Lying on ROE is EI Fraud

SD#23 Trustee Chair Rolli Cacchioni needs to listen to himself.

Cacchioni recently complained loud, long and hard on radio and TV about the Minister of Education informing him on a Friday afternoon with no warning that the annual Facility Grant Program would be cut.  Full Story

Yet Cacchioni has not protested the wrongful dismissal of Custodian Fisher without warning late on a Friday afternoon before Fisher according to SD#23 would have reached regular employee status with benefits...one day before.. to cheat Fisher out of wages, a pension and health benefits after 2 years of employment and working 196 days of probation when only 65 days were required. Cacchioni appears to be nothing but a big hypocrite using two sets of rules and setting a very poor example for young students.

Mr. Cacchioni needs to resolve the wrongful dismissal of Custodian Fisher when SD#23 Lied on a Record of Employment (ROE), staged a Fraudulent Layoff and committed Employment Insurance Fraud which SD#23 used to set up the wrongful dismissal of Custodian Fisher.

SD#23 needs to treat Mr. Fisher with respect and to compensate him. Mr. Cacchioni has Mr. Fisher's telephone number, home address and email address. Cacchioni needs to do the honourable thing...contact Mr.Fisher...make an appointment..meet with him and settle this matter once and for all.

SD#23 has waited much too long. You are hurting parents, students and the community. Until then Mr. Cacchioni and Trustees will continue to be seen as hypocrites. .
SD23's Meaningless Culture Values   Hypocrites  List of Trustees

Update: In a letter dated Mar 31/11 Trustee Rolli Cacchioni said that this issue has been dealt with fully & completely & the file has been closed.
Yet when asked previously for copies of it's investigation, SD#23 replied that there was no investigation information in it's files. 
Once again SD#23 is disingenuous & refuses to accept responsibility for EI Fraud, staging a Fake Layoff & Lying on a ROE to set up the wrongful dismissal of Custodian Fisher.
Shame of School District #23 Administrators who have shown a lack of concern for Mr. Fisher, parents, students & the Community.
Read SD23's Meaningless Culture Values

$6.5 to $16.25 Million Lost

An Open Letter to:
Hugh Gloster Superintendent of School District 23
& SD23 Board of Trustees

It has been 11 Years since SD23 Kelowna used Lies, EI Fraud, a Fraudulent ROE and a staged Fake Layoff to Wrongfully Dismiss Custodian Fisher.
During that time between 1000 - 2500 students have not enrolled in SD23 because of the bad publicity surrounding SD23's hypocrisy and mishandling of the Wrongful Dismissal of Mr. Fisher.
Parents read through the evidence presented and chose not to place their children in harms way. Teachers have shied away from SD23.
Mr. Fisher has asked SD23 many times to treat him fairly and with respect. SD23 has stubbornly continued it's cover up and refusal to abide by it's meaningless Culture Values (next).
Kelowna SD23's hypocrisy has cost it between $6.5 - $16.25 million in lost student transfer payment money from the provincial government. SD23 laments about reduced student enrollment while it continues to shoot itself in the foot.
A cloud hangs over SD23 around the world and rightfully so as it has engineered it own tarnished reputation.
SD23 is urged to contact Mr. Fisher immediately to bring this matter to an amicable conclusion and start to repair the damage SD23 has inflicted upon itself.

1000 - 2500 less students enrolled in SD23
$6.5 - $16.25 million in Iost transfer payments

SD23 earns a tarnished reputation worldwide

To read more Click on Hypocrites...Home Schooling link

Meaningless Culture Values

SD23 Meaningless Cultural Values

(taken from SD23 web site)

Honesty
It is the building block for relationships and the basis for trust.
It is the absence of falsehood and the action of full disclosure.
It is the ultimate test of moral strength.
It is when honesty is present, integrity will also be apparent.
Responsibility
It is being accountable for our actions and their consequences.
It is demonstrating responsibility.
It is doing our best to meet the expectations of ourselves and others.
Respect
It is "to consider worthy of high regard".
It is an attitude of honouring people and caring about their rights.
Empathy
It is a feeling of concern, compassion and understanding of an other's situation or feelings.
It is recognizing individual situations and differences,
It is fairness ensuring impartiality where everyone plays by the same rules.

