by Julia Schall

Teamwork, communication and music are alive and well at Granite Ridge Education Centre! The GREC School of Rock have been meeting weekly since the end of March. The primary goals of this extra-curricular program are to build confidence and foster communication and collaborative skills while learning some music basics. Although we started late this year, the students worked hard to build their repertoire - from Joan Jett and Lead Belly to the Sheepdogs and Augustina. Many thanks to the Limestone Learning Foundation for previous grants to purchase many of our instruments.

Sydenham High School's Drama Club opened their new theatre last week with one of the most edgy, innovative performances that SHS has produced in years.

Mcdeath sets an old yet still current tale of the consequences of greed and ambition in the grunge scene of ’90s Seattle. The script was written in collaboration between drama teacher Eirik Rutherford and the cast, and fine-tuned through workshopping. In one slyly hilarious sequence, MacDuff escapes to hide out in Vancouver: “We can’t take guns across the border; Canada’s a fortress of solitude!” There, he plots Mac’s downfall in a room decorated with crossed wooden skis.

The relatively young ensemble works together well: some of the most memorable performances are by first-year students. Daniel Karan carries one of the most difficult roles for a young actor; as a very convincing rock music promoter he consistently seems much older than his years. The three witches: Violet Skuce, Shelby Eves and Ashley Macdonald, are baffling, unsettling, and dangerous. In a small role played to perfection, Amy Walton pantomimes a bored bartender. When she finally speaks, she reveals herself as Hecate, powerful mistress of the witches. Jess Sherman and Colton Haligan do well in the demanding roles of Lady and Mac.

This is a multi-media production: throughout, a four-man rock band beside the stage performs well, providing introduction, scene changes and back-up accompaniment to singers. Several TV screens introduce or connect scenes by showing newscasts and interviews.

Unfortunately, the new theatre space disappoints: the comfortable well-raked audience seating is perhaps the best part. Lights were rented, curtains were makeshift. Once when several players made a running exit, offstage thumps and giggles illustrated the lack of adequate room backstage. The theatre has neither storage room nor bathroom facilities.

Despite the theatre space’s shortcomings, cast and crew provided a most enjoyable evening’s entertainment. The final-night performance was enhanced at intermission by fruit crepes and coffee prepared by food service students in their new commercial style kitchen across the hall.

Among $71,000 in grants handed out by the Limestone Learning Foundation this week, Loughborough, Harrowsmith and Perth Road Public Schools, as well as Granite Ridge Education Centre, received grants.

Loughborough Public School received $4,000 to support a project to mark the 100th anniversary of the school. In the 100 Years of Education For All project, special needs students in the school will take a leadership role in creating presentations about the history of the school using alternative media formats. The grant will be spent on software and hardware to support the project.

Harrowsmith Public School is receiving $3,000 to purchase iPads for the “Look What I Did Today” project, which will be used in the kindergarten classes to facilitate the Reggio Ameila practice of student documentation. This approach is based on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community through exploration and discovery in a supportive and enriching environment based on the interests of the children through a self-guided curriculum.

Perth Road School is receiving $2,200 for musical instruments which will be used to set up a School of Rock program after school. Once the program is up and running, students will have several opportunities to show off their inner rock star at assemblies and talent shows.

Granite Ridge Education Centre will receive $4,000 to purchase fabric and art supplies for an art mural and history project that will depict the history of the community and the combining of three schools that created Granite Ridge.

Editorial by Jeff Green

Granite Ridge Education Centre is a few days away from its formal ribbon cutting/grand opening ceremony. A lot has been said in the community about the decision to build a comprehensive school for the region (which drew a mixed response); its location (a mixed to negative response); and its name (negative with only a few glimmers of support). The jury is still out, and likely will be for a few more years, about how good an educational and public use facility the school will be in the long term.

One thing is clear, however; the decision to open the school in January of this year was done at the expense of the elementary students who are now attending Granite Ridge.

While hindsight is 20/20 a bit of foresight can still go a long way.

About a year ago, when the 2014 school year was being planned by Limestone Board officials, a decision was made to open Granite Ridge in January of 2014, no matter what.

There were other options at the time. One was to leave everything as it was and keep Hinchinbrooke and Sharbot Lake public schools open for one more year, including the busing. This may have been more costly operationally, but the advantage would have been that Hinchinbrooke students would have the benefit of a playground and a full gym all year long, and Sharbot Lake students would at least have had a yard. No one would have attended classes in a portable, as the combined group did up until Christmas. In September, they would have moved over to a completed school, including a proper bus loading zone, a yard to play in, etc.

Secondary students would have had a year that was similar to 2013. They would remain in Sharbot Lake High School through the fall, which happened anyway, and if the new school was complete after the first term or after the March break, they could have moved over. The demolition of Sharbot Lake High School could have been scheduled for the beginning of July, leaving 6-7 weeks for landscaping of the new site.

