or students who do want to set up and lead such an organisation. This will prevent backwards Boards like the Halton Catholic Board from banning such groups in the name that such groups run counter to their philosophies. There are some vague words in the Bill like requiring boards to develop and implement an equity and inclusive education policy, but I don’t see how this can be twisted to mean that all Boards will be required to teach about alternative lifestyles.

Of course, these so-called “religious leaders” will jump at any opportunity to frame progressive legislation as anti-tradition, anti-family and anti-freedom. What is really a set of strict rules intended to deter bullying targeted at any individual regardless of the motivation for the act is twisted into an “example” of how the government is infringing upon the religious rights of certain groups. Clearly, there is no such thing happening in this instance.

And yes, Charles McVetty, of the Institute for “Canadian Values” is the same guy who led a “successful” campaign against the reworking of Ontario’s sex-ed curriculum (successful is in quotes because I wonder how a positive slant can be given to a result that will inevitably result in more teen pregnancies, STDs, etc.).

Look – I guess the bottom line is that if you want to bury your head in the sand and seek education programs that reflect your values – that’s your business. And if you want to somehow twist this much-needed anti-bullying Bill to support your narrow-minded beliefs, well that’s your business too.

But it is my business when I, as a taxpayer of Ontario, have to indirectly support these values that I do not at all support. There are private faith-based schools out there who are waiting with open arms for people like you! Go for it! Please! Let the mass exodus of kids from public and separate schools begin!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… snowy December day edition…

Good article in the Citizen{yes, I used good and Citizen in the same phrase} yesterday about the ridiculousness of our quad education system in Ontario.

The issue of the wastefulness of our quadruplicated system of education seems to pop its head above the water twice a year or so. An article is written, get’s picked up on Twitter, arguments are made for and against the current system, then it fades back into the background.

But with the news that the provincial deficit is poised to be ONE BILLION smackeroos higher than anticipated due to slow economic growth, I think that the time is ripe to take a serious and sober look at our current model of 4 systems.

Education and health are the two giants in the provincial budget, consuming a large majority of all spending. This year, roughly $20 billion flowed from Queen’s Park to the province’s school boards.

That money was divided among 72 school boards. They don’t duplicate services. They quadruplicate them. Everywhere you go, from Windsor to Wawa, four separate education administrations oversee four separate school systems.

$20 billion. Surely hundreds of millions could be saved by amalgamating the public and separate Boards. There would be millions saved in bussing alone, one would think. Overcrowding issues might not go away, but there would be more flexibility because there would be more schools run by one Board!  I can see a case for a French language public Board, where numbers warrant it. But faith-based education is costly and discriminatory.

Publicly-funded sectarian school systems were terminated in Manitoba in 1890, Newfoundland in 1997 and Quebec in 1998. Why not Ontario? The Ontario Legislature could send a request to the federal Parliament in Ottawa to end this at any time. No other province would stand in the way of a Constitutional amendment allowing Ontario to move forward.

Yeah, I know that in reality that it is unlikely that any politician will take the risk of alienating a good segment of the voting population by championing this. But I can hope…

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Picture of  hot air balloon trying to kill itself after realising that it had a giant Sun logo splashed across it. I would do likewise.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Gee. What a surprise. Another Con Minister caught in a lie.

Of course, it won’t matter. The Minister won’t answer any questions posed to him in the House. Excuses will be given. The media will get blamed. Blah, blah, blah… same old…

And oh yeah… the Cons are playing dirty pool in Montréal too…

OTTAWA — The Conservatives have confirmed they are behind a rash of phone calls to Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s Montreal-riding over the past couple of weeks in which constituents allegedly were told of Cotler’s resignation and a pending byelection.

But while the party says it was not breaking any rules, political analysts say the tactic crosses a line and will harm not only voters’ trust in the system, but perhaps even the Conservatives themselves.

“It’s disgusting,” said Queen’s University professor Ned Franks. “Politics is a blood sport but that doesn’t mean you have to resort to dirty blows.”

Numerous constituents in Cotler’s Mount Royal riding have complained of receiving calls in recent weeks from a marketing research company insinuating he has resigned and asking them to support the Conservatives in an upcoming byelection.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So maybe we Canadians aren’t as stupid as I thought re: the “love affair” with Don “Blowhard Mouth Breather” Cherry.