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When people come upon the above proclamation they nearly throw up.

SD23's dishonesty, fraud, malfeasance, falsehoods, disrespect, irresponsibility, dishonor, partiality, lack of accountability, lack of morals, lack of full disclosure, lack of compassion, lack of understanding, lack of consequences and lack of fairness while wrongfully dismissing Custodian Fisher were the total opposite of it's stated (meaningless) Culture Values.

SD23 administrators are a group of Hypocrites.

SD23 administrators set a very poor example for students.

Home Schooling link

Fears FSA Test Results

Parents & Students read the excuses put forth by SD23 Administrators, Teachers & Unions for wanting to hide the FSA rankings. The public has the right to have access to the results of the FSA (Foundation Skills Assessment).

In a 2008 poll, 83% of parents support the right to see FSA test results.

Click on article to enlarge

School District #23 schools ranked a poor #196 to #852 out of 990. No wonder Superintendent Roberts and School District #23 teachers don't want the FSA school rankings published for parents to see.

Click on article to enlarge

Click on List to enlarge

Check out test results and school ranking

Home Schooling link

CLick here for a list of Private Schools in the Kelowna Area

Administrators Hypocrites

While SD #23 Administrators teach students to recycle & to take care of our environment the administrators don't practice what they preach to the students. The SD #23 Administrators come across as a bunch of HYPOCRITES...setting a very poor example for students & our community. Home Schooling Link
Of course Superintendent Roberts who admires past Superintendent Rubadeau is simply following in Rubadeau's footsteps of hypocrisy & double standards. Click on... Rubadeau's Hypocrisy
Click to read about... Concerns with Mike Roberts as SuperintendentClick to read more...Roberts Not Capable
Click to read more about SD23 lack of Recycling

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Rubadeau's Programs Fail

Click on...
Latest Rubadeau Multi Million Dollar Program Fails

Rubadeau's Bad Decision Students Suffer Costs Double

Parents Step In To Salvage Rubadeau's Blunder

Rubadeau a Big Hypocrite for a Long Time

Rubadeau's Busing Ridership Fiasco
Send a Protest Message to SD23 & Board of Trustees

Faces Declining Enrollment

Click on Article to Enlarge

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Facing declining enrolment, School District 23 has taken the unprecedented step of trying to lure private school students into the public system. Advertisements promoting the public system ran earlier this month in a local newspaper.
One ad was headlined, “Want to return to public education?”while the second said “Why choose public education?”

.....Click on Ads to Enlarge

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School board chairwoman Moyra Baxter said the first ad was to alert the parents of private schools that they needed to register by March 14 in the public system if their kids were to get the programs they wanted. “The main reason they were placed is that if parents are thinking of coming to our system (from a private school) ’please register now so that we can make sure we have a space for you,‘”

Both ads, however, are promotional. They tout the district‘s “top provincial results,” Click on Low Rates quality of instruction, French immersion, free career training opportunities and also tell private school parents how to make the switch.

*
Baxter said it‘s the first time the district has done such selling. We talk a lot about the fact that we have a lot of very unique programs in this district,” she said. “A lot of our programs are not available in the private system. “We see advertisements all the time from the private system

” She said a school board public relations committee was struck several years ago that came to the conclusion that “we were not promoting public education and talking about the positive things that are happening.” *

