YOUR COMMUNITY | NEWSPAPER SINCE 1969 oT my ATM a4, ne a) Cle Tar 7 ortcn Gg ss ta i News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 — Distribution 986-1337 80 pages 25¢ Uke NEWS photo Terry Peters Bl andful of fun SIX-YEAR- They were found in a carrying one raccoon, 3 unsuccessful, The raccoons wi take care of them. neighbor’s garage. The mother raccoon iad been startled by the occupants and fled jleaving the other two behind. Attempts to return the babies to their mother were hi be given to the B.C. Wildlife Society today where » surrogrte mother will old Jenifer Smith of North Vancouver holds up two baby raccoons only a few days old.. chosen PAGE 13 STUDENTS at three North Vancouver schools left classes Thursday morning to protest the impending collapse of school athletic, graduation and social programs threatened by the instruction-only campaign of District 44 teachers. Approximately 60 students from Sutherland Secondary left classes at 10:15 a.m. and made their way to the North Vancouver District 44 schoo! board office, where they continued their protest joined by 50 students from Argyle Second- ary. Earlier in the moriing, about 200 Seycove Community Second- ary School students had staged a one-hour protest at the Deep Cove school and then returned to class. “This (the instruction-only campaign) is taking the heart and soul out of schools,’’ Sutherland Grade 11 student Drew McEwan said Thursday morning. ‘‘We are caught in the middle here. The teachers and the government are both using us as bargaining tools.” McEwan, 17, said a lot of Sutherland students were afraid that sports scholarships, which many were counting on to help fi- nance post-secondary education, were now in jeopardy. With teachers dropping in- volvement in all extra-curricular activities as of Wednesday, all school sports competitions, gradu- ation ceremonies, field trips and social events will be cancelled or severely curtailed for the duration of the instruction-only campaign. Under the campaign, which is initially scheduled to continue to a May 8 or 9 B.C. Teachers Federa- tion (BCTF) strategy session, teachers arrive no more than 30 minutes prior to and stay no later than 30 minutes after classes and perform only regular pupil instruc- tion and evaluation. McEwan, a school drop-out who returned to school to make up a lost year, said students in his posi- tion were particularly vulnerable to the teachers’ job action because all extra after-school tutoring was now suspended at what was a crucial time of the school year. North Vancouver teachers began their instruction-only campaign in conjunction with the province-wide campaign launched by the B.C. Teachers Federation to protest the provincial government’s proposed bills 19 and 20. Between 85 and 90 per cent of District 44’s 800 teachers joined Tuesday’s one-day work stoppage, which preceded the instruction- only campaign. But in West Vancouver, only 40 per cent of District 45’s 300 teach- ers walked off the job. A unique teachers’ obligation clause in the contract between District 45 teach- ers and the West Vancouver School Board (WVSB) has thus far prevented the West Vancouver Teachers Association (WVTA) from recommending teachers join the instruction-only campaign. North Vancouver Teachers Association president Andy Krawezyk said the whole situation was unfortunate and that no District 44 teachers felt good about cutting extra-curricular activities. He said it was the first time North Vancouver teachers had conducted an instruction-only campaign. Resorting to such drastic job ac- tion, he said, indicated the depth of frustration felt by area teachers over Bill 20. The real question, Krawczyk said, was nat who was being used in instruction-only campaign, but why it was being used. WVTA officials are currently awaiting written legal opinion on the legality of joining the instruc- tion-only campaign with the obligations of teachers clause in the association’s contract. WVTA co-president Peter Lefaivre said the required six- months’ notice, needed to have the obligation clause removed from the contract, was given to the WVYVSB in January. He added that because West Vancouver teachers had not yet joined the instruction-only cam- paign did not indicate any lack of support for the BCTF’s stand.