Estevan Takes A Stand Against Bullying ⇢A3
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Wed., April 16, 2014
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Sector plan a huge step forward
SaskPower signs BD3 agreement
SaskPower may have abandoned the thought of establishing a new and firm target date for the start-up of the carbon dioxide capture, sequestration and distribution system at Boundary Dam’s Unit 3, but they have released news regarding the signing of an agreement to exchange carbon capture knowledge with a Swedishbased power company. SaskPower officials are not saying when BD3 will begin capturing the CO2 at the Unit 3 110-120 megawatt generator. The company failed to meet their original April 1 deadline for startup of the $1.3 billion project, saying at the time they expected to have the system on stream by mid-summer. Now they are saying BD3 will be underway by the end of this year. In the meantime, Vattenfall, the Swedish power company with significant operations in Germany, has signed an agreement with SaskPower on carbon capture and knowledge. The signing of the memorandum of understanding took place in Berlin. → A2 Swedish
By Norm Park normpark@estevanmercury.ca
Easter Selfie
The members of the ECS Entrepreneurial Class were among the many exhibitors Saturday at the Estevan Shoppers Mall. The ECS group were joined by the Easter bunny, who posed for pictures with a number of people, including this man who stopped by to get a selfie with the bunny. Photo by Chad Saxon.
Mercury named best overall paper
It was a banner night for the Estevan Mercury and its staff as the Saskatchewan Weekly Newspapers Association announced the winners of its 2014 Better Newspapers Competition Saturday in Saskatoon. T h e M e rc u r y w a s named the best overall paper in Class C, which includes newspapers with a circulation of 2,000 to 3,900, and was also deemed by judges to have the second best front page and editorial page. In the comments from the judges, the Mercury was praised for its strong design and “plethora of community news and features that informs its readers of what is happening in their community.
Issue 49
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY FOR 111 YEARS
Mermaids Dominate
The Estevan Mercury was awarded the Best Overall Newspaper in its category at the SWNA awards “It has a good mix of hard and feature stories supported by effective advertising. The Mercury’s sports section is strong and the use of action photos draws attention to these pages.” With respect to the editorial page, the judges were
impressed with The Mercury’s layout and focus on issues of local importance. The front page was docked points for being a bit busy, but was credited for strong headlines. Individually, Mercury employees were also rec-
ognized. Trinda Jocelyn captured first place for best advertisement for an ad featuring Trimount Development’s Northpoint condo project, which judges noted had a great visual design. Mercury co-editors Norm Park and Chad Saxon were the co-winners of the Editorial Writing Excellence Award. The judges appreciated the “hyper-local” ediorials on matters such as the ongoing recovery struggles in Roche Percee and the efforts to twin Highway 39. Mercury reporter Jordan Baker was also recognized with a second place finish for the best Saskatchewan Recreational Story Award for his story on a local fitness group.
The provincial education sector strategic plan (ESSP) is now out there for the educators, administrators and general public to digest fully. Education Minister Don Morgan in concert with Saskatchewan School Boards Association president Janet Foord of Estevan, who serves on the South East Cornerstone Public School Division board, announced the historic ESSP plan during the SSBA’s spring assembly. The ESSP is the first province-wide plan to be developed in co-operation with all education sector partners, approved by the 28 school boards and accepted by the Government of Saskatchewan. One controversial item that didn’t find its way into the final draft was standardized testing for provincial students. Cornerstone’s director of education Marc Casavant said standardized testing “needs a purpose before it can gain favour. Without it, assessments can be more focused at the classroom levels. I believe the words we heard quite often around the table were something to the effect that standardized testing brought out a toxic culture. But in education, this is a cyclical topic, so it might come back again some day. But it’s gone for the time being.” Casavant was one of the province’s 28 directors who provided input into the final draft that puts an emphasis on two target areas. The first is reading and comprehension, which will be led by Chinook Public School Division director Liam Choo-Foo who has spearheaded advancements in reading programs in that division over the past few years. “We can measure results, which we’ve been doing in Cornerstone for several years now, and now, in collaboration with this sharing among school divisions, we can see where some are doing better than others and why and how they are doing it,” said Casavant. Foord, in a telephone interview shortly after the document was released, said it contains some longer-range plans as well and from a governance standpoint, the SSBA was pleased to see a consolidated plan that was conceived from the grassroots up, rather than using the more traditional top-down model. “School boards will get to address local priorities, and that means getting back to best practises,” Foord added. The second major prong in the strategic plan is to improve First Nations and Metis learning outcomes. Casavant said the working groups had less time to work on this particular mandated priority, so it required some fleshing out, but the objective was clear. “The big part will be First Nations buy-in,” he said. Asked if the current situation of under funding K-12 First Nations education programs by federal sources is worrisome, Casavant said the time for waiting is over. “If we wait for federal full-impact funds, that could be awhile, and we need to get walking on this now,” Casavant added. “It’s the same premise cited for the reading program. If someone can show us how they’re getting more First Nations people graduating, then let’s get at it.” Going beyond the 2014-15 mandate, Casavant said the directors will begin collaborative meetings again this fall with the expectations of more input from educators, governors, politicians, school community councils and students. They will all get involved again with perhaps the new targets being in improving writing and mathematic skills, although those are not givens. Morgan said he was excited to have the education ministry moving forward “on a unified → A2 Standardized
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Ford Sales Ltd.
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