Baxter said enrolment is declining everywhere, including private schools. “We‘ve lost a couple of hundred students, but there are districts that have lost thousands,” she said. Just which school districts have lost thousands of students? She defended the cost of the ads by saying the more students that are in the district, the more programs that can be offered because every student brings with them provincial funding.
* Mike Guzzi, speaking for Vedanta Academy, said private school enrolment is doing well. “Private schools in general have not been declining,” he said. “Our only problem is size constraints. We don‘t have any room. We‘re full.” Vedanta has 160 students in Grades 2-12. Tuition averages about $3,000 a year. About eight per cent of the students in the Central Okanagan attend private schools.
* Baxter said the issue of placing the ads never came to a board vote and was undertaken by staff.
* The ads tout SD23 top provincial results Click on Low Rates
The ads are an effort to ensure that there is space for students who may make the switch...yah! right !
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Let's see..Kelowna is one of the fastest growing areas in the province..so enrollment in SD23 schools should be up by hundreds & hundreds. Baxter maintains that SD23 's enrollment is only down a couple hundred.
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Really, SD23 enrollment is probably down by far more than a couple hundred. New private schools have been constructed & additions have been made to others to accommodate increased enrollment, while Baxter claims enrollment at private schools has declined.
* Mike Guzzi contradicts Baxter on enrollment saying that private school enrollment has not been declining!
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The closing of many schools & herding too many students into mega schools has turned Parents off to SD23. Click on Bad Decisions
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Parents conclude that:
SD23 may not be a fit place for their children.
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Baxter & SD23's Board of Trustees appear out of touch & a group of hypocrites. Click on Hypocrites
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The community lost trust & faith in SD23 several years ago under Superintendent Rubadeau Click on Rubadeau's Legacy & Baxter has yet to acknowledge it in order to repair the damage.
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Certainly Baxter's reasons for placing the ads confirms why parents lost trust & faith in School District 23.
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Public schools take a non-religious view, so many Christians send their children to private Christian Schools.
. Click on Article to Enlarge

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The external review lavishing praise on SD23 for the quality of its programs was most likely not carried out by an independent group outside the education system & therefore suspicious. Click on Low Rates Ex- superintendent Rubadeau is going around doing reviews of other districts. Click on Rubadeau's Legacy

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Baxter is living in a bubble if she thinks that families move away just because of the cost of living. SD23's recent past disrespect of parents while closing schools & herding students into overcrowded mega schools & web sites depicting SD23's mistreatment of Custodian Fisher have more to do with reduced SD23 enrollment than Baxter will admit. Click on Dismissal SD23 reduced 12 high schools to just five, created six middle schools and whittled the elementary system to 29 neighbourhood schools.

Click on Bad Decisions Click on List of Private Schools
The company that SD23 set up to recruit overseas students has lost $150,000 to date & more loses are to come. Click on Big Loss

Baxter is trying to sell the community a phony bill of goods.

Home School Your Child

Big $$ Deficit Foreign Students

Click on article to enlarge

Looks as if the foreign student recruitment

company will come to an end. And just what

happens to the previous $149,047 loss?

The Trustees need to inform us.

Click on List of Private Schools

Home Schooling Link

Trustees 13.5% Pay Hike High

Click on article to enlarge

Click on List of Private Schools

Students Rally Against Computers

Grade 7-8 students at Glenrosa Middle School are staging a mini-protest against laptop computers, but their arguments have a few holes, says the vice-principal.
Several Grade 8s recently collected 114 signatures on an anti-laptop petition and plan to present it to administrators at the Westside school.
“They hurt our backs, and we also have to carry all of our textbooks with us.”
"They make us pay for little damages when it‘s their fault for stacking them on top of each other.”
“Over spring break last year, they stacked them on top of each other inside a cupboard. It left imprints on the screen and they wanted us to pay for it.”

A student was supposed to take a laptop permission form home for her mother to sign, but hasn‘t, so she didn‘t receive one. She used a laptop last year and found her writing is now sloppy.
Her backpack weighs about 16 pounds, including the five-pound laptop. “Now, we have textbooks for each day, so it‘s going to be like extra weight.
They were saying they were going to put textbooks in the laptops, but they haven‘t done that for us because it costs a lot of money.”Another student figured that her backpack was one-third of her 90-pound body weight. Some weigh as much as 35 pounds, causing backaches. She even dislocated her shoulder picking it up one day, so she refused to accept a laptop this year.
“We didn‘t use them at all last year, and I think we‘ve probably only used them for only one project this year,” she said.

