Snow – School Buses

Heavy snowfall hit the Kingston area this morning.

Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario cancelled all school transportation due to the weather and road conditions.

Tri-Board Student Transportation reported a number of cancellations and dozens of buses were running late.

 

Teachers Situation

Elementary teachers are planning to launch rotating one day strikes at public schools on Monday and French language teachers are beginning their work to rule campaign today.

Catholic teachers will be staging a one-day strike on Tuesday of next week and that means all of the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District elementary and secondary schools will be closed.

All four of the province’s teacher unions are now taking part in some form of job action as they try to negotiate new labour deals with the government.

Ontario’s education minister has announced parents affected by rotating teachers strikes will be eligible to get up to 60 dollars a day to cover daycare costs.  The payments will only be made to parents with children in day care centers that have been closed because they are located at schools where rotating strikes have taken place.

 

Apartment Vacancy Rate

The apartment vacancy rate in Kingston has increased to 1.9% according to the latest Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s rental market report.

The vacancy rate had been 0.6%…the lowest in Ontario and was being blamed for rising rental rates in Kingston.  The increase in the vacancy rate has done nothing to stop a steep rise in rents.

The report says rents in Kingston increased by 7.9% last year.  The average rent in Kingston is now more than $1,200 a month.

 

Selby Public School

Students and staff at Selby Public School north of Napanee had some unscheduled excitement on Wednesday.

A gas leak in the area led to the evacuation of the school.  Students and staff were evacuated to the nearby township barns where they were reported to be safe and warm.

Parents were informed and school buses were re-routed to the barns to take the students home.

 

Fraud Suspect

Kingston Police are asking for help from the public to identify a suspect in an attempted fraud.  Police say a man between 20 and 30 has made multiple attempts to open bank accounts using stolen identification belonging to the same person.  They say the last known attempt took place on December 11th.

Police have posted a picture of the suspect on social media.

 

Climate Change Symposium

Sustainable Kingston and the City of Kingston are hosting the Kingston Climate Change Symposium at the Grand Theatre today.

It gets underway at noon and feature a number of keynote speakers.

Tickets are required for the event.

 

Peter Carty Memorial – Student to Cut Hair

The annual Peter Carty Memorial basketball game will take place tomorrow night at Regiopolis Notre Dame Catholic High School.  The Holy Cross basketball team will be playing Regi in the game that raises money for cancer.

Holy Cross student Jack Thurlby is cutting his hair to raise money and a raffle is taking place for a student at Holy Cross to cut his hair during lunch tomorrow.

A GoFundMe page called Jack Cuts His Hair for Cancer had set a goal of raising $500 and has already raised over a thousand dollars.

 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/jack-cuts-his-hair-for-cancer