Roundup of browser tabs

I've been a delinquent blogger. This has happened before and no doubt will happen again. Life has gotten busy since I was selected president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, packing those volunteer tasks onto what is already usually a pretty busy schedule. Enough of that whining however. Here's the browser tabs that I've opened over the last two weeks, meaning to post but never quite getting to the point where I hit the 'new post' button and do it.

• The Peterborough Examiner on the vote to close Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School (TASSS), the outcome of a school-closure review that included the historic and very popular (if not necessarily as well attended or modern) Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School.
• Two items from the Owen Sound Sun Times as the Bluewater DSB struggled with finalizing its 2011-12 budget. The first was as the budget was in progress, the second on the decision to delay meeting with Minister Leona Dombrowsky as the budget was passed.
• Owen Sound again with a petition by students to keep a teacher given a layoff notice. Not sure if there was a followup article on this piece, but I doubt the layoff situation changed given collective agreements.
• Cornwall Standard-Freeholder on a new national panel that will 'identify gaps' in First Nations education. Finding them shouldn't be that difficult, should it?
• Peterborough again on an apparently nasty meeting between parents opposed to WiFi in elementary schools and the school board which proposes to use the technology. This article spawned some national coverage in the Sun chain.
• An interesting take from the Dunnville Chronicle on who really 'wins' or 'loses' after a school-closure decision by the Grand Erie DSB.
• St. Catherines Standard, doing what good local media does well-- hitting what was a high-profile debate earlier this year and getting an update on the DSBN Academy well before the out-of-town media remember that the school will open its doors in September.

Of course, with one exception I missed a lot of budget coverage-- which isn't to suggest there was a plethora since there wasn't. Most school boards that I'm aware of did not struggle with their 2011-12 budgets, even with continued declining enrolment. As mentioned previously and below, it's pretty clear that outside of provincial priorities like full-day kindergarten and sticking to the commitments in the big-budget fourth year of collective agreements, very little money is left for anything else.