One student claimed teachers want them to drop the laptops off at lockers between classes when they aren‘t needed, but the five-minute break isn‘t long enough, she said.
However, vice-principal Duane Thachyk, laptop program co-ordinator, responded the break is actually 10 minutes and students can drop off their computers at the library. “If the parents have a problem with the laptop being too heavy, we‘ll check it into the library.
We‘re trying to make it as easy for everybody as possible. We‘re not mandating anything,” he said.
Teachers and administrators regularly encourage students not to carry items in their backpacks they don‘t need that day, he added. “Kids are still carrying around all their notes from September. We tell them to keep them at home in a master binder. All they need for each subject is a little duo-tang and then their backpacks are light.
The laptops are the least of it.” Grade 9 backpacks without a laptop are just a heavy as the Grade 8s with a laptop, he said. All of the Grade 7s and 8s have laptops, roughly two-thirds of the 650 students at the middle school, but the amount of damage has been minor.
The school is about to send in 12 for repairs. “Students are doing great work with the laptops, including PowerPoint presentations,” he said.
“Boys don‘t write neat that often, but now they are typing the same as everyone else, so they are not embarrassed to produce.”
Principal Greg Corry didn‘t know about the petition, but acknowledged there are similar concerns at every school on weight, damage and in-service training for teachers.“It‘s a new thing. It‘s a cultural change in our school system right now, and we‘re having to work through that. If we foreshadow probably five years from now, it will be commonplace,” he predicted. click to read about less costly innovative computer

School District #23 has ended the program that provided a free laptop computer to students. Wear and tear played a role as well as a budget shortfall unable to handle the $10 million cost. Trustee Chair Moyra Baxter said that ending was a better way to go. It was an abrupt stop to the plan which ex-superintendent Ron Rubadeau initiated before he retired. SD#23 found that 93% had computers at home so the need for the laptops was redundant and expensive.
Comments posted;

"You are kidding me, Right! First of all, most libraries now have computers for public use-go there. I cant believe this was even considered with all the cutbacks in education as well as schools. Our school in Mackenzie is not sure that it will be able to offer all courses the student will need to graduate- and yet SD#23 in the interior gives free computers to students. Is that using tax payers money wisely?"

"I'm not the least bit surprised that these computers were being damaged."

"The school board obviously had the wrong machine. There are small cheap notebook computers that are very rugged designed for children including XO and EeePC (which I use). Mine cost around $300 and has survived several hard knocks and lots of travel."
"Hooray! My daughter is one of the students who has a school laptop. There are far more issues related to these laptops than breakage and weight. All required research material was never made available in programming, so kids were still required to pack a number of textbooks home as well as the quite weighty laptops. The schools deal, on a daily basis with inappropriate email. If you don't set up a permanent wired connection in your home, you must use a wireless router. The computer can usually be used in the privacy of any room. This is not acceptable to many parents. Personally, I believe the laptops had as many disadvantages as advantages. I'm glad to see the end of the program."

"There are $300 laptops for kids which are "dropable" and offer OS features which are aimed at education in such a way that the teachers don't have to be experts. I've noted before that Canadian schools are adverse to computer science and are more concerned with the commercial brainwashing aspects which they seem to embrace. I suspect the school in question was using the wrong laptops to begin with, in which case they would be better off spending all that extra money on hiring a qualified computer teacher."
"Another poorly thought out program of ex-superintendent Ron Rubadeau that has failed big time costing the district around $5 million dollars. Another was the moving of student from George Pringle Secondary into Mt Boucherie resulting in severe over crowding which then needed an expansion he said would cost $4.5 million that ended up costing closer to $10 million. Good that he retired when he did. He was a disaster."

Click on...Less Costly Computers

Click on...Computers in the Classroom

Click on List of Private Schools

Home Schooling Link

Schools Rate Low In Tests

SD23 Schools Rate Low in Tests, May 19, 2007
School District 23 schools were far from the top in a ranking of the province‘s 984 elementary schools. Watson Road Elementary, in the North Glenmore area, received the highest placing in the Valley #76.

Peter Greer Elementary in Winfield, listed at #138, and Peachland Elementary, at #320, were both noted in a separate list of the 25 fastest-improving schools, jumping up from No. 450 and No. 564, respectively.
Peter Cowley is the director of school performance studies at the Fraser Institute, the right-wing think-tank that prepares the annual elementary school report card.
Peter Cowley said:
1/ "This is meant to be an audit of how a school is doing."
2/ "It‘s meant to help parents choose a school."
3/ "It's to help educators take action where it's needed."
4/ "Both can observe if a school's is improving or sliding."

