8 in si de ha lto n. co m O ak vi lle B ea ve r | T hu rs da y, M ar ch 2 9, 20 18 | ONTARIO TH IS SUMMER I 'M GOING TO RfRICR W IT H HSC'S ME TO WE CO M M ITTEE. WE'RE GOING TO MAKE A DIffERENCE IN SOMEONE'S L IfE . I CAN'T WAIT. J o in us o n W e d n e s d a y , A p r i l 4 f o r o u r O p e n H o u s e t o le a rn h o w w e ig n ite c u r io s ity a n d b u i ld e x c ite m e n t a b o u t le a rn in g in s tu d e n ts 1 8 -m o n th s t o G ra d e 12. V is i t o u r w e b s ite , o r c a ll 9 0 5 -3 8 9 -1 3 6 7 , f o r m o re in fo r m a t io n . HSC.ON.CA/CANTW AIT Minister of education announces progress of equity plan Two local MPPs updated the public on the progress o f the province's Education Equity Action Plan, which officially launched back in September 2017. Minister o f Education and Halton MPP Indira Naidoo-Harris and Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn were at Oakville's W.H. Mor- den Public School last month to make the announcement. The EEAP was created to build o f the goals o f Ontario's 2009 Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy, which was designed to support human rights as described in the Ontario Human Rights Code, Canadian Charter o f Rights and Freedoms and other relevant legislation, stated a media release. The EEAP has brought forward two ini tiatives to ensure equity across all aspects o f publicly-funded education. The first is training for school trustees on equity, ethics and governance, which in cludes intensive professional development to an initial 60 trustees from across the province. The trustees are provided with ethical and equity governance issues facing Onta rio's school boards and aims to equip them with the knowledge, strategies, tools and tactics to deal with challenging situations. The second initiative is collecting volun tary identity-based student data, working with an initial 15 school boards (neither Halton's Catholic or public school boards are listed as taking part in the first phase). The point o f this initiative is to develop a consistent approach to data collection, in volving race, ethnicity and socio-econom ic statuses o f students. The first phase will deal with developing the process o f the collection o f that volun tary data. The province also offers Parents Reach ing Out Grants, which aim to help increase parent involvement in publicly-funded ed ucation. Applications for the next school year are being accepted until June 5, with the focus being on projects that highlight equity and inclusion, and support the engagement o f parents from Indigenous, racially- or eth- nically-diverse communities. "Every student should have the oppor tunity to succeed, regardless o f back ground, identity or personal circum stanc es. Embracing equity is key to the success o f our students, communities and our prov ince," said Naidoo-Harris.In the 2017-18 school year, the provincial government funded 2,789 parent-engagement projects, including 2,670 school council projects to talling $2.62 million and 119 regional/pro- vincial projects totalling $1.15 million.