On Monday, the Ad Hoc School Review Committee for Dr. L. B. Powers Public School was given a tour of Beatrice Strong Public School by principal Karen Vandermeer.

Beatrice Strong P.S. is one of the schools were students of L. B. Powers P.S. will be transferred to should the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board choose to close Dr. Powers.

Vandermeer showed the committee around Beatrice Strong P.S., describing the facilities current students enjoy.

“At Beatrice Strong school, we have a junior Y daycare,” she said. “It is a seamless day, with students coming back and forth quite comfortably from school back to day care at the beginning of the morning and at the end of the day. We also have after-school programs that the Y puts on for all the children at the end of the day.”

In the school gymnasium, Vandermeer explained that access to the rest of the school from that area can be restricted.

“If a community group wanted to come in on Saturday, there is no access to the rest of the school,” she said.

The tour participants were shown many of the school’s bright, spacious rooms, accessibility features, the up-to-date kitchen and washroom facilities, and some of the 100 computers that are available for student use.

Vandermeer also took the time to explain what each area was currently used for, and how it could be repurposed should the need to house more students arise.

“We host the Southfield Centre,” she said. “We have a speech pathology, social workers, psychometrists. They are using the centre right at the moment. If we relocate these people (if the Powers students are moved to Beatrice Strong), this will be a special education resource room as well. So I may have up to three new resource rooms.”

“There are very few modifications needed to accommodate (the new students),” said Joe Hubbard at superintendent of administrative services for the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. “This school is blessed with a lot of storage space because it was built prior to the new (provincial) funding formula. There is one area in here that is currently a storage room that can be turned into a classroom. There is a workshop here that can be turned into a resource room.”

In all, Hubbard said that by repurposing in the existing space, Beatrice Strong Public School could have up to five new classrooms available.

An option being considered to bring portables onto the property could add another two classroom spaces.

The issue of portables raised the question of whether or not closing Dr. Powers P.S. and moving the students to Beatrice Strong P.S. would provide the “equivalent or a better core services” the board is required to provide under the provincial funding formula.

“If we’re going to be objective, we have to list the fact that if the students are going to be housed in portables, that would be a disadvantage,” said Reno Piccini, one of the community representatives on the committee. “I don’t see how students in portables can be considered as having educational opportunities expanded.”

There was also a health issue brought up in regards to portables. Sarah Clayton, and other community representative on the committee, recorded in 1999 report that found over 90% of portables in Peel, Halton and Brant counties had been found to be contaminated with mould.

Hubbard explained that since that report, the mould issue in portables has been addressed.”Since 1999, there have been significant rebuilds and significant further testing (of portables),” Hubbard said. “Those figures might have been true for that specific board at that specific time, but it would not be true for this board at this time.”

Committee chair Erin Brown pointed out that the presence of portables is merely an option at this point.

“One of the options is not to have portables at all,” Brown said.

The Ad Hoc School Review Committee meets again on Tuesday, February 18th at 7:30 p.m. at Dr. L. B. Powers Public School.

Sarah Clayton, one of two Powers school representatives on the committee and a financial analyst for the Regional Municipality of Durham is concerned that a proper building analysis comparing the efficiencies of Powers and Strong has not been completed.

“The provincial auditor and the ministry have noted problems with boards not using full-cycle building cost analyses and not actually making accommodations based on efficiency,” she said.  “As an analyst myself, this doesn’t prove to me that we’re not going to move all these students to Beatrice Strong, close down Powers and then end up having to build a bigger school five years down the road.”

Community representative Reno Piccini seemed to agree that the analysis, as presented, appeared incomplete.

“This looks like it’s generating all this revenue when in fact it’s revenue that’s going to have to go right back into a building campaign,” he said.

Ms. Clayton also brought up the point that the board had a reserve fund of $3 million for capital projects, yet instead went with a different method of financing.

“You could have used this money, but it comes with a cost of 8 per cent based on the ministry guidelines,” she said.  “Instead you went to the market where you got a debenture for 6 per cent.  So you’re filling up this reserve by closing schools such as Hawkins and Powers, and filling others to overcapacity, then you don’t even use the money.”

“That’s true,” superintendent of administrative services Joe Hubbard replied.  “I think the board is being economically wise in doing so.  At a better interest rate, the board can pay off a capital project in a quicker amount of time.  This generates more money to be available for more capital projects.”

“My question is, can you consider not putting more money into this reserve account when you don’t need it, when you can go to the market at a cheaper rate?” Ms. Clayton asked.  “Why not just leave Powers alone and go out and debenture a new school that you think you need to build?”

