12/2/2016 Sherbrooke Record e-Edition - Sherbrooke Record ... · (HTTP://) Quebec unveils $20M for literacy education CAROLINE PLANTE QUEBEC Many English-speaking Quebecers are illiterate

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12/5/2016 Editorial: Causes for concern at English school boards | Montreal Gazette

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Editorial: Causes for concern at Englishschool boards

Quebec’s anti-‐corruption squad has been called in to Montreal’stwo English-‐language school boards and a provincial auditorwill scrutinize alleged irregularities.



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Sam Allison · London School of Economics and Social ScienceSadly, financial mismanagement is only the tip of the iceberg. The schools have failed dismally to manage, let aloneprevent, the decline of the English sector. Until recently, Engish school boards refused to recognize that our numbers weredeclining rapidly and failed totally to plan for that situation. Why on earth is a public system bringing in foreign students formoney? The Quebec Government takes a cut of this money, yet forbids Canadian citizens from attending English schoolswithout the correct bloodlines as laid out under Bill 101. We need a total revamping of the system, especially the seond ratecurriculum imposed by the Ministry. We need boards to advocate that all Federal funding given to Quebec for Englisheducation be directed towards English schools not to other projects determined by the Ministry. The English community hasnobody in its corner fighting for its survival let alone its improvement.

Like · Reply · 1 · Dec 3, 2016 6:16am

Luc Horne

In terms of the LBPSB, how can the public have trust in the chairman, Suanne Day Stein, when she kept her identity as theguilty commissioner secret and made all the other commissioners the "fall" guys? Her failure to disclose, early on, that shewas the guilty individual, speaks volumes of her character, personal code of ethics and ways.

This is unacceptable for a leader of a school board or any leader, period. She must go for the welfare of the LBPSB and thelarger community it serves.Like · Reply · Dec 3, 2016 9:33am · Edited

Eric Elder

holy crappers this is it!

Like · Reply · 1 · Dec 2, 2016 3:17pm

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Quebec unveils $20M for literacy education CAROLINE PLANTE

QUEBEC Many English-speaking Quebecers are illiterate to the point of notbeing able to get their driver's licence or help their children with homework That Quebec is invest-ing an additional $20 million a year in literacy programs is great news, according to Margo Legault, execu-tive director at Literacy Quebec.

The not-for-profit organization counts 13 centres across Quebec dedicated to helping Anglo-Que-becers improve their literacy skills.

"A lot of people when they think of literacy think `Oh it's not an issue in Quebec because everyone has to go to school and they can read and write," Legault said. `But there are levels of literacythat affect your dai-lylife; you can't m anage your health if you can't understand how to take your prescription. If you can't bal-ance a budget, that can also affect your financial situation and stress levels. Also your civic participa tion — alot of people are afraid to go vote because they don't understand how ... to fill out a ba llot."

Legault said her organization's budgets haven't been indexed in "many, many years," and, as result, literacy centres have had to down-size and cut staff.

"We have staff that hasn't had a pay increase in years, I'm talking 10 to 15 years," she said.

Speaking at the educational suc-cess consultations that took place Friday in Quebec City, Education

Minister Sébastien Proulx said he's boosting literacy groups' annual funding to $27.3 million a year, up from $18.3 million, with part of the additional $20 million investment. The extra money will also include $4 million to be divided up among school boards for literacy pro-grams, $1.3 million to companies to provide employees with literacy training, $200,000 to Quebec's Lit-eracy Foundation, and funds to set up a new help line for parents.

Legault said she's anxious to see how much will go to English groups. "We're 13 groups out of 183 and we coververylargeterritories, andwhen you look at the amount of funding that's received for each group, we're on the lower end of the spectrum"

PQ education critic Alexandre Cloutier called the investment "a step in the right direction," but ar-gued the minister is putting back money the Liberals cut at the start of their mandate.

"We have to remember that it's the same government that cut these organizations," Cloutier said, adding he expects the government to also loosen its purse strings to help students with special needs.