*The rankings are based on how well Grade 4 and Grade 7 students in each B.C. school did on the 2005-06 provincewide foundation skills assessments that test reading, writing and numeracy. The top five elementary schools in the rankings are Crofton House, Mulgrave, St. George‘s, West Point Grey and York House, all private schools in Vancouver.
Not all the province‘s elementary schools are included in the rankings. The Fraser Institute said it excluded schools that did not generate a sufficiently large set of data for its rankings. The Fraser Institute prepares similar rankings of high schools and universities.

Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

Home School Your Child

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Roberts Passes Off Responsibility

Adult Male Inside Girl's Washroom at SD23 School

When reactiong to a male offering chocolate to a young student inside a girls washroom, School District 23 Superintendent Mike Roberts passes off the responsibility of school security to elementary children..What else would parents expect from Roberts!

Roberts is quoted .."It's just not possible to lock all doors all the time." the student reacted appropriately and did what she was taught to do in such circumstances." "We're redoing our training with elementary kids in terms of how to deal with strangers."

It has been found that the school district keeps no record of who has hundreds of keys to school property. Up to a few years ago Staff ID Tags were not even provided.

Businesses for years have been able to lock all doors and to track all who entered..with today's relatively inexpensive technologies available why can't the school district secure its buildings?

Astonishing..Roberts adds that .."even if the school could lock down its premisses during school hours that wouldn't solve the problem as strangers can approach kids when they are not in school as well."

Roberts continues to deflect and deny the school district's lack of protection for young children in it's buildings.

Click on news article to enlarge

Click on news article to enlarge

Roberts should at least ensure that signs have graffiti removed.

Click to read about concerns with Mike Roberts as Superintendent

Click for a list of Kelowna area Private schools

Home Schooling Link

Sly Rubadeau Manipulates

Read Rebuttals to Rubadeau's Articles

click on article below to enlarge

Many many readers of Rubadeau's newspaper column disagreed
Click here to read their rebuttals to Rubadeau

click on article to enlarge
Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

Brian Vallee's book "The War On Women" contains a quote..opposing Rubadeau.."Vallee has no patience for those groups or individuals who maintain that men are as much victims of domestic violence as women. Click on a review of Brian Vallee's book.

Click on articles below which also oppose Rubadeau

http://schooldistrict23a.homestead.com/abuseRD.html
http://schooldistrict23a.homestead.com/LoveHurts.html

Female Domestic Violence

Victims Have Poor Health

Cliclk on Article to Enlarge

Home Schooling Link

Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

Less Costly Innovative Computer

Software on XO more revolutionary than low cost
Updated Tue. Jan. 2 2007 6:13 PM ET
Associated Press
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Forget windows, folders and boxes that pop up with text. When students in Thailand, Libya and other developing countries get their $150 computers from the One Laptop Per Child project in 2007, their experience will be unlike anything on standard PCs.
For most of these children the XO machine, as it's called, likely will be the first computer they've ever used. Because the students have no expectations for what PCs should be like, the laptop's creators started from scratch in designing a user interface they figured would be intuitive for children.The result is as unusual as -- but possibly even riskier than -- other much-debated aspects of the machine, such as its economics and distinctive hand-pulled mechanism for charging its battery. (XO has been known as the $100 laptop because of the ultra-low cost its creators eventually hope to achieve through mass production.)
For example, students who turn on the small green-and-white computers will be greeted by a basic home screen with a stick-figure icon at the center, surrounded by a white ring. The entire desktop has a black frame with more icons.This runic setup signifies the student at the middle. The ring contains programs the student is running, which can be launched by clicking the appropriate icon in the black frame.When the student opts to view the entire "neighborhood" -- the XO's preferred term instead of "desktop" -- other stick figures in different colors might appear on the screen. Those indicate schoolmates who are nearby, as detected by the computers' built-in wireless networking capability.Moving the PC's cursor over the classmates' icons will pull up their names or photos. With further clicks the students can chat with each other or collaborate on things -- an art project, say, or a music program on the computer, which has built-in speakers.
The design partly reflects a clever attempt to get the most from the machine's limited horsepower. To keep costs and power demands low, XO uses a slim version of the Linux operating system, a 366-megahertz processor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and no hard disk drive. Instead it has 512 megabytes of flash memory, plus USB 2.0 ports where more storage could be attached.But the main design motive was the project's goal of stimulating education better than previous computer endeavors have. Nicholas Negroponte, who launched the project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab two years ago before spinning One Laptop into a separate nonprofit, said he deliberately wanted to avoid giving children computers they might someday use in an office. "In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint," Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. "I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools."

