THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2017
THE PICTON
Gazette
14
Volume 187, Week 35
Canada’s oldest non-daily newspaper
honours local hopefuls look country music greats LEGENDS Jamboree LOBBYING Pirates for roles with team
New attraction makes a splash at fairgrounds Youth enjoy refreshing play area as taps turned on Saturday
Principal talks about building inclusive school for incoming cohort of 100 elementary students
PECI ready to welcome its first Grade 7 and 8 classes Tuesday
CHAD IBBOTSON STAFF WRITER
Picton's new splash pad opened to an enthusiastic community response Saturday morning. For parents like Jason Fraser, the splash pad is a more than welcome enhancement to the community. “It's a wonderful addition to the park and it's going to be good for the kids and just in time for the fair,” he said. “It's probably a nineand-a-half out of 10 in my book.” A crowd had gathered almost immediately after the water was turned on, well in advance of the official opening ceremony. That crowd only increased in the lead up to the ribbon cutting and families continued using the facility into the evening hours. Fraser said there aren't a lot of family recreation options in the community aside from the local parks, but the splash pad helps to fill that need. “It's one of the better additions I've seen,” he said. Fraser said the splash pad represents a good option for families who might not be able to make it to one of the county's beaches. It also provides families with an alternative when the beaches fill up in the summer months, he said. “It's a great environment for any child that wants to come to the park and have fun,” he said. It's a project splash pad committee co-chair Susan Quaiff has been promoting since the early 2000s and one that saw a revival in 2014 with the formation of the
23
ADAM BRAMBURGER STAFF WRITER
STAYING COOL Even prior to the splash pad’s official opening on Saturday morning, it proved to be a hit with local kids. A crowd of close to 50 people and more than a dozen children attended. (Chad Ibbotson/Gazette staff)
committee. Quaiff said seeing kids taking advantage of the splash pad was worth all the time and effort that went into the project. “This is exactly what I want-
ed to see, there are so many kids out here and it's just so fabulous,” she said. The splash pad committee immediately identified Picton as
the preferred site. Quaiff reiterated that it can be difficult for families to get to the beach.
See SPLASH PAD, page 31
PECI opened its doors yesterday for two orientation sessions for new students — the customary meeting for incoming Grade 9s and another session for about 100 Grade 7 and 8 students. Following a late-June decision by the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, the county’s secondary school is set to welcome senior elementary students who had been attending Pinecrest Memorial and Queen Elizabeth schools Tuesday. The Bloomfield-area Pinecrest will not open this year, while Kindergarten to Grade 6 students will be housed at the Queen Elizabeth building in Picton. A day before the orientation, workers scurried about trying to finish renovation projects that will likely go down to the wire. Amid the chaos, principal Darren McFarlane said the school’s staff is ready to welcome the double cohort alongside its returning students. “We’re really excited about the opportunity of having the Grade 7-8s join us. Obviously, the accommodation process was a long, very emotionally filled process, but I think the reason it was so emotionally charged was that people care and people want the best for our kids and we want the best for our kids,” he said
DARREN MCFARLANE
Tuesday. “For us at PECI, we had conversations early on about how we were going to ensure our culture was as welcoming and inclusive as possible because we know that transition has always been so critical.” McFarlane said the discussions his staff had broke the issue down to several core factors for student success. He said if the elementary school students are in an environment where they feel safe, included, and welcome, they will have a successful transition. Creating a Grade 7-12 school model that satisfies that was not an easy task, given there’s nothing quite like it within the board but McFarlane said the educators tasked with the challenge have been open to ideas and have listened carefully to parents’ concerns and suggestions.
See SCHOOL, page 30
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