Newsstand: March 1, 2013

It's March and it's the weekend! Rejoice. In the news: Ontario elementary teachers won't bring back extracurriculars yet; Toronto's first Africentric high school program starts this fall; and police seize a lot of stolen hooch.

By Terri Coles • Illustration by Brett Lamb

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario decided yesterday that its protest of the Ontario government’s Bill 115 and imposed contracts will continue, and the teachers the union represents will not resume running extracurricular activities in the province’s public elementary schools. Premier Kathleen Wynne expressed her disappointment, and some Toronto parents renewed efforts to get the school board to allow them to more easily run extracurriculars themselves. Public high school teachers in Ontario voted a week ago to end their boycott of extracurriculars as a goodwill gesture after positive talks with the province.

Ontario’s first Africentric high school program will officially begin classes in Scarborough this fall. So far 17 students are enrolled in the Leonard Braithwaite Program at Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute for September, and more are expected to sign up. So far none of the dozen students finishing Grade 8 at the Africentric Alternative School, Toronto’s Africentric elementary and middle school, have signed up for the high school program, but principal Jacqueline Spence said that many may not want to make the long commute to Winston Churchill.

Cops seized $800,000 of stolen booze in Brampton and Mississauga earlier this week, after a three-month investigation of the sale and smuggling of the contraband alcohol into homes and businesses around the GTA. That’s 2,500 cases, if you’re wondering. Someone’s weekend just got a whole lot tamer.