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September 12, 2013 | 56 pages
OttawaCommunityNews.com
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Contact me with your provincial concerns 1795 Kilborn Ave. 613.736.9573
Inside City rec FEATURE staff get surprise pay cuts See part two of a series on children, dyslexia and their schools. – Page 12
NEWS
New space opens at the Queensway Carleton Hospital. – Page 25
SPORTS
Row, row, row your way to a boatload of medals. – Page 52
Mayor won’t comment as hundreds of parttimers affected; Laura Mueller laura.mueller@metroland.com
News - Several hundred fitness instructors have seen their pay cut by the city. The city is trying to set lower pay levels for instructors who teach classes like yoga and aquafit and for the first time the city also struck a committee to reclassify speciality classes like zumba into regular fitness classes that pay less to teachers, according to a city fitness instructor. “There’s a lot of anger,” said the employee, who asked that her name be withheld in case speaking out affected her employment with the city. “It’s really affecting people’s lives. “A lot of (the instructors) do it as their job, so when they’re taking a pay cut, whether it’s $3 to $5, $6 a class, when you’re teaching 20, 30 or 35 classes a week, at the end of the week, that’s someone’s hydro bill or someone’s grocery bill,” she said. “For those who are doing it as a living, it is definitely hurting them with their budget.” But the woman, who now spends most of her time working at a private facility, said she understands what the See MAYOR, page 10
SABINE GIBBINS/METROLAND
Emerson Uchman beams as she stands by the Steve MacLean Public School sign on Sept. 5. Emerson is one of many Ottawa youngsters who are attending junior kindergarten for the first time.
Back to school for students, teachers Sabine Gibbins sabine.gibbins@metroland.com
EMC News – School is back in session, and so is full-day kindergarten in five public schools in south Ottawa. Alta Vista, Farley Mowat, Roberta Bondar and Vincent Massey public schools and Sawmill Creek Elementary School are introducing full-day kindergarten programs in their schools starting this year, said Hyacinth Haddad, a spokeswoman
for the Ottawa public school board. Emerson Uchman will be setting foot in a junior kindergarten classroom for the first time this fall at Stephen MacLean Public. Her brother, Finn, entered senior kindergarten at the same school, which is only a few minutes walk from the Uchman family home in Riverside South. Proud parents Darren and Tatum Uchman took Emerson to meet her teacher, Melisa McGruther, on Sept. 5.
Strapped in her pink knapsack, which held markers, glue sticks, and crayons, Emerson clutched both of her parents’ hands before dashing up to the gate to the school. When asked what she is looking forward to most about the school year, Emerson simply replied, “playing”, before swiftly agreeing with her mom that learning was another exciting part of the process. See FULL, page 2
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