School Board Axes Controversial Policy Banning Grades of Zero

A remarkable switch to common sense in N&L schools

Teachers now able to award zeroes for grades, deduct marks for late assignments

CBC News 

Newfoundland and Labrador English School District CEO Tony Stack says he believes students will adjust to the change in policy. (Gary Locke/CBC)

The Newfoundland and Labrador English School District (NLESD) has ended a controversial policy that kept teachers from deducting marks when work was handed in late.

That means teachers are now able to award zeroes for grades, and students can no longer wait until the end of the term to pass in assignments.

Teachers had complained the policy was unfair to students who did meet deadlines, and that it created extra work at the end of the year. 

"Any policy has to survive the realities of the classroom, and we learned from our policy development,'  said NLESD CEO Tony Stack. 

"At times, you'll have to adjust and we adjusted the course, in this case, and I think what we've got now is a very good balance." 

Students will face adjustment

At Gonzaga High School in St. John's on Thursday, the news was all the students could talk about at lunchtime.

Gonzaga High School may be the home of the Vikings, but like other schools in the province, it will no longer be the home of a policy that prevented zeroes from being given out to students. (Gary Locke/CBC)

Rhys Northcote said many students were surprised by the news, and that students who are used to passing in work late won't be able to do it anymore.

"After tests, we don't get to redo them anymore. If we miss it we need a doctors note, otherwise we just get a zero for it."

Gonzaga High School student Rhys Northcote says the the new policy will be an adjustment for students. (Gary Locke/CBC)

The NLESD says it did realize there were unintended consequences to a policy that was designed to encourage students to complete their work, instead of teach them to get used to loose deadlines.

"I'm sure right now as we speak in classrooms, the subtle changes to what we've done are being talked about and shared with students, and they will adapt as they always do," said Stack

In the War on Christianity, Alberta's NDP Bring Out the Hammer

Alberta school board serves notice it will stop operating controversial Christian academy

Camrose board, school society battling over Bible verses

proposed for student handbook

CBC News 

A dispute about Bible verses has led to a decision by the public school board in Camrose to stop operating a Christian K-12 school in nearby Kingman, Alta. (CBC)

Camrose school board, Christian academy no closer to resolution over contentious Bible verse Alberta Christian school worried school division could ban Bible verses

The public school board in Camrose, Alta., southeast of Edmonton says it will stop operating a Christian school next year after the school refused to drop Bible verses that could be considered offensive from its student handbook.

In a letter dated Thursday, the Battle River School Division said it will no longer operate Cornerstone Christian Academy School after June 30, 2018.

A lease agreement for the school building in Kingman, 27 kilometres north of Camrose, is also being terminated as of next June.

The school has operated as an alternative program under the Battle River division since 2009.

The decision to close the school next year is the latest move in an ongoing battle between the board and the school society over what can be taught to the K-12 Christian academy's 160 students.

Trustees voted in favour of the move at a special board meeting Thursday.

Several Bible verses were to be included in a handbook for students. One reference from Corinthians suggests that neither "fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate ... shall inherit the kingdom of God."

Battle River board trustees have said they believe the verses might contravene Alberta's human rights code.

Will they take it to the Alberta Human Rights Council? Will they declare the Bible to be hate literature? Not very likely, but then, there is an NDP (read far-left) government in Alberta and a far-left Liberal government in Ottawa, so anything is possible.

In her Thursday letter to Cornerstone chair Deanna Margel, Battle River board chair Laurie Skori said the current arrangement "cannot continue on the current basis" until both sides can agree on the "appropriate roles and involvement at the school level.

"As a public school board we must ensure that any educational programming provided complies with board policy and procedure, provincial legislation including the Alberta Human Rights Act and the School Act," the letter said.

"Unless those concerns can be resolved, we are unable to maintain the current relationship."

John Carpay, a Calgary lawyer working with the Cornerstone Christian Academy Society, dismissed the concerns that the school's use of Bible verses might violate Alberta's human rights code.

"It's a stupid claim," Carpay said. "The school board's lawyer was asked to cite one section of the Alberta human rights law that prohibits a Christian school from reading, studying, teaching Bible verses and the lawyer was asked repeatedly and could not cite a single section." 

Resolution could still come

But Skori leaves open the possibility that "a mutually acceptable resolution to our respective concerns can occur over the next weeks or months."

In a news release, Cornerstone Christian Academy said it wants to continue working with the school board to operate the academy.

"We are deeply saddened by the BRSD's decision to terminate our agreement," Margel said in a statement.

She said the board's decision "makes no sense if they truly desire to continue working together. It seems unwise, and completely unnecessary, to throw away years of productive co-operation in mere weeks because we've simply hit an unusual bump in the road. Things just don't add up."

Parents Fuming over Muslim Prayer in School

So I guess this means Christian prayers are OK in Brampton schools

BY DEAN DANIELS

Mayor Linda Jeffrey of Brampton, Ontario, has allowed the Peel District School Board to permit Muslim-based prayers within schools on Fridays, and parents’ objections have been labeled as “hate speech.”

This coming Saturday, parents of students in the school district are planning to protest Jeffrey’s decision, stating it is unfair that one religion is being promoted over another. But, Jeffrey is ignoring these pleas of criticism, claiming those opposing the decision are advocating “misinformation and hateful speech.”

The “Canada First” protest will be held at Celebration Square near Square One in Mississauga, located near Toronto. The goal of the protest is to eradicate the promotion of religion within schools, such as Jeffrey’s allowance of Arabic prayers and sermons to be permitted on Fridays for Muslim students.

In fact, no other religion is granted exclusive acknowledgment to students, exempting Islam. Parents are outraged by the factor of favoritism to one particular religion over all others. Canadian Hindu Advocacy chairman, Ron Banerjee pointed out that allowance of Muslim prayers “may violate Canadian values.”

However, a new piece of legislation introduced by the liberal member of Parliament, Iqra Khalid, may constitute the protest and opposition as Islamophobic hate speech.

School board chairwoman Janet McDougald also ignored the opinions of parents opposing the decision. At last week’s board meeting, McDougald sarcastically responded to one concerned parent who asked: “When you vote to allow Islamic Prayer in public schools, will you record all sermons that are offered in Arabic so we can analyze them later to ensure there is no hate speech being offered?”

She then labeled the parent as racist and threatened to stop taking questions at the meeting.

This is what you call creeping Sharia. It is flat out evil and it is absurd that Canadians who would normally be horrified by what Sharia stands for, passionately embrace the path to Islamization. 

But let's do a quid pro quo and demand Christian prayer time on Fridays and see what kind of response we get from the Mayor and the school board. Then we will see the real face of hate speech and bigotry.

The Oregon School Board Has Decided Brainwashing is Better Than Science

A woman wearing a face mask to protect herself from pollutants walks past office buildings shrouded with pollution haze in Beijing, Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. Beijing issued its first-ever red alert for smog on Monday, urging schools to close and invoking restrictions on factories and traffic that will keep half of the city's vehicles off the roads. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

By Jessica Chasmar - The Washington Times 

The Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution this week that bans textbooks and other teaching materials that deny climate change exists or cast doubt on whether humans are to blame.

The resolution, introduced by school board member Mike Rosen, also directs the superintendent and staff to develop a plan for offering “curriculum and educational opportunities that address climate change and climate justice” in all Portland public schools, the Portland Tribune reported.

What is 'climate justice'? This is a scary term. Does it mean that the IPCC (read UN) will punish those countries who don't meet certain targets for reductions in pollution? If by signing the Paris protocol we have given the UN authority to punish us, then we have signed away our autonomy and are no longer a sovereign country.

“It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,” Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux said during board testimony Tuesday. “Climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world.”

Bill Bigelow, editor of the ReThinking online magazine and co-author of a textbook on environmental education, worked with several environmental groups to present the resolution, the Tribune reported.

“A lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt, and obviously the science says otherwise,” Mr. Bigelow said. “We don’t want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry.”

He took particular issue with teaching materials that used iffy language when discussing climate change, like “might,” “may” and “could.”

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

The IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has made numerous predictions since 1991 and none of them have worked out. That means there is something wrong with the 'science' of climate change. But the Oregon school board thinks the science is so strong that it is infallible. Yet they feel the need to protect that science from any kind of logical debate. That's brain-washing, pure and simple. 

To make matters worse, they don't think a student should have the right to question that science. If science can't stand up to rigorous cross-examination, then it's not worth beans. How long will it be before the absurd Oregon school board expels students for asking questions?

Virginia County Closes Schools over Arabic Calligraphy Homework

© weaselzippers.us

The Augusta County School Board in Virginia ordered all public schools closed following a slew of complaints from parents outraged over a high school geography assignment that had their children practicing Arabic calligraphy.

Media coverage of the complaints created a backlash of phone calls and emails for Riverheads High School, and officials decided to close all public schools on Friday and increase police presence as a result.

“Following parental objections to the World Geography curriculum and ensuing related media coverage, the school division began receiving voluminous phone calls and electronic mail locally and from outside the area,” wrote the Augusta County School Board in a statement. “Based on concerns regarding the tone and content of those communications…schools and school offices will be closed on Friday, December 18, 2015.”

While the school board was non-specific about the calls and complaints, several tweets directed people to call the school and the teacher at the center of the controversy.

Shahada
The outrage followed a school assignment in a world geography lesson last week about world religions, including Islam. Teacher Cheryl LaPonte gave students an assignment that involved practicing calligraphy and writing a Muslim statement of faith, also known as shahada. The statement translates as: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Students were also reportedly shown copies of the Koran.

According to News Leader, the local newspaper, recitation of the shahada is a “fundamental step in conversion to Islam.” Students were not asked to translate the statement or to recite it, and the exercise was within the Virginia Standards of Learning for the study of monotheistic world religions. Some students refused to complete the assignment, and some parents became outraged to the point that they wanted to pull their children out of the world geography class, the newspaper said.

Dozens of upset parents and students attended a forum at the Good News Ministries on Tuesday to express their opinions concerning the assignment. It was organized by Kimberly Herndon, a parent who has kept her nine-year-old son at home since ill-fated geography class.

“I will not have my child sit under a woman who indoctrinates them with the Islam religion when I am a Christian, and I’m going to stand behind Christ,” Herndon told WTVR.

Herndon said she will take the issue to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Augusta County resident and former English teacher Debbie Ballew told News Leader that there is a double standard amongst public schools and the public. She said that if she had asked her pupils to copy passages from the Bible, she would have been fired. More than one person at the forum called for the teacher’s termination.

Augusta County Superintendent Eric Bond sent a statement to News Leader explaining that when the students learn about a geographic region they also study its religion and written language. Students learn about Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam, among other faiths.

Bond said the assignment was meant to teach students “to demonstrate the complex artistry of the written language used in the Middle East, and were asked to attempt to copy it in order to give the students an idea of the artistic complexity of the calligraphy.”

Bond can't even bring himself to admit the teacher made a serious error in judgment; that, in itself, is a serious error in judgment. If he had, it might have settled this down a little. Christians should demand equal time by having the students write out the Apostle's Creed.

In the notice about the school closings, the Augusta County School Board said they appreciated parents bringing the problem to their attention.

“As we have emphasized, no lesson was designed to promote a religious viewpoint or change any student’s religious belief,” said the board. “Although students will continue to learn about world religions as required by the state Board of Education and the Commonwealth’s Standards of Learning, a different, non-religious sample of Arabic calligraphy will be used in the future.”