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economist sunsuntribune education saturday july 24 2004 schools in for summer students trying to get ahead keep classrooms busy by mitchell brown staff writer the bell is ringing and its time to head back to class at unionville high school stu dents file out of the cafeteria and head up the stairwell in the main foyer eager to get back to their text books for another afternoon the fact its midjuly and 32 c outside doesnt mean the students are any less serious about studying i like summer courses better actually because you dont forget the info you learned at the begin ning of the course said meaghan morris a richmond hill student taking a four- week biology course at unionville high this summer while most people think of summer school as a place where studentswho failed a course get a second chance a significant num ber ofyork region students are tak ing summer courses for fun and extra credits in the york public board 3853 students registered for whats called acceleration courses this summer representing 47 per cent of all summer school registrants at unionville those students are the majority with 723 students in the fourweek acceleration pro gram to about 120 students in either of the twoweek reinforce ment programs the students in the acceleration program are there because theyre picking up an extra course before university or they want to spread their course load out over the year george voumvakis explained the unionville summer school principal whose winter gig is head of health and physical education at westmbunt collegiate in thornhill said the only difference is the con densed time frame a day in summer school is like a week in regular school he said and its not just the high school students who are hitting the books at schools across york region students in primary and middle grades are attending literacy and numeracy camps summer insti tutes international language pro grams and learning strategies programs in which students about to enter grade 9 take high school courses and learn study tips to pre pare for the transition to high school and thats riot counting the thousands of students enrolled in private tutoring courses to keep sharp over the summer its important for kids to be afforded the opportunity to learn staff photosjoerd witteveen moustafa aslamzada left peterchris tsioros and meaghan morris are attending summer school at unionville high school especially in special education said mike dunsiger a teacher at thornhills ventura park public school who is working with spe cial needs and atrisk students not that they lose information but you have to start over again in certain things like working skills and how to cope its good for them to have a continuous program dur ing the summer having said that he is not keen on the idea of altering the school calendar in a way that time off dur ing the summer would be redis tributed to shorter breaks through out the year stressing students should have a choice about attend ing summer courses the idea of yearround school ing is not a popular one at the board level either the last time the york public board brought it up for discussion was about 11 years ago and the idea was soundly voted down by parents and the community a spokesperson for the york catholic district school board made it clear her board has no intention of altering its school cal endar either most of our schools are not equipped with air conditioning which would make for a very uncomfortable learning environ ment in the summer months obvi ously joann macdonald said also we have transportation constraints in that we have to align our schedule with the public board since we share transporta tion and thats been a great cost savings for us even a straw poll of students taking summer courses does not suggest a lot of support for the idea personally id rather have school during the wintertime said mustafa aslamzada whose alma mater markville secondary school is joining keswick high school this year in opening a week earlier to give students a week off in november everyone wants to go out in the summer no one really goes out in the winter his classrhate peterchris tsioros agrees i forget everything when we have longer breaks dur ing the school year he said adding i like my summers liberals offer more cash for college students by mitchell brown staff writer changes to the way in which the province doles out student assis tance will help more than 50000 college and university students finance minister greg sorbara said the vaughankingaurora mpp was referring to the province adding 209 rhillion to the ontario student assistance program a move that would reduce the required parental contribution amount revise the definition of inde pendent student introduce a debtreduction repayment program extend osap to accepted refugees and waive the 12month residency rule for immigrants training colleges and universi ties minister mary anne chambers announced the changes last week the changes to osap will go a long way towards helping a large number of postsecondary stu dents in our community and across ontario access higher education many of whom attend seneca col lege and york university mr sor bara said student reaction has generally been positive significant positive changes to the ontario student assistance pro gram are long overdue said jon olinski of the college student alliance which represents 90000 college students across ontario we look forward to more posi tive changes that will improve accessibility to postsecondary education in the future jesse greener ontariochairper- son for the canadian federation of students was equally upbeat out said more work was needed real improvements to accessi bility will only come by reducing tuition fees and bringing ontario postsecondary education funding up to the national average so that students can graduate without amassing student debt he said for many families covering the rising costs of higher education simply isnt an option most changes 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