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

inside letters6 ransberry 7 calendar 11 classified 21 3 friday for former event spaghetti dinner whitchurchstouffville whenfridayjanl86to830pm councillor catherine joice where royal canadian legion br 459 stouffville serving whitchurchstouffville since 1888 111 rn i fl orienteering the v ultimate meeting of body and mind using a compass and map 50 cents including gst 24 pages thursday jan 17 2002 to reach us 905 2942200 teachers refusing to take their tests courses dont make teachers better union by stefania rizzi staff writer some york region teachers are willing to lose their jobs rather than participate in the provinces mandatoiy teacher testing program if- its pushed that far i will take courses that i feel are benefi cial but im not going to take them because theyre required if im put in a position where i can be suspended or fired for riot tak ing them so be it i know im a good teacher said a unionville public school teacher who asked not to be named id rather retire than get suspended and start looking at another career dont get me wrong i love teaching i love children said the teacher who is one of 40000 in ontario randomly selected to begin taking recertification courses its been fun but weve taken one too many blows and im not the only one who feels this way last june the province passed legislation requiring all 180000 certified teachers in ontario to participate in a fiveyear profes sional developmentprogram under the program teachers are expected to complete 14 five- hour recertification courses every five years to retain their teaching certificates if teachers fail to comply they will be suspended for at least six see teachers page 4 precipitation please staff photosteve somerville ken wells is hoping for more snow for winter insulation on his wheat field at bloomington and mccowan roads in whitchurchstoufrville the lack of snow could hurt a charity graingrowing operation in york region this year mr wells said dry winter is bad news for agriculture community farmers need snow to by joan ransberry staff writer whitchurchsrouffville farmer ken wells wont be making hay in the sunshine diis summer unless at least a foot of snow covers the ground now mr wells joins farmers across york region in watching the sky for the cumulonimbus clouds that signal the onset of a wonderful canadian snowstorm bunker hay and wheat crops depend on wellpacked snow mr wells pointed out in fact a major storm lasting a day or two would put an eartoear grin on the face of eveiy farmer in the region the weather this winter will be hard on the wheat and with so little snow were going to be short of moisture snow is good we need it and we need a great deal of it said mr wells in the agricultural community snow is a blessing on two counts it acts as an insulator protecting die roots of plants from the coldand it creates muchneeded moisture in early spring wells has a total of 1500 acres in the bloomington road and mccowan road area a thirdgen eration farmer mr wells runs both- a dairy and a cash crop operation i took over in 1987 my dad and my grandfather farmed before me mr wells explained with three generations of agri- cultural knowledge under his belt mr wells knows who really runs the farm its not the farrrier not the government riot the market free or see charity page 9 i superbowijbash saturday t i i 4 4