But that is not what happened.

Instead, Granite Ridge was officially born in September of 2013. Hinchinbrooke students were squeezed into Sharbot Lake Public School, which had been outfitted with portables. This was originally to have been the case for only two months, but it was obvious from the start that Granite Ridge would not be completed in the fall. High school students were in the Sharbot Lake High School building, as they had been the year before.

Later in the fall, with the new building still not ready, board officials must have felt they had no choice but to stick to the January opening precisely because they had closed Hinchinbrooke school. Having squeezed all the elementary students into an inferior facility after closing a better one, how could they leave them there for more than half a year?

In any event, with Granite Ridge still under construction, the decision was made to start moving desks and everything else into the new building. They had come to the point of no return. The new school had to open on January 5.

And, even though it was only under a conditional occupation permit, pending some still incomplete requirements, the students started attending the new building.

Elementary students were no longer in an old school, but they also no longer had a playground to play in. The small enclosure, which rumour has it has been nicknamed “the prison yard” by at least one of the teachers, is not a playground.

When spring finally came, the demolition began, and the students are now going to school in a building that is still under construction, next to a demolition site.

The idea behind Granite Ridge Education Centre is to establish a coherent, caring, school community where children who come from a geographically and economically diverse area can come together and learn.

Certainly as far as they youngest of them are concerned, and some of these students were as young as 3 or 4 years old last September, the 2013-14 school year has been one of dislocation and confusion.

These problems will likely fade away by September, and Granite Ridge will have an opportunity for a re-start, but the roll out has been a disaster.

While there are always growing pains when a new school is built, the case of GREC stands out because it was easy to see coming, and would have been easy to avoid.

As the Limestone Board moves on towards major school construction in Kingston, they might take all that went on in Sharbot Lake this year as an object lesson. Next time, wait until the new school is finished - really finished - before moving the students in.

NAEC once more demonstrated a determination to end bullying at their Day of Pink on April 9. Students gathered for an assembly, wearing pink or Day of Pink pins. This year, several community members were a welcome addition to the assembly. The assembly started with some remarks from Grade 9 and 10 students. Brittany and Shannon Delyea, Lucas Parks-Delyea and Breanna Tryon welcomed the students, staff and visitors and talked about the Day of Pink in general, and what NAEC and the community can do to stand out against bullying. Brittany, Shannon and Lucas were attendees at a recent conference on the subject.

Included in the assembly was a video put together by the Pink Panthers, a group of Elementary students who are committed to ending bullying. They are Kaitlyn Rosenblath, Matt Emslie, Madi Lemke, Mackenzie Johnson, Chantal Keller, Madi Lessard, Olivia Bence, Avery Cuddy, Camille Cote, Cassandra Parks-Delyea and Luc DesRosiers. They asked fellow students and some staff members what “anti-bullying” meant to them. The resultant videos were edited and compiled by Mr. Pelow. Photo by Devin Gagne-Baldacchin

The assembly was invited to visit the hallway by Mr. Pelow’s room, where the Pink Panthers had placed two mural papers. To pledge their intention to prevent bullying, people were invited to trace their hand with a pink marker and sign inside. By the end of the day, the murals were full.

Posters and art with a Day of Pink theme were displayed in all the hallways of the school, as the whole school got involved with the spirit of the day. NAEC is hoping that more community members will come next year, so that bullying is eliminated and “every day is a day of pink”, as Lucas Parks-Delyea said.

On April 9, Shabot Obaadjiwan Elder Danka Brewer was presented with an Outstanding Service Award by the Limestone District School Board. The award was presented by Trustee Ann Goodfellow.

The LDSB citation reads:

"Danka Brewer’s contributions to education in the Limestone District School Board over the past few years have been invaluable as she increases our understanding of Aboriginal cultures, histories, and languages. Her genial interactions with staff and students have enhanced their knowledge of Algonquin and other cultures, but have also put a positive face to Aboriginal people in our area. More than anyone else, she has worked to build bridges between her community and culture and the Limestone DSB.

Danka is an Elder from the Shabat Obaadjiwan First Nation in the Sharbot Lake area. While her influence within our board has been extensive, she also contributes to her community and to Aboriginal activities in Eastern Ontario. She cares deeply about students and constantly tries to support teachers and to link her work to curriculum.

Danka’s interactions with staff and students in the LDSB have been positive and enriching. She has been a member of the board’s Aboriginal Advisory Council since its inception five years ago, and has provided insight and support. She is the Elder in Residence at the Elementary First Nation, Metis and Inuit program housed at Rideau Heights PS, providing a range of teachings and activities to the students throughout the school year. She has been a regular presenter at board-organized Aboriginal cultural events for both elementary and secondary students, including the Sharbot Lake Aboriginal Experience Days and the Four Winds Conferences on Aboriginal Cultures. She is a regular presenter at board-organized professional learning where she provides Aboriginal teachings, encouragement and support to teachers. When the Ministry of Education sought community input into its new Great to Excellent policy, Danka was one of our community partners we asked to provide feedback.