“That makes the assumption that we don’t need the money,” Hubbard responded.  “We do need it, and we need to have money flowing by way of new pupil place grants.  As enrollment declines, that means revenues also decline.  Based on the number of projects the board has funded to date, albeit at a better interest rate, it still needs to generate continued revenue from new pupil place grants to offset declining enrollment and ensure that we have the money in the future to pay off those projects.”

Erin Brown, board trustee and chair of the committee, objected to the inference that the board was considering closing Powers merely as a “cash grab.”

“Nobody wants to close schools,” she said.  “It needs to be made clear that we wouldn’t be doing this unless we needed to close schools.  If you look, as an example, at the trustees that have been removed from power and replaqced by a government supervisor, they are going through massive school closures right now; more than we would be.”

The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board invites and encourages the public to attend review committee meetings.  The next meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 26 in the Dr. Powers School library.  Public input meetings are scheduled for Thursday, April 3 and Wednesday, April 9 in the Powers gym.

Northumberland seniors proved competitive at Winterfest 2003 in London this week.

“We had four people in alpine skiing,” said Phil Calnan, one of the skiers that went with the Victoria/Peterborough/Northumberland team to Winterfest.

“Two of them won bronze medals. Lloyd Margles won it for the men, and Liz Sine won it for the women.”

In mixed-doubles badminton, Marilyn McMillan and John Geale won bronze for the Victoria/Peterborough/Northumberland team.

Calnan said that competition at the games was fierce.

“They were worked hard,” he said. “There were 25 games of badminton for the couple that won the bronze medal. Mr. and Mrs. Warren Harvey, in the curling tournament, said they worked for two days solid and finished only ten minutes before the dinner where the results would be announced.”

Unfortunately the Warrens, who were seen as curling favourites among their teammates, weren’t among the medal winners.

“There was some tough competition,” said Calnan. “We came in within a fraction of a second of winning bronze in skating. The volleyball players had seven good games, and they came within inches of getting bronze.”

As competitive as it was, Calnan said that more than anything, Winterfest 2003 was great fun.

“We went up there with 35 people,” he said. “They didn’t really know each other, but they had a great time and it made for a lot of new friendships. A lot of people suffer the blues in February, but if you’re out there skiing or skating or doing any of these activities, you don’t have time to get depressed.”

Other events at Winterfest 2003 with the Victoria/Peterborough/Northumberland team competed in included 5-pin and 10-pin bowling, Nordic skiing and basketball.

“We did not have a team in ice hockey,” said Calnan. “I couldn’t get a local team of seniors, even though there are many who play hockey. Most of them told me they had their year slotted very much ahead of time.”

Winterfest 2005 still hasn’t found a host city, but Calnan hopes a Victoria/Peterborough/Northumberland team can be assembled by then.

“The competition there in hockey was absolutely marvelous,” he said. I was amazed at the quality.”

“We are trying to get a little bit of something for everybody,” said managing director Uwe Meyer.  “We have a musical, we have a murder mystery, we’ve got a farce, and a sort of period comedy.  It’s quite a varied season, and I think people would be hard-pressed to say there is nothing there that they like.”

The musical, and the show that will kick off the season on June 5, is I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.  The show takes a close look at relationships where single women are concerned that there are not enough single men who aren’t jerks, and married men complain about wives who shop too much or criticise their driving.

On June 26, Caught in the Net begins its run.  In the sequel to Run For Your Wife, bigamist taxidriver John Smith is keeping his two families unaware of each other.  Things get complicated when his teenage children – one girl and one boy by each wife – meet on the Internet and he tries to keep them apart.

The Mousetrap, which premieres July 17, is a favourite Agatha Christie mystery. In it, a group of strangers are stranded in a boarding house during a snowstorm.  One is a murderer.  The suspects include the newly-married couple who run the house, a spinster with the curious background, an architect who seems better equipped to be a chef, a retired army major, a strange little man who claims his car has overturned in a drift, and a jurist who makes life miserable for everyone.  No sooner does a policeman travelling on skis arrive when a second murder is committed.  From then on, it’s searching for clues and rattling a few skeletons in everyone’s closets.

The final play in the summer series is Noel Coward’s comedy of manners, Private Lives.  Premiering August 7, the play is about two people who were once married and are now honeymooning with new spouses at the same hotel.  They meet by chance, reignite the old spark, and impulsively elope.  After some days of being reunited, they find their fiery romance alternating between passions of love and anger.  For those who have attended the festival before, Mr Meyer promises some familiar faces in the casts of these four plays.

“We are having people back who have been here before,” he said.

He is optimistic that the variety of productions in this year’s festival will appeal to a wide audience.