More contentious proposals that have been kicking around the Liber-al party, such as mandatory school-ingunti118, a professional order for teachers and kindergarten for four-year-olds, are still being reviewed. [email protected] twitter.com/cplantegazette

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The Gazette, 3 décembre 2016, page A7



12/8/2016 Sherbrooke Record e-Edition - Schoolcraft and Tremblay named Piper Athletes of the Month - 7 Dec 2016 - Page #7


12/7/2016 [ Réseau Info Éducation AMEQ en ligne ]

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Résultats PISA - Les élèves du Québec sont parmi lesmeilleurs au monde

Le mercredi 7 décembre 2016

Les résultats obtenus en 2015 par les élèves du Québec dans le cadre du Programme international desuivi des acquis des élèves (PISA) démontrent que ceux-ci performent très bien en sciences, enmathématiques et en lecture.

« Je suis heureux de constater que les efforts déjà consentis pour améliorer notre système éducatifpermettent d'obtenir des résultats supérieurs aux moyennes des provinces canadiennes et des paysmembres de l'Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE). Comme rienn'est jamais acquis, nous allons poursuivre ce travail avec énergie et conviction, notamment auprèsdes élèves les plus vulnérables » a fait savoir le ministre de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport etministre de la Famille, M. Sébastien Proulx.

Le PISA est une évaluation internationale faite par l'OCDE). Il mesure la culture scientifique, lacompréhension de l'écrit et la culture mathématique chez les jeunes de 15 ans suivant un cycle de troisans, depuis 2000. Les dix provinces canadiennes, sous la coordination du Conseil des ministres del'Éducation (Canada), ont participé à cette sixième enquête PISA. Au total, soixante-douze pays etéconomies y ont pris part.

En plus de permettre au Québec d'occuper une position enviable parmi les provinces canadiennes etles pays membres de l'OCDE, les résultats des élèves du Québec présentent un excellent niveaud'équité, c'est-à-dire, un faible écart entre le résultat moyen des élèves les plus performants(90e percentile) et ceux des moins performants (10e percentile), notamment en sciences.

Les résultats à l'enquête PISA 2015 sont semblables à ceux obtenus en 2006, 2009 et 2012, ce quisuggère qu'ils demeurent fiables. Le Québec a procédé à des analyses de non-biais en raison du faibletaux de participation des élèves aux enquêtes PISA 2006 et 2012. Chaque fois, ces analyses se sontrévélées concluantes.

Rappelons que l'exercice d'évaluation international des compétences PISA mesure la culturescientifique, la compréhension de l'écrit et la culture mathématique chez les jeunes de 15 ans. Ils'avère un outil très important pour la gouvernance du système éducatif du Québec.

Le rapport de l'OCDE est accessible à partir du site Web de celui-ci au www.oecd.org/pisa/.

Pour plus d'information:

Organisation: Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du SportAdresse: 1035, rue De La Chevrotière, 28e étageQuébec, QuébecCanada, G1R 5A5www.mels.gouv.qc.ca

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12/8/2016 Sherbrooke Record e-Edition - Sherbrooke Record - 8 Dec 2016 - Active shooter video reflects new realities in Education


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Active shooter video reflects new realities inEducationVideo—not text—chosen to guide students and teachers to safety in crisis

In a very telling public safety video released last week mainly for students and teachers, the Sherbrooke police force illustrates two major

changes on campuses across North America.

The first is that schools cannot be considered safe havens of growing and learning the way we liked to think of them. Deranged individuals

with weapons—or “active shooters” as they’re now known in policing—target schools at least as much as other locations.

The Sherbrooke police video is a positive response;; and, happily, it has an English version and is the result of cooperation among all the

region’s public school boards, private schools association, cegeps, and universities—the French and English, public and private systems working

together.

I first learned about it through an interview on CBC Radio’s Quebec AM with the Sherbrooke police lieutenant who appears in the video,

Patrick Roy. He reported that the video can be seen on the Université de Sherbrooke and Bishop’s University’s Web sites, but I found it only

through the French-language University.