Danka has provided teachings at schools throughout the LDSB, including Land O’Lakes, First Avenue, Rideau Heights, Hichenbrooke, Bayridge PS, Harrowsmith, Clarendon, Tamworth, Odessa, and Sharbot Lake PS and High School, Granite Ridge, JG Simcoe and Perth Road PS.

It is hard to overstate the role that Danka Brewer has played in helping to develop Aboriginal Education in the Limestone District School Board. Her constant refrain is, “How can I help?” Her knowledge and positive persona have helped hundreds of students and teachers made crucial connections with Aboriginal culture.

To Danka we say Chi Miigwetch for all you do to help our staff and students."

Small school bus operators in Eastern Ontario have been at the forefront of a battle with the Province of Ontario for the past five years over a new method of awarding contracts.

The school bus operators formed a new association, the Independent School Bus Operators of Ontario (ISBOA) in the fall of 2008 to deal with a provincially mandated Request for Proposal (RFP) process for awarding busing contracts in Ontario.

ISBOA has argued all along that the RFP process favours larger operators in a number of ways. According to ISBOA, it left small operators vulnerable because although multinational operators can bid on contracts in virtually any location in Ontario, local operators are tied to their own communities. And once a local operator goes out of business, the result, according to ISBOA, will be higher prices in subsequent RFPs because of a decrease in competition.

In a recently released Youtube video (home.isboa.ca/ISBOAYouTubeVideo.html), a number of operators who lost out in RFP bidding in some of the pilot locations for the new system talk about how they have been put out of business.

The RFP process was initiated in 2008 under Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne. Later, after the pilot projects had been completed, a new minister, Leona Dombrowsky, declared a moratorium on expansion of the RFPs across the province in the run up to the 2011 election, and appointed a task force under former justice, Coulter Osborne, to study the impact of the pilot projects.

In his report, Osborne supported some of the assertions of ISBOA. “One does not have to be an economist or possessed of particular procurement expertise to recognize that if any procurement model works to limit or eliminate competition, the result is not in the public interest ... Costs will almost inevitably rise, at least in the longer term ... I support the view that a further review of lawful procurement options should be undertaken,” he wrote.

Catherine Swift, the President of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said, “The whole request for proposal system from government is very, very difficult for small business to deal with ... it's not an economic issue in this case. It was a political decision to go with a process that benefited the larger players to the detriment of the smaller players.”

The Osborne report did not end the RFP process and in 2012, RFPs were issued in many jurisdictions including those of Tri-board Transportation and STEO (Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario) in Lanark and Leeds Grenville)

ISBOA challenged the processes in court and won favourable outcomes in all five cases that were contested. In the case of Tri-board Transportation, the RFP was rescinded before a ruling could be made, putting the case on hold. The STEO case is going to the next stage at a court in Kingston in early June.

The latest twist in this continuing saga came just last week when Stock Transportation, a multinational-based school bus company, announced that it will be pulling out of the Ottawa market if the fees for next year are not increased by 12%, instead of the 2% offer that has been made by the busing consortium.

In announcing their decision, Stock made the following statement: “In addition to the duty that Stock has to the boards, consortia, parents and children that we service, we also have a duty to our investors and financial institutions to provide value and security for their investment. The contracts in Eastern Ontario have neither provided a reasonable return on invested capital; nor have they provided long term security for some time. It had been our hope that the RFP process would enable operators to bid rates up to reasonable levels, leaving us with the decision to continue to operate at a loss, negotiate a higher rate, or exit the marketplace.”

This statement, according to ISBOA President Karen Cameron, reveals that what ISBOA has been saying all along is true.

“Where the RFPs were implemented, the multinationals bid low and all the smaller companies went out of business. They were counting on establishing monopolies and being able to force acceptance of higher rates. The RFPs, if they ever come in, will result in putting small operators, like those in Frontenac and Lanark County, out of business and raising the cost of transportation in the medium to long run,” she said. “What Stock is doing in Ottawa shows what this has been all about all along. They are just getting impatient.”

Fifteen North Addington Education Centre students competed at the Limestone District School Board, Skills Competition, held on April 3 at St. Lawrence College. “Build something that lasts,” was this year’s Skills Competition motto, and that is exactly what they did.

Training hard leading up to the competition, the NAEC Skills team competed against students from Limestone District, the Upper Canada and Algonquin Lakeshore boards.

The competition hosts many different hands-on, curriculum-based events that fall under the skilled trades sector.