To that end, folders are not the organizing metaphor on these machines, unlike most computers since Apple Computer Inc. launched the first Mac in 1984. The knock on folders is that they force users to remember where they stored their information rather than what they used it for.Instead, the XO machines are organized around a "journal," an automatically generated log of everything the user has done on the laptop. Students can review their journals to see their work and retrieve files created or altered in those sessions.
Despite these school-focused frameworks, its creators bristle at any suggestion XO is a mere toy. A wide range of programs can run on it, including a Web browser, a word processor and an RSS reader -- the software that delivers blog updates to information junkies.The computer also has features anyone would love, notably a built-in camera and a color display that converts to monochrome so it's easier to see in sunlight."I have to laugh when people refer to XO as a weak or crippled machine and how kids should get a `real' one," Negroponte wrote. "Trust me, I will give up my real one very soon and use only XO. It will be far better, in many new and important ways."
Although the end result is new, the lead software integrator, Chris Blizzard of Red Hat Inc., said 90 percent of the underlying programming code was cobbled together from technologies that long existed in the open-source programming community.In keeping with that open nature, details and simulations of the user interface, nicknamed Sugar, have been available online, to mixed reviews.Some bloggers have said that even as Sugar avoids complexities inherent in the familiar operating systems from Microsoft Corp. or Apple, it just creates a different set of complexities to be mastered. How hard that is should be one key measure of the project's success. One Laptop plans to send a specialist to each school who will stay for a month helping teachers and students get started. But Negroponte believes that kids ultimately will learn the system by exploring it and then teaching each other. Still, no one appears to doubt the technical savvy Sugar represents. Wayan Vota, who launched the OLPCNews.com blog to monitor the project's development because he is skeptical it can achieve its aims, called Sugar "amazing -- a beautiful redesign." "It doesn't feel like Linux. It doesn't feel like Windows. It doesn't feel like Apple," said Vota, who is director of Geekcorps, an organization that facilitates technology volunteers in developing countries. He emphasized that his opinions were his own and not on behalf of Geekcorps. "I'm just impressed they built a new (user interface) that is different and hopefully better than anything we have today," he said. But he added: "Granted, I'm not a child. I don't know if it's going to be intuitive to children." Indeed, the XO machines are still being tweaked, and Sugar isn't expected to be tested by any kids until February.
By July or so, several million are expected to reach Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, Thailand and the Palestinian territory. Negroponte said three more African countries might sign on in the next two weeks. The Inter-American Development Bank is trying to get the laptops to multiple Central American countries. The machines are being made by Quanta Computer Inc., and countries will get versions specific to their own languages. Governments or donors will buy the laptops for children to own, along with associated server equipment for their schools.

The project itself has gotten at least $29 million in funding from companies including Google Inc., News Corp. and Red Hat. But that's not to say everything has fallen into place for One Laptop. India's government originally expressed interest but backed out. Even though Brazil plans to take part, it is hedging its bets by evaluating $400 "Classmate PCs" from Intel Corp. Brazil's government is a big fan of open-source software as a cost-saver, but at least in initial tests, officials have said those Classmate PCs just might run Windows.

Click on..More About Computers in the Classroom

Click on...Students Against Computers
Read more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1

Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

Home Schooling Link

Rubadeau Sings Swan Song

Rubadeau finally retired April 30, 2006...

Thank God he is gone. Good riddance

Many many parents in Kelowna believe that in his letter to the Editor, Bob Johnson is way off track regarding Rubadeau. So many people are critical of Rubadeau's lack of character...Click on Rubadeau's Legacy Rubadeau is far from an impressive individual and will not be missed. We do not need people like Rubadeau in our community. He should never have been superintendent of SD #23 as he has serious core character flaws that are apparent reading his newspaper columns. Also click on School Safety.

Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

Computers In Classrooms

Computers may not boost student achievement
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY SAN FRANCISCO
Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

Give a kid a laptop and it might not make any difference.
That's the message from research presented here Monday, which suggests that spending millions of dollars to bring technology into kids' homes and schools has decidedly mixed results.

Taxpayer-supported school computer and Internet giveaways are political gold, but studies have questioned whether they actually help student achievement. This research, presented at the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting, confirms skeptics' doubts.

In one study, researchers from Syracuse and Michigan State universities examined a program that gave laptop computers to middle-school students in Ohio in 2003. Preliminary findings are mixed.

"Overall, we don't know if it is a worthwhile investment," says Syracuse researcher Jing Lei.

About 37% of the children say they stare at the screens for more than three hours a day; a few report more than five hours a day. Parents help kids with homework more often and students' grades benefit slightly, but teachers report more classroom distractions as students check e-mail. And students actually feel distracted: In the first year, their grade-point averages rose modestly, but when Lei and a colleague asked them to estimate their GPAs, students actually believed they dropped.
Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

"They felt that time is not used as effectively as before," she says.
Laptop giveaways are the latest educational fad; five states either have or will soon have them. More than one in eight school districts have some sort of program in which every child gets a PC.

Evidence has shown that computers are finding their way even into the homes and schools of the nation's poorest students. A Tennessee study found that schools serving low-income children had more computers than your typical school — 125 for poor kids' schools vs. 114 elsewhere, and computers in low-income schools often were more connected to the Internet.

But using computers, for instance, to teach reading in primary grades actually showed negative results.

Technology giveaways aren't limited to U.S. schools. Researchers in England studied 80 schools that had received electronic "whiteboards," computerized chalkboards that allow teachers to use special markers for lessons. The $2,000 whiteboards also allow them to save their work to a computer and even surf the Internet with a class.

Researchers found that teachers and students like them, but that they have a "very small and short-lived" effect on skills.
Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

But some policymakers seem intent on such programs even before results are in. Steve Higgins of the University of Newcastle says results were not yet compiled before British officials expanded the pilot program nationwide.

Macleans Magazine June 6/06.."How Computers make our kids stupid "there is evidence, that too much cyber-time dumbs down our children" those same computer-less students out perform peers who frequently access the technology. "Anything that I would have learned from a computer I'm sure I learned better from a teacher"
The accoutrements and relentless upgrading that they demand are expensive nearly $6 billion per year in the USA.
SD23 ex-superintendent Rubadeau says that students don't get enough time in the (computer) labs...the wave of the future is wireless laptops. Opposition to Rubadeau's thinking includes Allison Armstrong of Toronto who says ..there is no compelling evidence that computers help develope intellectural or emotional intellegence in any way. Readers in the past have disagreed with Rubadeau manipulating facts to suit his needs.. Rubadeau Manipulates
In the USA a group of 60 health, child-development, education and technology experts, has called for a moritorium on new computers for preschool and elementary classroomsin its report "Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood"..which argues that they may stunt both social and technical imagination eroding children's minds.
A Munich economist found that kids without computers do better that those with computers.
"I'm glad I didn't have computers.
click here for the full McLeans article

Oct 20/07 SD23 Classroom Computers Follow-up Article from Castanet.
There have been many problems with the SD23 laptop program so far.
Massive repair costs, over $100,000 for the first year.
Incredible weight the kids have on their backs.
Kids are reporting headaches, wrist problems and back pain are a few.
Reports of kids sharing porn by bringing pictures to the schools.
A story of how successfull the program has been in Maine USA.
After four years, the Maine program showed a zero increase in the kids test scores at a cost of over 50 million dollars.
for more discussion http://forums.castanet.net/viewtopic.php?t=10049
Click on..Students Against Computers & Free Laptop Program Dumped

Click on...Less Costly Computers
Click on... List of Kelowna area Private Schools

.Home Schooling Link

Trustee's Make Wrong Choice

SD23 Board of Trustees Gets It Wrong Again!