“Pre-sales are excellent already,” he said.  “Bus sales are up over last year.  It’s still very early, but looking at last year’s numbers and this year’s numbers, we are very pleased.”

It’s only the first week of the Tim Hortons Food Share bag program, and it is already being branded a success.

“So far this year it’s going well,” said Joan Bebee of Northumberland Fare Share in Port Hope. “Just since Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we’ve had an excellent response, above and beyond what we thought we’d pull in.”

George Leger at Fare Share in Cobourg agrees.

“People are donating by the bagful,” he said.

He also noted that the Tim Hortons Food Share bags, which were included in last Friday’s Port Hope Evening Guide and Cobourg Daily Star newspapers, are not the only donation vehicles being used.

“Donations are coming in bags and boxes, any way, shape or form,” Leger said.

“We pick this time of year because it’s normally a slow time for the food bank,” said John Meeussen, owner of the Tim Hortons franchises in Port Hope and Cobourg. “Christmas and Thanksgiving are strong times of the year, but this is when the shelves are normally empty.”

“This is the second year that we’ve been in partnership with Tim Hortons, and with CHUC and Star 93,” said Mike Walsh, publisher of the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide. “We’re encouraging the public to fill the bags with items as outlined on the bag itself and drop them off at Tim Hortons in Cobourg and Port Hope by the 28th of February.”

The items needed by the food bank are powdered milk, canned fruit or juice, canned vegetables, canned salmon and tuna; canned meat and stews; rice, pasta and pasta sauces, peanut butter, jam and honey, condiments, sugar, cereal, pancake mix and syrup, diapers, baby formula, toiletries and toilet paper.

And remember, Food Share accepts donations throughout the year, not just during campaign times. Non-perishable food items can be dropped off any time at police and fire stations, and at Food Share offices on Wednesdays and Fridays. For more information, call (905) 885-6674 in Port Hope, or (905) 372-5308 in Cobourg.

As deliberations into the fate of Dr. L. B. Powers Public School continue, Sarah Clayton, one of two Dr. Powers school council representatives on the ad hoc school review committee, is frustrated with the review process.

“My worry is the timing,” she said.”  I do think it’s a rush.”

Ms. Clayton, who works as an economist for the Regional Municipality of Durham, said that there were protestations early on from the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board in regards to the date of the recommendation to close Dr. Powers.

Ms Clayton said that school board regulations require that any recommendations for school closing be made by Sept. 30.  The recommendation to close Powers wasn’t made until Nov. 28, two months later than regulations state.

“The board policy states Sept. 30, but the board voted to amend that date this year,” said Erin Brown, local trustee and chair of the committee.  “It was originally amended to Oct. 30, then changed again to Nov. 30 because we had the C. N. Watson Report commissioned.  We wanted to wait until we had gotten all the information from that report and had the opportunity to do public presentations in each of our communities.

“We also changed the way in which information flowed out to the committees.  Instead of coming to each meeting with a little bit of information, we put all of the information out there right at the beginning,” she said.

The way the information was presented to teh committee was changed so that timelines would not have to be pushed back, Ms. Brown said.

“One of the things we heard from three of the school communities that were reviewed last year was that the process was far too long.  We’ve tried to tighten up the process a bit,” she said.

“Timelines are only an issue now with Dr. Powers,” Ms. Brown said.  “Of the other four committees we have operating right now, one has wrapped up completely and the other three, I think their reports are going to the board at the end of this month.”

Ms. Clayton, however, feels that the compressed timeline is squeezing some of the issues out of the debate.

“It seems now that when we bring up issues to investigate, we’re reminded that we need to get this wrapped up by the beginning of April,” she said. “That’s frustrating, because as we get more into the statistics and cost numbers there are more questions than answers.”

One area where Ms. Clayton is at odds with the board statistics revolves around the population growth in the neighborhood around Dr. Powers.

“The school board argues that there’s new residential development in the west end, but it’s all empty-nesters so it doesn’t affect enrollment potential. I’d argue that there is also resale market growth in the community,” she said.  “I talked to Century 21, and they said that in the last three years there has been an increase in property sales and in the average sale price in Port Hope, and they’re seeing younger families.

“Yes, growth in Port Hope has been slow over the last five years, but I don’t think that it’s indicative of a long-term trend. The junior kindergarten class at Powers this year was 28 kids.  The board was only expecting 20.”

Ms. Brown could not confirm those enrollment numbers, but stated that the committee was looking for projection numbers from several different sources.  Right now, though, she is not optimistic.

“It’s very frustrating,” she said.  “Either we’re not seeing the growth in Port Hope that we had anticipated, or the growth we’re seeing is not producing the number of students we need.  We’re not funded to keep spaces open for a long period of time in hopes that they will eventually fill up.”