Mike McEwen & Devon Salmond (Silver Medals), Devon Deruchie & Lucas Parks-Delyea competed in 2D Animation team of two, a competition that has competitors using a program called Flash to generate a computer animation.

Summer Andrew, Allya Garey competed in Graphic Design Presentation, completing their advertising materials for Skills Canada before the competition and then presenting it to a team of judges.

Drake Murphy (Gold Medal), Zack McQuigge (Silver Medal), Brittany Wood (Bronze Medal), Brody Munro, Tristen Veley competed in Graphic Design Studio, which consisted of designing packaging and marketing materials for a product.

Amey Sauvageau represented NAEC in the Photography event, bringing a portfolio of work, completing a Photoshop task and shooting and editing photographs on site.

Andre Tryon (Gold Medal), Josh Blackwell, Wyatt Keller competed in the Small Engines competition where they had to diagnose electrical circuit issues, write a test and tear down and reassemble an engine.

A bus full of NAEC students also attended to cheer on their school mates as they took on the day’s challenges.

Andre competed at the Regional qualifier held at St. Lawrence College on Saturday, April 12th, placing second. Both Andre and Drake Murphy now advance to the Provincial Skills Competition representing Team Limestone in Waterloo, Ontario on May 5, 6 & 7.

Two machines have been slowly, steadily, inexorably dismantling the former Sharbot Lake High School over the past few weeks. The school, which was built in three stages over decades, is being taken apart one attached building at a time.

Its replacement, Granite Ridge comprehensive school, built in a style that could be called 'modern institutional', is just a few feet away.

Although the process was announced in advance, it has still been disheartening to see the building where so many children grew into young adults being torn open and turned into piles of rubble.

Even though the school principal told the school community that removing trees was a regrettable part of a process that will be setting the stage for a new parking lot and playground for Granite Ridge Education Centre, it did come as a shock when the large oak that graced the front lawn in front of the main doors of the school was chopped down last week. It is laid out on the ground in pieces, as if it were nothing more than the rubble gathered in piles beside it.

A number of maples behind the school have come down as well, but this tree was a major feature of Sharbot Lake High School, and judging from its size, it was likely far older than the school that was built around it.

There is, I hope, a good reason why this particular tree had to go, because any replacement tree will not attain anything like the majesty of that oak in the lifetime of even the youngest JK student at GREC.

When the landscaping is being done around the school, we will see whether the Limestone board is bringing some vision to the process that justifies removing this particular tree. Hopefully it has not just been jettisoned in the same way that the contents of the school were tossed into dumpsters when the school was being emptied before being demolished.

Whether the reason is a good one or just a matter of lazy expediency, it is sad to see that tree laying in pieces on the ground.

The 24 student artists and members of this year’s Land O' Lakes Art Club wrapped up the results of their ten-week course at the Land O' Lakes Public School on April 2 in a very arty celebration. The students gathered in the school’s main pod, which was transformed into a gallery space where the paintings were on display, each on its own wooden easel.

Parents of the students helped to make the occasion one to remember. Linda Tremblay, owner of Nomad's Rest Bed and Breakfast in Mountain Grove, whose son Boris participated in the class, offered guests a mouth-watering array of and colourful art-inspired treats, which included a colourful three-layer cake, blueberry parfaits in tiny glasses, little croissant sandwiches and fruit speared on wooden paintbrush-shaped skewers.

Music played in the back ground as students, their families and friends studied the works, which covered a wide range of artistic styles. Student artist Charlotte Hilder served cheese and crackers to guests who sipped virgin strawberry daiquiris and cappuccinos.

LOLPS teacher and acclaimed artist, Lee Hall, was the instructor of the group, who focused on figure painting this time around. Their model, which the students appropriately named LOLA, stood in the midst of the displayed works.

Young grade four artist Gabriel Hull said it was his first time participating in the club. He said that the fabric folds on the model LOLA were some of the most challenging parts for him.

Grade seven student Aurora French joined the art club for her second year and she said she loves making art. She said that getting the shape of Lola's face and her shoulder right was difficult, as was painting the fabric folds. She said that she enjoyed painting from a model and the fact that “there was always something there that you could constantly look back and forth to.” She explained how she achieved her colourful textured background by dabbing the paint onto the canvas with her brush.

Lee Hall was impressed with the work the students created and he explained how individual works exemplified many different artistic styles. “I am really pleased with the variety of work that we have here. There are works that remind me of Matisse with their big broad patches of surreal colour and there are others, more blurred and abstract that remind me of the works of Francis Bacon. Others like Gabriel’s and Aurora’s have a more realistic, classical feel.” Hall added that all of the students were very enthusiastic and at each class, after receiving instruction they happily set to work on their paintings. Hall said that he hopes to continue the art club next year. The club has been able to run at the school thanks to a grant from the Limestone Learning Foundation that covers the cost of all the materials for the club.