Does Roberts Have What It Takes?...No!

..the CHBC TV Mike Roberts
SD23 Mike Roberts (not the CHBC guy) was chosen as the new SD23 Superintendent. email mroberts@sd23.bc.ca

Here are a few quotes from Roberts which give an early indication that he may not be the right person for the job.

Click to read... Roberts the wrong choice

"I'd love to see a new elementary school"
....A grown man saying I'd love to see..

"I've got a lot to learn"
...Doesn't evoke much confidence after 25 years in SD23

"I've got big shoes to fill in replacing Rubadeau"
...Who is he trying to fool?

"I really appreciate a lot of the things Rubadeau has done"
...Is he serious?

"He (Rubadeau) is a great person"
..Many would take exception to that

"I hope that I can do equally as well as Rubadeau"
...Pretty low standard.

"It's been wonderful working in a number of locations"

...oh how wonderful.

Hold on folks it looks as if we're in for another rough ride as Roberts doesn't seem to have what we need in a superintendent.

More of the story at www.sd23.net/Roberts.html

When asked about these comments, he didn't answer the questions, blacklisted our email address & removed access to his email address mroberts@sd23.bc.ca from the School District #23 web site.

Concerns confirmed about Roberts as Superintendent...click on

Roberts Passes Off Responsibility for School Security

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Home Schooling Link

Rubadeau's Report an Insult

...Left click on Article to enlarge
Another blunder by Superintendent Rubadeau.

Members of Kelowna's deaf community characterize a report from Rubadeau as an "insult and discrimination based on disability."

"This is an issue of human right..the deaf community consider deafness a cultural & linguistic difference rather than a disability."

"As far as the deaf community goes, we're very insulted by this (Rubadeau report)."

"We're going to spread this around Canada about this school board.."

The parent lobby group has accused School District #23 of misrepresenting the children and services in the district, saying qualified staff are easier found than the district lets on, citing the hiring of a floating interpreter last September, a posting they say was easily filled.

Rubadeau said that staffing is very difficult in the highly specialized field.

Click to read how Rubadeau has a history of misrepresenting facts

Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

Home Schooling Link

Trustees Hypocrites

Click on photo to enlarge

Click for a List of Kelowna area Private Schools

It's laughable...the SD#23 Trustee hypocrites were quoted in the newspaper reacting to the BC Teacher's Strike that began Oct 7/05.... "For the good of our students, our teachers, our other staff, the families and citizens of the community, we implore the parties to make every effort to find a solution whereby all parties are treated respectfully, bargaining is conducted in good faith and a settlement is reached as soon as possible."
These Trustee hypocrites should heed their own advice to make every effort to find a solution, treat Custodian Fisher with respect & reach a settlement as soon as possible with regards to SD#23's conspiracy to defraud & wrongfully dismiss Mr. Fisher.

Read about SD#23's conspiracy to defraud click on... http://axed23.homestead.com/index.html

Send a Protest Message to SD23 Board of Trustees

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Home Schooling Link

Bad Decisions Students Suffer

Moyra Baxter School District #23 Board Of Trustee
was recently quoted.."You live with what you've got and make it the best, but with Mount Boucherie it isn't really working right now."

Mount Boucherie Secondary School
is one of the most crowded schools.

Escalating construction costs have held up expansion construction.
The price of an addition has doubled from $4.5 million to $9 million.
It's original capacity was a maximum of 925 students.

Superintendent Rubadeau closed Westbank Elementary and moved the students to George Pringle who's 679 students were packed into the already crowed Mount Boucherie school.

Mount Boucherie now has 1450 students it was designed for 925.
13 portables are needed for 679 students from George Pringle school.

"It is extremely overcrowed..students feel that they are not safe, parents complain that the washrooms were not designed to accommodate 1450 students."

People on the Westside are pretty fed up with the poor planning of Superintendent Rubadeau in closing schools.
COMPARE School Districts
Rubadeau's SD #23 has 22,000 students & 41 schools.
Victoria's has less than 20,000 students & 58 schools.

Home Schooling Link

Click on Mt Boucherie Article to Enlarge