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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING SCHOOL SAFETY AND PETITION TO THE TORONTO DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD

Hello All,

My colleagues and I need your help. We have put together a petition to the Toronto District School Board, asking them to begin implementing some of the many useful recommendations from "A Road to Health, A Final Report on School Safety", which was released by the School Community Safety Advisory Panel in January of this year. Here's some background information, since I know not everyone will be familiar with this issue:

The SCSAP was formed last year, after a Grade 9 student named Jordan Manners was shot to death in the hallway of his high school. The TDSB commissioned the Panel to conduct an in-depth investigation of safety within its secondary schools. Some of the Panel's most significant findings include: weapons (guns, in particular) are present in "non-trivial numbers" in Toronto high schools; there is a "culture of fear" within the TDSB and it schools that prevents teachers and principals from reporting violent incidents; and, significantly, "safety" cannot be realized in schools without equity. (For more information, go to: www.schoolsafetypanel.com).

Now that the Final Report has been released, it is imperative the the TDSB begin to act on the recommendations. My colleagues and I are hoping to get at least 1000 signatures on our petition, so please help us out. I know that this issue is important to many of us, regardless of our geographic location. Below is the text of the "official" e-mail that I've been sending to people. Please read it, sign the petition, and then forward it to everyone you know!

Thank you very much,

Dominique

The Centre for Urban Schooling at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education is very interested in building support for a serious implementation of the recommendations of the School Community Safety Advisory Panel’s “The Road to Health, A Final Report on School Safety”. We believe that it is essential for the Board of Trustees and the Toronto District School Board administration to receive a clear message from the community about this issue.

We recognize that the responsibility for creating safe and healthy schools does not lie solely with the TDSB. Clearly, there are many recommendations in the Report that refer to necessary actions by the Ministry of Education, Faculties of Education, the City of Toronto, and the Toronto Police Service, to name a few. For the purposes of this petition, however, we are focusing on the TDSB because, ultimately, schools are where the greatest impact of the Report’s recommendations will be felt.

Click here to sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/safety-and-equity-now

Instructions:
1) Include your name, e-mail address, street address, city, and country. Feel free to also state your affiliation (e.g. university student, teacher, etc.) in the comments section. Note that your addresses *will not* be displayed on the petition: they are used for verification purposes only.

2) To read the whole petition, click on "letter" (under the image of the school safety report), and then on "view whole petition".

3) Sign the petition and then share it with your friends, colleagues, and families. You can do this via e-mail, and/or by clicking on the "Bookmark" tab in the top right-hand corner of the petition page. Help us reach our goal of 1000 signatures!

Thank you!

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Institute for Community Inclusion National E-News 02/05/08

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APSE 2008: The Winner's Circle ... Everybody Works! Everybody Wins!

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Are you interested in sharing your knowledge and promoting discussion regarding employment of people with disabilities at a national forum? The 19th Annual APSE Conference being held in Louisville, KY from July 9th-11th, 2008, provides a great opportunity to do so. If you are a professional, individual, family member, or businessperson with information and ideas to share, please submit your conference session proposal(s) by the February 15th deadline.

To submit a proposal, go to the APSE website. APSE: The Network on Employment is a membership organization focused on improving and expanding integrated employment for persons experiencing disabilities. If you have any questions please contact Celane McWhorter at celanem@yahoo.com, or David Hoff at 617-287-4308; david.hoff@umb.edu

http://www.apse.org/

Contact the Institute for Community Inclusion

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Email: ici@umb.edu

Phone: 617/287-4300 voice, 617/287-4350 TTY

Website: http://www.communityinclusion.org

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Description: The award honors the best paper, expanding our knowledge and understanding of the complexity of social justice issues in K12, postsecondary, community and social policy arenas. Its aim is to encourage new scholarship, collaborative efforts and diverse perspectives as reflected in Marshall & Oliva's (2005) Leadership for Social Justice: Making Revolutions in Education. The award is made possible from royalties and recognizes the contributors' collaborative efforts in writing the book.

Criteria: Paper must have been presented at AERA, UCEA or other pertinent associations (e.g., ASHE, AAA, AESA) within 24 months of the AERA conference in which the award is given. Award recipient/s need not be members of the LSJ SIG.