The three-minute, fifty-second video reduces a complicated but crucial message down to three key instructional words: “run,” “hide,” or

“fight”—the latter being a rare but helpful recommendation from police in our new world order. Writing is passé The use of video, the spoken

word, and only a few written words in that initiative reflects the other major change in education and society today: the reduced importance of

written texts in communications.

Beyond the spoken word, our new common language is video. Facebook is full of them, and if anything on the Internet goes viral it’s far

more likely to be a video than text. Ever seen a poem, short story, essay, or even news article go viral?

Even email is passé for younger generations, and the written word gets far less respect than it should. Text messages of five words sent on

cell phones often have at least five typos in them, and if you write emails of longer than five sentences you’ve probably noticed that your

recipients often don’t read the entire message.

What are teachers to do in this new world, when Education is still based largely on the written word? Adapt, as they always have.

English class is therefore taking on more movies to compensate for the problem of getting young people to read. Different forms of

communication are necessarily being accepted for study.

The written word is, after all, just another technology in the development of communications among humans. In today’s age of instant

messaging, video cameras in everyone’s pocket, and pictures being worth a thousand words, written texts have become less efficient.

While it may take Education establishments a while to adapt official programs and courses, teachers are confronted with the change as it

happens. The students in today’s classrooms, from the elementary to university levels, have shorter interest spans, read fewer books,

magazines, and newspapers, and are communicating with the world through their cell phones and computers as teachers lecture—and,

sometimes, at night as they’re supposed to be sleeping, which also affects a teacher’s work.

It may not yet be time to change the name of “English” class or “French” class, but teachers and curriculum designers must continue to

adapt to the reality that communicating with one another and understanding those communications, like artistic expression, comes in different

forms, and new ones are replacing the old.

If literacy is a matter of being able to read and write, it is no longer an adequate measure of a society’s ability to communicate.

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Article rank 8 Dec 2016 Sherbrooke Record By Scott Stevenson

12/8/2016 Sherbrooke Record e-Edition - Sherbrooke Record - 8 Dec 2016 - Galt Drama raises the curtain on Christmas Chaos



Galt Drama raises the curtain on Christmas ChaosAfter having been revived as a tradition last year, the Alexander Galt Christmas play opens tonight for a three night run of holiday fun. This

year the student cast and crew will be presenting a production of Michael Wehrli’s play “A Christmas Chaos,” a comedy of errors set during a

production of the Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol”

The cast and crew of "A Christmas Chaos," Galt Drama's 2016 Christmas play. The play runs Thursday through Saturday night at

the Alexander Galt High School auditorium, starting at at 7:30 pm.

“It’s a play within a play” explained director Olivia Louise Grenier. “It’s the story of this production team that doesn’t really know how to put

on a play and haven’t really done it before. They really greatly overestimate their ability to do this.”

According to an author’s note provided by Heuer Publishing, the play’s publishing company, the story is loosely based on the backstage

antics of a realworld theatre company in Texas. For Grenier, however, the appeal was in the humerous twist on a classic tale.

“I originally wanted to do a Christmas carol, but it’s been done before,” the teacher said. “We have a group of students this year that is really

comedic, they’re very unique, so I wanted to give them a show that was really their own.”

Grenier described the show as a fastpaced, family-friendly comedy and said that she is greatly looking forward to the opening performance.

She praised the commitment of the 35 members of the cast and crew who have shown great dedication to the production through three months

of rehearsing four nights a week as well as sometimes on weekends.

“Everyone here works so much as a team,” the director said. “They’re all willing to help and they’re here because they care.”

William Roy, who has been involved with Galt drama productions for the last six years, echoed his director’s words about commitment.

“The better the team the better the production,” Roy said. “It doesn’t matter how good the script is or how good the acting is, even. If you’re

able to function well together, it goes so much more smoothly.”

Roy is a chorus member in this year’s play, taking on a number of background roles, but he has played a wide variety of roles over the

years.

“I feel like everyone should experience that,” the actor said, underlining the fact that trying on different roles gives a broader sense of what

it means to be an actor.

