Oxford Learning Helps Parents Understand Ontarios New Fall Progress Report Its time for the first report card of the school year! That is, unless youre in Ontario, where there will be no fall report card. Instead, the Ontario government will be sending home a progress report. Unlike report cards, the progress report will not contain regular grades. No As and no percentages! Instead, parents will see the following terms on the progress report: progressing with diffi culty, progressing well, and progressing very well. These terms will be the basis for rating students in six critical learning skills and work habits: responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative, and self-regulation. According to Saly Beshera, Centre Director of Oxford Learning Oakville, its important for parents to treat the progress report as they would treat a regular report card. Even though the progress report doesnt have grades or marks, its still a formal report of how a child is progressing at school, and it is as important as a report card, she says. Be it a report card or a progress report, the fall reporting term is the first time that parents receive any sort of formal communication from the school regarding how successful their child is doing. Watch for terms such as next steps could work on or more practice is needed these key terms are the teachers way of communicating areas of concern. Mrs. Beshera says that the fall reporting period is possibly the most important of the three reports that are sent home throughout the school year. If students are not progressing as well as they should, there is plenty of opportunity at this point in the school year to improve. Even though the progress report wont contain actual grades, it will give parents a good sense of whether or not their child is having any difficulties, said Beshera. Attending the parent / teacher conference will also help parents to set a plan of action with the teacher to get their kids on track academically. Arrive looking for two things that your child does really well at school and ask for two areas which can be improved. Saly Beshera also adds that with the new progress report schedule, its more important for parents to address concerns now, as the fi rst official report card of the school year will not be sent home until some time between late January and early February 2011. When it comes to fixing schools difficulties, sooner is better. For more information about understanding what the new progress report means in terms of students grades, contact Oxford Learning. No Grades This Fall? Oakville North East 905-257-1207 Oakville South 905-849-4027 Oakville North 905-469-1929 w w w . o a kv ill eb ea ve r.c o m O A KV IL LE B EA V ER Fr id ay , N ov em be r 5 , 2 01 0 4 local utility company had donated to the provincial Liberals twice, once in 2008 and once in 2009. Scott said he has invoices that say in January 2008 the corporation bought a table at a Liberal function for $8,000 and then another one in the same month the follow- ing year for $9,500. I dont recall any of this ever going to the board of directors of the corporation and believe me, a contribution to the Liberal Party of $17,500 would have got my radar going, he said. As soon as he found out, Scott went to the corporations CEO and president Rob Lister for an explanation. He received invoices for the spending. Both instances included the purchase of a table at an annual Liberal Heritage Dinner in Toronto. The first donation went to the Liberals in general, but Scott said the next donation went to the by-election for Haliburton- Kawartha Lakes-Brock in which John Tory was hoping to beat Liberal Rick Johnson and gain a seat in the Ontario Legislature. I have in my possession the invoices, so I know those to be true donations to the Ontario Liberal fund. I also know one of those donations was probably put through to the riding that John Tory was running in. So the money was used to run against John Tory. I dont believe any of that was approved by the board, he said. Scott went further with his questions. He asked for an internal investigation and hes hoping to get results back at the corpo- rations next governance committee meet- ing this Monday. He asked for all documen- tation to become available to the directors on the Hydro board, that they find out who authorized the spending and for a copy of the policy for the authorization. When we generally set this up, when we need a new transformer or something, we dont hear about it at the board, but I would consider a political donation to be pretty far out there, he said. He also asked to find out who attended the Ontario Liberal dinner events. Ive also asked that Alex (Bystrin), who was president at the time, be held harmless because I know hes subject to a non-disclo- sure agreement, but if he wants to talk about these things and defend himself I think he should be free to do so. The current president Lister, who did not hold the position during the time in ques- tion, assured that the tables were purchased with funds from Oakville Hydros revenue- generating businesses (including telecom- munications and construction companies) and not from taxpayers or consumer of the utilitys electricity distribution company. Scott is hoping to get the answers to his questions on Monday. At the end of that, if I have any doubts that theres anything that I dont know about and the other directors dont know about, I will ask that we have an independent inves- tigation by our auditor to make sure, he said. He said once all the information is found, it should be turned over to the corporations shareholder, which is the Town of Oakville. The Town of Oakville should do what they think they should do. If that is a public inquiry, theyll find Im in complete support of that, he said. The news broke after the NDP brought the papers forward to the public. However, it wasnt only Oakville Hydro that contributed substantial cash to the cottage country polit- ical scene. Other public utility contributors included Essex Power Corp., Newmarket-Tay Power Distribution, Niagara on the Lake Hydro and St. Catharines Hydro Generation. Oakville Hydro, was however, the largest public utilities contributor. The other public utilities were of several hundred dollars or around the $1,000 or $2,000 mark. According to follow-up media reports, each of the utilities named by the New Democrats said they never donated money directly to the Liberals, but rather purchased tickets to party fundraisers so they could network with cabinet ministers and industry officials. Other major contributors to the Ontario Liberal Party cited in the documents pro- duced by the NDP included the Ontario Professional Firefighters Association, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF), Ontario Dental Association, Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association and others. Oakville MP Terence Young weighed in on the Oakville Hydro donations. This donation was totally inappropriate. This was a secret donation made with the hydro users money and given to the Liberal Party of Ontario and any donations of this size are normally to create political debts of gratitude or pay them off, he said. There are a lot of questions about this. Who went to the Liberal Heritage Dinner and sat at the table paid for by Oakville Hydro users and what political favours were traded in exchange for such a large dona- tion? This requires a complete and full inves- tigation. I dont recall any of this ever going to the board of directors of the corporation and believe me, a contribution to the Liberal Party of $17,500 would have got my radar going. Scott may receive answers at Monday hydro meeting Larry Scott , Oakville Hydro board of directors Continued from page 1 We offer: Comprehensive Hearing Tests for all ages All makes and models Hearing Aids Trial period Batteries Assistive Listening Devices Personal Audio Monitors Noise Plug Sleeping Plug Swim Plug Bilingual Service Oakvilles New State-of-the-Art Hearing Clinic 2387 Trafalgar Road, Oakville ON L6H 6K7 & H E A R I N G A I D S E R V I C E S www.pureaudiology.ca 289.837.1137 Trafalgar Rd WI NN ER S/H om eS en se Du nd as St E Oa k Pa rk B lvd Oa k W alk D r Dalebroo Po s t rid ge D r Visit our new offices Free Parking Wheelchair Accessible across from Win ers Call us today to book an appointment or visit us online at www.pureaudiology.ca LtoR: Pascale-Annie Roy M.Sc.S., Reg CASLPO Audiologist Annick Mrd M.Sc.S., Au.D, Reg CASLPO Doctor of Audiology