The Brioux Report, a blog on Toronto.com, trumpeted: “Cherry continues to be ratings gold at CBC, with Hockey Night in Canada storming back to 2.4 million viewers last Saturday night.” One of the voices promulgating the idea of Cherry as must-see TV has occasionally been Mr. Cherry himself.

But recent TV numbers don’t seem to support the notion that Cherry is leading HNIC’s ratings anywhere. There is a considerable drop in viewers the instant game action ends and the theme music for Coach’s Corner begins. For example, ratings during the first period of last Saturday’s HNIC peaked at about 2.2 million viewers at 7:45 p.m. ET. But ratings show that by 7:58, that figure had plummeted by almost 800,000 to about 1.4 million during the first intermission of the show, precisely when Cherry is in mid-jeremiad.

The week before, first-period numbers peaked around 2.5 million viewers. By the time Cherry was on, almost a million people had found something else to do, as the number dipped to around 1.5 million. The numbers from this season have consistently shown such peaks during the action to more modest figures during the first intermission.

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The snow is on its way, sooner or later. If fact, it’s snowing right now. And O-dot will once again claim its throne as the world’s second coldest Capital city in the world. But this wonderfully unseasonably warm and dry weather has me giddy! Every day without snow and minus 20 temps is one day less that I have to bundle up.

And skiers? Quit complaining and fly out to B.C. or something! I’m a-talking to YOU, Hai!

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Speaking of giddy, Ottawa is primed for the opening of the new IKEA store out in the west end… Canada’s largest! And man, it IS huge! From the Queensway, it looks the size of the Oakville GM plant!

I think I’ll avoid it until after the holidays (and Barbados). And, as the O-dot reports, this IKEA has some new features:

Ottawa- When the nation’s largest Ikea store opens next Wednesday December 7th, customers will have the unique option to assemble their furniture while they wait in the massive check-out line ups. With the usual wait times in a typical Ikea check out line being approximately 38 minutes, shoppers can now use that lengthy time to assemble the furniture they have in their carts.

Good thinking! THAT is why the stores are so popular! Innovative thinking, man. Innovative thinking.

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It has been a week of bans!

First - bullying has been banned by the Ontario government – good thing.

Second - Lululemon pants have been banned by an Ottawa Catholic school – stupid thing.

Third – Christmas has been banned by an Ottawa area school. – WTF were they thinking thing.

Fourth – I have been banned from eating hot peppers and pickled eggs before bed – patently UNFAIR thing!

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Finally… in honour of Harper’s pledge to dump Kyoto…

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Gee, these so-called debates are becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing election.

Really now, because of the long period of time that Ontarians have had to cast their ballots (great idea, BTW… it’ll be interesting to see if the turnout is bumped up) and the lateness of the debate AND that these things are so incredibly tightly scripted… Well, c’mon, what’s the point?

And let’s face it, the only folks who tune into these charades – or attend the local versions – are those who have pretty much already made up their minds (if they haven’t yet voted).

Yet the pundits are out there this morning declaring that one side won or the other side won. And of course they will. They are either paid to do so or are fiercely partisan.

In reality, after watching the puppets rail against each other, no one “won”. McGuinty simply had to show up and look and sound somewhat “leaderlike” : which he did. And Hudak just had to pretend to be smarter than really is, and not drool too much: mission accomplished there too.  I guess Randy stayed home. And the Dipper CEO had to come across as someone less loony than the conservative pundits and media have claimed. And she was successful too.

So yup, ask yourself if that orchestrated sideshow last night made any difference whatsoever.

Didn’t think so. The Leaders’ time would have been better spent on doorsteps.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

... than to vote for three buffoons in a row.

They’ll be more sensible in the Fall….

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

This is great news!

When I quit 7 years ago, I used Zyban, the patch, nico-gum… everything I could get my hands on! And they worked!

Fortunately, the costs were covered under my drug plan… but most folks aren’t so lucky.

Lower future health care costs will many times over pay for the costs of this forward thinking initiative!

Now how is Hudak and his merry band of nay-sayers going to react to this? I mean, how can you argue against it? Win-win, right?

Naw, they’ll come up with some kind of distorted view of this… par for the course.

Kudos to the Ontario Grits for the timing of this announcement. Ol’ Tim is kinda being bounced around because of his sloppy handing of the abortion funding issue. Strike while the iron is hot, eh?

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario