The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

il repair spegaust mmb6db saturday august 30 1997 vol 13 no 35 weekender 32 pages 50 gstincl 4 metrahuui publication serviyg ike bed choice iijite i yr 43 3 yr 495 5yzsp 50 ftalos street to change g1cs rrsre mutual funds ufe insurance annuities rrifs tax preparation mortgages 96mainsln markham 4712311 ass size key issue in in the fight between teachers and the public school board prin cipals are caught in the middle they are members of the teach ers union but they and the vice- principals are management so these may be the only teachers in area high schools next week if weekend talks between the union and the york region board of edu cation don t go well principals also assign staff in their schools which forces them to deal with what most agree is the central issue in the 10dayold teachers strike class sizes sev eral were interviewed for this arti cle on condition of anonymity mikeadler staff reporter fall classes are getting bigger inside york region public high schools but the results are riot spread evenly from room to i mm r- v i room area principals say the board says its contract offer to the striking district 11 of the ontario secondary school teachers federation will increase the size of an average regular high school class from 26 to 27 students there are 27500 in the regu lar stream that doesnt include students in the basic level english as a second lan guage or special education programs ii explained bob harper a superintendent of schools the students are expected to be taking about 200000 credits this fall divide that by the 7527 classes the schools are offering and youll get 2653 although that doesnt include unregistered walkin stu dents he said last year the average was 26 1 6 its a fair representation of what a typical teacher faces in a regular class harper said but principals say that in practice mentioning the aver age is meaningless or even misleading one said he has some oac classes this year well into the 40s but grade 9 classes often have 26 or 27 theres classes all over the map kids will notice a size able difference if nothing changes said another princi pal who just finished putting several extra chairs into each classroom the key question he added is how many are put in classes everybody takes like eng lish or advanced math or geog raphy many of these academ ic classes had hit the 30 mark last year and many will now go to 33 theyre likely to be in classes of more than 30 kids more so than theyve ever been before another said he had to cut courses this spring mostly at oac level where there had been only enough stu dents for one class 15 or 17 or 18 students are likely to be in classes of more than 30 kids more so than theyve ever been before york region principal were not running them they became throwaways he said community colleges are ask ing for these courses he added but youre saying how can i run this with 15 kids because keeping them would mean dividing another course with h please see page 3 es marathon of hope whitchurchstouffville raised the official terry fox flag at the rec centre wednesday in preparation for the annual run to raise funds for cancer research jeremy schcll 8 stands in front of the flag he was diagnosed with a cancerous growth on his kidney when he was just 18 months old after the removal of the kid ney and chemotherapy jeremy has been cancerfree for the past six years holding the flag from left are dixie sellers a cancer survivor and member of the local terrys team mayor wayne emmerson and dr bill murphy another cancer survivor last year 480 stouff- ville participants raised 25072 in the annual marathon residents can make a pledge on run day or pick up pledge sheets at any public library scotiabank toronto dominion bank or at the towns offices on civic avenue photo by lori emmerson were killed in collisions investi- event which will be held in the gated by the opr gymnasium of stouffville dis- the opp urges drivers to take trict secondary school on fri- extra time when behind the day oct 1 7 at 730 pm and on i ake frequent breaks and dont take c fundraiser bbq next 6402 lojtj v vjbg 3