Posted on 03/26/2009 12:21:21 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
In its continuing quest for fair treatment from the Ontario government, the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board is digging deep for local Catholic ratepayers.
Under current provincial law, when a person moves, the address he/ she moves from automatically reverts to a public school-supporting ratepayer.
And the address he/ she moves to doesn't become designated as a Catholic school supporter unless the occupant fills out a form to change it.
It's commonly called the default mechanism.
"Because of the default mechanism, those numbers [of Catholic ratepayers] continue to decline," said John Stadnyk, the Huron-Superior board's director of education. "It's not really a signal that the population eligible for Catholic education is declining."
During a Wednesday-night meeting, school trustees heard that the issue is important because the number of Catholic ratepayers in their jurisdiction determines the number of trustees who can be elected.
Huron-Superior and other Catholic boards across the province are lobbying to have the default mechanism changed.
But they aren't sitting back and waiting for change.
A report from Chris Spina, the Huron-Superior board's chief financial officer, said that 756 forms were sent to non-Catholic rate-paying parents of students in Huron Superior schools.
So far, 318 of the forms have come back.
"We will continue to follow up with those who have not returned their forms to ensure that their tax support be changed," Spina said in his report.
"The underlying thing is for the government to have an accurate gauge of the number of Catholics who are entitled to Catholic education," said Director of Education John Stadnyk after last night's meeting.
The next step in the quest for support is to send letters and forms to Catholic homeowners and tenants who are not Catholic school supporters and do not have students in the Huron-Superior school system.
The board is asking Catholics to return the completed and signed forms so it can send a clear message to the province.
"Our right to Catholic education in Ontario and public funding for it must continue," said Spina in his report. "Supporting the Catholic school system will help send this message."
In other news, Catholic school trustees heard last night that the board is financially on track.
Some of the funds alloted for specific programs, equipment or services have not been fully spent, but that's to be expected, said Stadnyk.
"Computers, as an example, has a quite high percentage of the budget remaining," he said. "Most of the purchasing takes place in June and through the summer."
Stadnyk said that another area of the budget that has a fairly high percentage of its budget remaining is the continuing education department.
"Again, it's because most of the continuing education programs are in the summer," Stadnyk said.
Also discussed last night was an upcoming Student Support Leadership Initiative.
A symposium launching the initiative will be held in the Sault on April 16.
Local school boards and community agencies expect this initiative will become a model for the province and Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne has taken an interest.
Wynne, along with Deb Matthews from the Ministry of Child and Youth Services are two of the notable guests invited to the symposium next month.
"The initiative is a collaborative school and community-based approach to child and youth problem behaviour and mental health issues," Superintendent of Education John Bruno told trustees. "It will become a model that promotes positive healthy communities."
Under current provincial law, when a person moves, the address he/ she moves from automatically reverts to a public school-supporting ratepayer. And the address he/ she moves to doesn't become designated as a Catholic school supporter unless the occupant fills out a form to change it. It's commonly called the default mechanism. "Because of the default mechanism, those numbers [of Catholic ratepayers] continue to decline," said John Stadnyk, the Huron-Superior board's director of education.
...issue is important because the number of Catholic ratepayers in their jurisdiction determines the number of trustees who can be elected....
...A report from Chris Spina, the Huron-Superior board's chief financial officer, said that 756 forms were sent to non-Catholic rate-paying parents of students in Huron Superior schools.
they will act just like public schools to get it too I guess
I’m real disappointed, Alex. For one while, you had started to post articles containing legitimate constructive criticism for the Catholic church. But the last three articles I’ve seen were:
(1) An article that outrageously abused a statistical hiccough to make it seem that the the Catholic Church has been in a long, steep decline, whereas it’s actually been growing robustly.
(2) An astoundingly stupid fake news story.
(3) This.
>> 756 forms were sent to non-Catholic rate-paying parents of students in Huron Superior schools. <<
That is (apparently), 756 forms were sent to parents who were not registered as Catholics so that they might register as Catholics. Since the default is to remove Catholics from the registration rolls, this seems like a fairly necessary action.
Do you have times of the month when you have a particular urge to spread hatred of Catholicism at large on Free Republic? And I suppose that traditional Protestants are doing so great in this liberal secular culture that you think it somehow advancin the cause of Christianity to promote this anti-Catholic hatred that is endemic in the liberal society at large? Wake up and smell the coffee! The society at large is against Christianity, pure and simple. Simply pursuing your Reformation era narrow anti-Catholic agenda is simply not helpful or constructive at this time.
This is in Canada, where religious schools have long received support from the government.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.