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www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, January 26, 2012 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5566 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Letter to the Editor Here we go again in Ward 4 Neil Oliver Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West David harvey Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief Daniel Baird Advertising Director ANGELA BLACKBURN Managing Editor Riziero Vertolli Photography Director Sandy Pare Business Manager RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association MARK DILLS Director of Production Manuel garcia Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution Sarah McSweeney Circ. Manager Website oakvillebeaver.com The OakvilleBeaver is a division of Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville ATHENA Award Photo by Paul Baillie brunch visit. Resident Paul Baillie snapped this photo on Sunday, Jan. 22 just before lunch and submitted it to The Oakville Beaver. SUNDAY BRUNCH: Some Canada Geese apparently liked the roof of this Sandwell Drive home for a Sunday A Ward 4 school board boundary review is underway. Here we go again. I believe the real reason we are being forced into another boundary review is the Halton District School Board (HDSB) doesn't want to call it a French Immersion (FI) accommodation crisis. To understand why the board keeps reviewing boundaries so often in this ward, one needs to understand the history of how this optional program has become so popular with some, yet so polarizing. According to HDSB's Jan. 18 letter to Ward 4 parents, "There are enrolment pressures at some schools under the current school boundaries." It doesn't state the pressures are at only two of the eight schools: Forest Trail (single track FI) and Palermo (dual track). Also, Forest Trail and Palermo have been in accommodation crisis for most of the time since opening. This ward just finished an elementary boundary review in April 2009, so why spend money on yet another already? Because the FI boundaries are five times larger than for the English track and there is no limit on enrolment. This review was done to deal with the accommodation crisis at Forest Trail, which opened in September 2007. The board offered up Pilgrim Wood to become a single track FI school, but that community denounced the idea. It was then suggested Pilgrim Wood could be dual track -- but by then many in the Forest Trail community viewed Pilgrim Wood as not welcoming. All eyes turned to the new Palermo school and the fight was on to see how it would open -- as a single track FI or dual track for this new subdivision. Our current ward 4 trustee voted against Palermo becoming a dual track school. Forest Trail opened to deal with the accommodation crisis at Pine Grove, a singletrack FI school in Ward 3. Many children attending Pine Grove lived in Ward 4, so singletrack FI proponents pushed for their own school north of the QEW. In 2003, HDSB sent letters home to parents of the three Glen Abbey schools telling them the FI students who lived there needed their own school and parents were to choose which school to give up. After public outcry and heated information sessions that pitted neighbour against neighbour, the HDSB relented and set its sights on the new school to be built in West Oak Trails. The Ministry of Education funded to build what is now Forest Trail as dual track, and yet HDSB opened it as a single track FI. There is no end in sight with this current model of delivery. Ward 4 has been through this several times and nothing changes. What can be done about it this time? Demand serious policy changes to how this board offers FI. The majority of Ward 4 parents do not choose FI for their children, yet FI has been the predominant focus and agenda of our board and trustee and how it's delivered is the reason we have so many boundary/accommodation reviews. To solve this crisis and prevent future repeats, the HDSB needs to: · Create more dual-track schools with reduced FI boundaries (this would require converting the single track FI school into one of the dual-track schools needed) · Implement controls at each school based on capacity and balanced programming · Provide optional attendance for FI, if catchment FI is full These policies are in place in Toronto and work. It does not take away the benefit of choosing to learn French at the elementary level; it just offers it in a more equitable and cost effective manner. Andrew McFarland, Ward 4, Oakville Editor's Note: See story on page 13 How he tried to take the world of supermodeling by storm There have been two supermodels in the news of late. Sadly, supermodel Heidi Klum announced her separation from hubby Seal (believe it or not, Seal is the musician's given name). And, on a happier note, supermodel Gisele Bundchen and hubby Tom Brady, quarterback of the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots, have finished construction on their $20-million California dream home (like we needed 20 million more reasons to envy them). Understandably, whenever supermodels are in the news, people come to me for answers to all their supermodel questions and to gain insight into assorted supermodel issues because they know how intimately acquainted I am with this enigmatic world. Oh, and because they've heard whispers of how I came within a whisker of actually becoming a supermodel. It's not a story that I often impart: I'm a modest man by nature and, frankly, the telling is too trying. You see, like many boys, I grew up wanting to be a supermodel. My mother, trying to protect her youngest from this cutthroat culture, and the slim possibility of failure, would often say, "Oh, honey, why don't you just become a model?" But for me, a little boy from humble beginnings, that wasn't enough. Yes, I wanted to be a model. But I also wanted to be, well, super. Oddly enough, the question I get asked the most is: "What the heck is a supermodel?" Well, a supermodel is -- and stick with me on this because it gets terribly complicated -- a model. Who is... super. The term came into prominence in the 1980s, but really there were supermodels as far back as the 1960s when Glamour Andy Juniper magazine identified 19 such supermodels, headed by Twiggy. Supermodels are often known by just one name. They are highly paid. Highly exposed. Oftentimes underfed (stingy portions of celery and water being the cornerstones of their diets). And fabulously famous. For walking up and down a runway in clothes in which no one would ever be caught dead. All of which made me pine to be one of them. So I practised all the essential things I would need to master to become a supermodel. Like walking -- without falling. And being beautiful. Some days I would only eat imaginary food. Other days I would throw horrible hissy fits over absolutely nothing. I practised doing outra- geous things, and then blaming the media for reporting them. I put an ugly lampshade on my head and called it a hat. Sometimes I pranced around in my underwear, with giant white wings on my back. I was prepared, poised, ready to bust into this Byzantine world and take it by Storm. Storm being the one-name name I'd decided to, ah, name myself. Alas, it wasn't to be. Not because I wasn't beautiful and temperamental and willing to walk around in clothes in which no one would ever be caught dead, but, rather, because I was not a girl. It's true. I found out the hard way that this world is sexist and, as the modeling agent I contacted so harshly told me: "Not only will you never be a supermodel; you can't even become a mediocre model." Two supermodels are in the news of late. People ask me questions. It all makes me feel forlorn. I'm thinking of throwing a hissy fit, and attacking someone with a large stick of celery. See: supermodels are just like me. Only they're models. And super. Andy Juniper can be contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com, found on Facebook www.facebook.com, or followed at www.twitter.com/ thesportjesters.