CITY 3
Welcoming city’s newest Canadians
ARTS 11
Sounds of summer on stage
SPORTS 28
6
National team visits
THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND FRIDAY JUNE 16, 2017
SEE PAGE 13
There’s more at Burnabynow.com
LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS
ROBOT DAD
Traction for Good coordinator Katie Golbey, right, joins Traction on Demand data architect David Rees (appearing remotely via an office robot) to welcome a group of kindergarten students from Forest Grove Elementary School Tuesday. Rees’ son was among the students, and Rees had arranged the tour of the Burnaby tech company, located on Production Way, as part of a unit on parents’ jobs. The 40 kids, whose school is just up the road from Traction on Demand, toured the office and took part in a miniprogramming session led by a couple of the company’s developers. PHOTO CORNELIA NAYLOR
CITY EDUCATION
District chided for terrorism decision Parent argues that decision for blocking trip to London based on headlines not actual potential risk
By Cornelia Naylor
cnaylor@burnabynow.com
A Burnaby parent took the school district to task this week for blocking a school trip to London, England because of concerns about terrorism. At a public meeting
Monday, Alpha Secondary School parent Stuart Ramsey presented trustees with a PowerPoint presentation that combined terrorism and traffic-death statistics to show students were actually less safe in Canada than London. “Compared to the thou-
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sands and thousands of people that die in traffic crashes, (the risk of terrorism) is so so miniscule, and so it seems to me a shame to deny those kids that incredible opportunity just because of headlines,” he told trustees. The one-week, theatre-
focused trip, planned for spring break next year, was to feature an impressive itinerary, Ramsey said, including three West End shows, theatre workshops and visits to the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben,Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, Cov-
ent Garden, the Globe Theatre and the town of Bath. “I think there was a lot of enthusiasm for the trip,” Ramsey told the NOW. In April, however, parents got an email telling them the trip could not go ahead. In conversations with Alpha principal Kevin Brandt
and district principal Brandon Curr, Ramsey said he was told the district had recently adopted a more cautious approach to international trips because of terrorism concerns. Principals were told to tell Continued on page 9
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