My perspective - How big is "small"?
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- Published on Thursday, March 16, 2017
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
The Neepawa Banner
There will be some changes in the classrooms and hallways of Manitoba schools this fall. On March 14, the provincial government announced that the previous government’s Smaller Classes Initiative (SCI) will be replaced with the new Early Years Education Initiative for the 2017-2018 school year. The SCI required 90 per cent of classes from Kindergarten to Grade 3 to have a maximum of 20 students. The new program won’t tie divisions to a specific class size, but will allow them to direct funding in ways they feel will best improve student outcomes in literacy and numeracy.
Right in the centre - Nobody should be surprised
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- Published on Thursday, March 16, 2017
By Ken Waddell
The Neepawa Banner
It is a bit amazing that some people are surprised and even angry that the Province of Manitoba is having to seriously look at ways of cutting expenses. The deficit is a billion dollars. In case anyone is unsure of what that is, it is 1,000 million dollars. Can one even imagine that? A 1,000 million is enough money to build 3,000 houses at $333,000 each. It’s enough to build modest sized city’s worth of homes. That’s lot of money and made even more serious because it is a deficit, a loss, and it’s happening every year.
Homebodies - Any man can be a father...
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- Published on Saturday, March 11, 2017
By Rita Friesen
The Neepawa Banner
Back in ‘97, my father was 74 years of age. He was already a widower, his Parkinson’s was progressing and he moved to an independent living suite in the care complex. Still a reader, still a quoter of poetry and still a deep thinker. For his birthday, I chose a simple five by eight print, matted and in a cherry wood frame. The scene is a simple one. A father trudging through the snow and carrying a bucket, followed by a young girl and her cat, are heading out to the little barn to feed the sheep – Cheviots and Shropshires. Soft tones and gentle edges, it is truly pastoral. The quote accompanying it – “Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad”. My dad looked at it closely and wondered if it was a photo of him and I doing the evening chores. It wasn’t/isn’t, but the memories the picture evoked for him were the same as mine. It could have been us.
Right in the centre - Go Natives go!
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- Published on Thursday, March 9, 2017
By Ken Waddell
The Neepawa Banner
The Neepawa Natives Junior A Hockey team has had a long history, 28 years of history. The past seven years have been a bit of a dry period, when you measure success by play-off games. The last time the Natives made the playoffs was in 2010. That was the year they came up against Dauphin, a year when that city was hosting the RBC cup and had bulked up big time with talent (at great financial cost) to be competitive at the national level. Neepawa lost that playoff series to Dauphin.
My perspective - Foreign advantage
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- Published on Thursday, March 9, 2017
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
The Neepawa Banner
It’s not a surprise that governments are slow to adapt to changing times. Bound by bureaucracies and protocols, they tend to be playing catch up, deciding how best to react to the choices already made by citizens. While overall, I don’t mind that our governments aren’t prone to rash decision making, the glacial pace can create deep inequities— something that has been brought into sharp focus.
