The Toronto and District School Board will mail out a truncated report card to 154,000 students in Grades One to Eight despite the elementary teachers work-to-rule campaign. There will be similar arrangements made by school boards in Durham and York. In Peel Region, the school board says it will provide only letters of promotion. This as the talks with both the elementary teachers and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) head into a summer of what will surely be rank frustration. The government says there can be no increases. The elements are the children and the cost. Once again the public seems condemned to negotiate against its own interests. Globe and Mail
Government of Canada websites apparently hacked
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Alert Ready test takes over TV with advice on future threats
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French message is on screen as English audio message silences CP24 anchor
A series of interruptions of cable television service in Toronto is occurring Wednesday in the name of the Ready Alert program of emergency messages. The messages say it is a test of an Ontario system that will tell Canadians of serious and immediate threats. There is no indication of when they will end. Nor does there appear to have been any notice of these tests. Wikipedia
School boards say teacher demands total $3.2 billion
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Davisville Public School snared in Ontario’s debt crisis
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Josh Matlow (Ward 22)
In his current newsletter Councillor Josh Matlow has described a project known as a Community Hub for the lands of Davisville Public School on Millwood Rd. near Yonge St. He also says the school needs replacement because it is old, crowded and has faults like failing boilers. It seems there is room on this spacious property to build a decent school and accommodate the Community Hub as well. Except for a decision of the Ministry of Education to require the Toronto and District School Board to sell off as much as an acre of the property to provide funds to pay for a new school. Matlow says he has been working with Davisville parents and others locally to keep the Hub idea alive. “It is in the best interest of the School Board, as well as the Province and the City, if this public land is used for (along with a new, modern school) recreation, child care and other community uses instead of just another condo,” he says. This little outline tells the Councillor’s story as well as the often muted tale of how the provincial debt impacts us all in many ways. There is no money for anything. And without regard to political leanings, the numbers alone shout at us about the profligacy of the last ten years. The debt continues to grow in the range of $284 billion. It affects everything. It’s why the government must sell school land and among other things limit the number of visits people make to medical specialists.
1860 Bayview scheduled for completion in Spring 2016
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Scenes of the Whole Foods commercial site at Broadway and Bayview Aves.
The commercial complex at 1860 Bayview Ave. had previously been scheduled for completion in the fall of this year. No such target is possible and Whole Foods is now saying it will open sometime in 2016. From the top, the corner of Bayview and Broadway and below it the structure of the corner and beside it a look into the underground garage. At the bottom, the view from Rappert Ave on the west. Approval of this project went to the Ontario Municipal Board in 2011 where residents were successful in keeping it at 17 metres. There will be 193 parking spaces in a two-level underground garage. Many will recall that this construction was made possible when General Motors went bankrupt and cancelled the Brennan’s Pontiac franchise.
Hodgson Senior walkout signaled by xylophone ringtone
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Forty students at Hodgson Senior Public School on Davisville Ave have staged a demonstration against the refusal of teachers to provide report cards as part of their work-to-rule. It was a lively affair as reported by veteran education reporter Louise Brown of the Toronto Star. And there was an element of intrigue. The surprise walk out by the Grade 7 and 8 students was signaled by a phone ringtone simulating a xylophone. As Brown puts it: “Like members of the French resistance, these politically charged young teens had arranged a code that would signal that it was time to get up and walk out of the north Toronto school to protest teachers’ refusal to type in marks on their final report cards. The student reading Tuesday’s announcements was in on the protest plot, said Grade 7 student Alexis Cole — and suddenly, the announcements ended and there it was…“The iPhone ‘xylophone ringtone!’ ” she said.
Brampton 18-year-old shot trying to retrieve lost phone
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Bayview Ave closed at Sutherland Dr. Tuesday morning
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Bayview Ave. was closed early Tuesday morning because a collision between a TTC bus and a motorcycle north of Moore Ave at Sutherland Drive. The 88 Leaside bus was diverted for a period of time. The road is open now. Rosedale Valley Road is also re-opened after a fallen tree was cleared from the westbound lane.
Rachel Dolezal’s black brother says come back to the family
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Rachel Dolezal’s black brother asks her to come back to the family she has denied. Ms. Dolezal resigned as the head of the Spokane NAACP after her parents publicly said she is not black.
Tall, muscular man lost his balance on cruise ship’s railing
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Keith White was a tall man, maybe six foot two inches or more from his appearance in a family photo above. White, on the left, was also large and muscular across his shoulders and in his upper arms. Investigators can only wonder how high the 34-year-old man had to lift himself with those strong arms on the second-deck railing of the Northern Spirit cruise ship Saturday night to lose his balance. Witnesses say he flipped over it, then lost his grip and fell two storeys to the lake below. Some have said not enough was done to rescue Mr. White and that may be true. But it is also true that falling off of a large passenger vessel at any kind of speed is an almost certain death sentence. Throwing a life ring at those distances is almost always futile. The shipping line, Mariposa Cruises, said it took some time to turn the boat around. In fact, Toronto police summoned by 9-1-1, were able to get to the scene before security staff had lowered a rescue boat.