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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
Cast an educated vote Saturday
Remember that Saturday is byelection day — cast an informed vote for trustee seats in Ward 1 of Winnipeg School Division, and Ward 2 of Louis Riel School Division, as well as the city council seat in St. Vital.
Look elsewhere on our website’s home page for the link to oodles of byelection information.
I haven’t been getting much mail this week about the races. I was in LRSD Tuesday for the excellent student forum on human sexual diversity, and saw a lot of election signs along St. Mary’s Road.
No more robocalls to my home, or any literature, for that matter, in WSD Ward 1. I’m certainly not home all that much in the evening, but I haven’t been there for a single campaigning candidate. Maybe our house is marked "pariah" on the candidates’ lists.
There was a candidates’ forum for WSD Ward 1 at Churchill high School this past week, and you can watch it below or click here.
Speaking of byelections, Janet Brady won a seat on Mystery Lake school board in Thompson, replacing veteran Valerie Wilson, who moved out of the community.
There’s been quite the turnover on the Mystery Lake board in the past 13 or so months, since just before the general election in October of 2010. It’s been seven or eight months now since anyone left or was removed from a senior administrative job up in Thompson, surely just a coincidence.
Moving on....
I thought I’d been alerted to a huge story at U of M business school when I saw an email earlier this week. It announced an enormous demonstration to protest the MBA lockout.
I opened it up, turned out to be sports fans in New York City protesting the labour squabbles delaying the start of the National Basketball Association season. It starts with an N, protesters, not an M.
Sigh.
Heads up, those handful of anonymous commenters in Louis Riel School Division who don’t like superintendent Terry Borys and who accuse me of being his lap dog. Borys has announced his intention to retire from the job next year on Dec. 31, 2012, after 35 years in education. He’s only 55, and will be moving on to other things.
And now for something completely different.....
It’s always great for the old ego when a teacher uses my blog material in class. Here’s an email from teacher CK, who doesn’t say at which school he works:
"Nick’s poor writing abilities spill into his hard news coverage as well. I’m an educator and Mr. Martin sets a very poor standard for writing. His pieces often contain sentence fragments, irregular syntax and grammatical errors... the grand irony is that the Free Press has such a technically poor writer covering education. I know the english department of my school regularly has a chuckle at Mr. Martin’s poorly constructed blatherings."
Grammatical errors? Did I end a sentence a preposition with? I guess that when I put a capital E on "english," that’s obviously a mistake. And irregular syntax, what so wrong with that would be?
As for blogs, like, you know, stream of consciousness, eh, and as for sentence fragments.
More Telling Tales Out of School
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More Telling Tales Out of School
(1 of 6 articles for this month)
MTS horrifies Montana educator
05/17/2013 4:00 PM 0One Montana educator is horrified by the prospect of Manitoba’s potentially reflecting sexual orientation and gender identity issues in school ...
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About Nick Martin
Nick Martin is the old bearded guy at the back of the newsroom, the most experienced reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press, having started his career in Ontario in 1971.
He’s been covering education for the Free Press since the spring of 1997, after decades primarily covering municipal politics, including a four-year stint at the Ontario legislature for the London Free Press.
Nick moved to Manitoba in 1988 with his Winnipeg-born wife, who is a professor at the University of Manitoba. They have two kids, both of whom graduated from Grant Park High School: son Chris and daughter Gillian.
Nick has won a national journalism award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, two Manitoba Human Rights Journalism awards, and the Ontario Reporters Association investigative award.
Nick is a long-distance runner, having finished and survived 18 marathons and 15 half-marathons and 30-kilometre races, and having (barely) survived 10 years as an outdoor and indoor soccer coach.
Nick became a soccer referee in 2007, delighting in his 60s in outrunning 16-year-olds and keeping his distance from obstreperous coaches and parents.
Nick and his wife have discovered a mutual love for kayaking at their Whiteshell cottage, and are both regulars at the Reh-Fit Centre. They hold season tickets to both the Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Warehouse, and as empty nesters, have rediscovered the joys of an active winter vacation.
A native of Jarrow-on-Tyne, England, Nick is a member of the Toon Army as a Newcastle United supporter, and a proud citizen of Leafs Nation.
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