The ad hoc school review committee meets tonight at 7:30 p.m. — a special time for these meetings — at R. L. B. Powers.

It isn’t often that a charitable organization in need is reluctant to make a public plea, but Northumberland Big Sisters is afraid that it could be swamped by this generous community.

“We don’t want to get inundated,” said Barb Keenan at Northumberland Big Sisters.  “We’re kind of afraid that we could get a barrage of people coming with their old chairs.”

Big Sisters needs to furnish their new mentoring room, located above its office on John Street in Port Hope.

“We just need two or three good quality armchairs, a loveseat or two, maybe a couple of coffee tables.  That would be dandy.”

Keenan stresses that it is important for the organization to see any furniture before it is accepted.

“Size really matters,” she said.  “The room is on the third floor, and it’s brutal getting things up and down the stairs.”

Keenan is excited about getting the mentoring room up and running, as it will provide some much-needed group space.  Keenan said that the room has already benefited from the generosity of the community.

“It’s a very cool space,” she said.  “There was a whole bunch of community effort put in with the Days of Caring that the United Way put together in June.  Management from local industries came and worked for free.  The carpeted and painted the room.  We didn’t have to pay for any of the materials or the labour.  Then we had the Cobourg Y Exchange Program kids help mortar the wall.”

Once furnished, the mentoring room will be a space for Big Sisters and other organizations to run classes, group counseling sessions and meetings.

“We’re hoping to launch a teen-mom mentoring program,” Keenan said. “There’s a possibility that a new service called Wraparound Service will use the space.  It isn’t a Big Sisters service, but we’re housing them for the time being.  We also run a teen esteem program, and there’s a possibility that teen esteem will be able to use it for crafts or to have a speaker come.

“We’re hoping to have a multi-purpose use for it.”

To offer a piece of furniture or for more information, contact Northumberland Big Sisters at (905) 885-6422.

Tracy Francis and Ann Doucette sport clown schnozzes at M&M Meat Shop in Cobourg. Friday was the 12th annual M&M Meat Shops Red Nose Day, when store employees bring a smile to customers’ faces to combat the February blahs.

“The beauty ideal today is thin, able-bodied, smooth-skinned, young and glamorous,” said Rachel Moon Kelly, public health nutritionist at the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health unit.  “The reality is that less than one per cent of us fits this ideal.”

The quest to fit into this ideal has led many people, — up to 15 per cent of the population — to fall into a pattern of eating disorders.

Ms. Moon Kelly said that dealing with an unhealthy body image is difficult, and can lead to depression, low self-esteem, and harmful eating habits.

“How we picture ourselves in the mirror and our minds has tremendous impact on how we act,” she said.  “With media influences and other factors, it’s easy to fall into the trap of unhealthy weight loss diets and the like.”

To help combat this trend, the HKPR District Health Unit is using Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which runs until Feb. 8, as a forum to lay the groundwork for a new Body Image Group in Northumberland.

“We are starting a body image coalition, beginning with a focus group on Tuesday evening,” said Ms. Moon Kelly.

The focus group was expected to include representatives from the medical, mental health, dietetics, and educational communities, teens and parents.

In a press release, Northumberland OPP stated that several accidents, including one involving a tractor trailer and pup hauling propane, led to the closure of Highway 401 between Brighton and Cobourg at 9 p.m. Monday.

According to Senior Constable Jamie Stone of the OPP, the 401 reopened around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“Other than that, there were a lot of vehicles in the ditch and a few minor collisions,” Sr. Const. Stone said.  “I haven’t heard of any major injuries or anything like that.”

Traffic was diverted onto Highway 2, causing busier-than-normal conditions during Tuesday’s morning commute.  Otherwise, things went “smoothly,” Sr. Const. Stone said.

In Port Hope, there were reports that Walton Street had been closed off because of slippery conditions.  Port Hope police say that the road had not been officially closed, and any traffic delay would have been just long enough for the salters to complete their work.

Garbage collection was also affected by the icy road conditions.

“We knew as the trucks were going out this morning that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the regular collection schedule,” said Pam Russell, director of transportation and waste for Northumberland County.

“We decided to just advise residents that there would be an unavoidable delay because of the weather.”

Ms. Russell said residents should leave their trash out on the curb for now — Tuesday’s garbage collection would continue later in the day, and any areas not serviced by the end of the day would have their collection rescheduled.

“We’re trying to concentrate on the more urban areas such as Bewdley, Colbourne, and Grafton,” Ms. Russell said.

“As the roads get sanded, we’ll be able to get down a number of side roads as well.”