On the other end of the acting spectrum, Noah Bishop is acting in a Galt play for the first time this year and has been cast as the show’s

lead.

“People expect a lot, but everyone is helping me out,” Bishop said, explaining that while he has had an interest in the plays for a few years it

is only now, in his final year, that he was ready to try out. “it was now or never,”

The lead actor said that so far he has found the experience to be stressful but also fun and very positive. Though he had a lot of lines to

learn, Bishop said that the practices have been a great way to get to know new people

“It’s a big emotional ride,” he said. “I’m nervous but also very excited.”

According to Grenier, part of the purpose behind reviving the Christmas play is that it will become the heart of a new performing arts

concentration at the school that will be launching next year. Students enrolled in the program will engage in more dance, music, and drama

class time with the idea of producing musical theatre in the holiday season.

“It’s a completely new program,” the teacher said. “There’s a lot of work that’s gone into it over the last three years, and it’s going to be

really worth it.”

“A Christmas Chaos” will run at the Galt auditorium starting at 7:30 pm on December 8, 9, and 10. Admission is $9 and tickets can be

reserved in advance by calling Christina Rouseau at 819-5630770 extension 22056.



Article rank 8 Dec 2016 Sherbrooke Record By Gordon Lambie

GORDON LAMBIE







12/9/2016 Sherbrooke Record e-Edition - Sherbrooke Record - 9 Dec 2016 - Fall flies by in a flurry of activities at Sawyerville Elementary



Fall flies by in a flurry of activities at SawyervilleElementary

The Kindergarten to grade 6 students from Sawyerville Elementary ended October with a flurry of activities. On October 28th they took a

field trip to the Joseph Armand Bombardier Museum of Ingenuity in Valcourt. They enjoyed the interactive exhibits and came away from the

museum with a better idea of some practical application of scientific and engineering concepts. They also got to try their hand at designing a

space station on Mars, with some very interesting outcomes!

Students making Holiday decorations

On Monday October 31st “Halloween was celebrated by decorating pumpkins, parading in costume and dancing to some Beach Boys era

music in the gym. We also held the annual limbo competition and last years undefeated champion (who shall remain nameless) was defeated by

his sister (who shall also remain nameless)!

In November our focus turned to Remembrance Day with Mrs. Coleman’s Cycle Two and Three Art Classes having made a 3D pop up picture

representing the poem in Flanders field. Mrs. Bailey’s cycle One and Mr. Lowd’s Cycle Two class both wrote acrostic poems.

Cycle One

Remember Everyone Made Peace Even Me Because Remembering is About Niceness and Celebrating Every day!

Cycle Two

Remember the soldiers Emergencies everywhere Muddy battlefields Each and everyone who fought Medals were earned Bloody men on the

ground Red poppies grow Army members died Nurses were at war Caring for the suffering Ending war at last

Jack Garneau and George Standish came in to speak to the students about Remembrance Day and what it was like growing up during WW 2

as well their experience in the Reserve Army. On November 11th all the students from Kindergarten to grade 6 walked to the Cenotaph and lead

in the singing of O Canada and placed crosses representing the men of Sawyerville who died during both World wars.

On a lighter note on November 17th, Danielle Tremblay, Illustrator of the series “Ben entreprend” visited the Cycle One and Two students in

Madame Maryse’s French class. She gave tips to the students on how to draw. She also talked to them about persevering to reach their goals

and how important it is to stay in school. The students came out of the session enthusiastic about illustrating their own writing.

November 30th was an exciting day. We celebrated being respectful and got together in our mixed grade level teams to start making

Christmas decorations to put up in the gym for our school play “A Christmas Wizard of Oz”. The play will be held on Tuesday December 20th at

10:30 a.m. and at 7:00 p.m. All are welcome!



Article rank 9 Dec 2016 Sherbrooke Record By Cycle one By Lexis Coleman

12/2/2016 Sherbrooke Record e-Edition - Sherbrooke Record ... · (HTTP://) Quebec unveils $20M for literacy education CAROLINE PLANTE QUEBEC Many English-speaking Quebecers are illiterate

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