Nomination process: Nominations (as well as self-nominations) and papers should be submitted to the LSJ SIG Awards Committee Chair by February 28, 2008. If no papers are identified or do not meet the criteria of the award, no awards will be given for that year.

Description: This award recognizes the outstanding, innovative scholarship of a graduate student whose work expands our understanding and knowledge of social justice issues. Papers may focus on K-12, post secondary, community-related and/or social policy arenas. The award also encourages the development of emerging scholars in social justice work.

Criteria: Paper must have been presented at the annual conferences of AERA, UCEA or other pertinent national associations within 24 months of the AERA conference in which the award is given. Award recipient need not be a member of the LSJ SIG. While the paper may have multiple authors, the first author must be a graduate student. Dissertation submissions will be considered and must be from the year prior to the award date. For example, a dissertation award at AERA 08 is for a dissertation completed in 2007.

Nomination process: Nominations (as well as self-nominations) along with papers should be submitted to the LSJ SIG Awards Committee Chair by February 28, 2008. If no papers are identified or do not meet the criteria of the award, no awards will be given for that year.

Currently accepting applications for January 2008 through January 2009. Rolling application deadline - the first qualified applicants are accepted. Apply today!

Save Eyes and Lives. Every Eye, A Life.
Those who are blind in Africa have a four times higher mortality rate
60-80% of children who become blind die within 1-2 years
80% of blindness is curable or preventable

Unite For Sight's work to prevent blindness and restore sight is featured weekly on CNN INTERNATIONAL from September 2007-August 2008

Who Is Eligible to Participate?: The Unite For Sight internship is open to individuals 18 years and older, and there is no upper age limit. Volunteers range from undergraduate students to medical students, public health students and professionals, nurses, physician's assistants, teachers and educators, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, doctors, opticians, optometrists and ophthalmologists.

What Do Volunteers Do?: Volunteers receive hands-on clinical experience while assisting doctors in remote, rural villages. Volunteers learn about international health and eye care, learn clinical skills while working with patients and doctors, and, in one program location, have an opportunity to perform cataract surgery on a goat's eye.

The goal of Unite For Sight and its partner eye clinics and communities is to create eye disease-free communities. Unite For Sight’s volunteers (local and visiting) work with partner eye clinics to provide eye care in communities without previous access. The eye clinic’s eye doctors and Unite For Sight volunteers jointly provide community-based screening programs in rural villages. The clinic’s eye doctors diagnose and treat eye disease in the field, and surgical patients are brought to the eye clinic for surgery. Patients receive free surgery funded by Unite For Sight so that no patient remains blind due to lack of funds. Volunteers immediately see the joy on patients' faces when their sight is restored after years of blindness. These memories last a lifetime.

While helping the community, volunteers are in a position to witness and draw their own conclusions about the failures and inequities of global health systems. It broadens their view of what works, and what role they can have to insure a health system that works for everyone and that leaves no person blind in the future.

“During my volunteering experience, I realized that Unite for Sight’s service is a campaign for the salvation of humanity that allows the light of compassion to shine through each of us. I believe it is this display of altruism and commitment that makes the organization’s service so virtuous and treasured by both volunteers and patients. After all, making a difference in the world is not so difficult if only one would care enough to sacrifice a part of oneself in order to change the world for the better. My experience as a Unite for Sight volunteer has inspired me to dedicate my future career to serving underprivileged communities around the world.”—Chiwing “Jessica” Qu, Yale University Student, Unite For Sight Volunteer in India 2007

"Without Unite for Sight, I cannot imagine how I could possibly have seen and learned so much as an undergraduate about medicine, other cultures, and my own desire and ability to make a difference in others' lives."--Charlotte Hogan, Georgetown University Student, Unite For Sight Volunteer in India 2006 and Ghana 2005

"I can honestly say that everything I learned in 3 years of medical school paled in comparison to the 3 week experience I had in Accra (Ghana) in October 2007 as part of Unite For Sight. The program provides volunteers with a unique and hands-on involvement – being able to help out to the level of your training and comfort. My experience taught me that Ghanaian people are the friendliest people I have interacted with anywhere in the world, that ordinary people involved with Unite For Sight are making extraordinary differences, and that sitting in a classroom receiving a world-class education cannot match real life experiences while volunteering."--Varun Verma, UMDNJ Medical Student, Unite For Sight Volunteer in Accra, Ghana