Members of the South Queens Middle School Grade 7/8 band perform at the Queens County Music Festival in late April. (Rick Conrad)
It looks like the band program at South Queens Middle School in Liverpool will live to play another day, though it’s unclear in what form.
Parents and others vented their frustrations online a couple of weeks ago when they heard the school planned to cut the program for next year.
It came on the eve of the 80th annual Queens County Music Festival at the Astor Theatre. The festival features young musicians and vocalists from school and private music programs being scored on their performances by trained adjudicators.
The middle school’s Grade 7 and 8 band competed at the festival.
Principal Stacy Thorburn told QCCR on Wednesday that she hopes to have good news for students and parents by the end of the week.
“It’s in the works. I’m in conversations to find out how it will look next year.”
The program includes about 40 students.
In a message to students and their families on Friday, the school said they’re looking at ways to continue offering it next year.
“School administration is having ongoing conversations with nearby schools to explore potential collaboration opportunities and are looking at creative staffing solutions, all with the intention to continue offering the band program,” the note read.
“Additionally, discussions regarding the band program are planned with the school advisory council.”
Thorburn didn’t want to comment on what led to the worries about the program’s survival.
“I would rather not because there are lots of things that go into play. And I’ve had conversations with our (school advisory council) and members of our community who have asked so I’d rather keep it at that for now, until we know for sure what’s happening.
Dave Schofield, president of the Kiwanis Club of Liverpool, Stacy Thorburn, principal of South Queens Middle School, and Ted Bulley of the Kiwanis Club at an announcement on Wednesday at the school. (Rick Conrad)
Sports teams at South Queens Middle School will be getting a new electronic scoreboard thanks to a donation from the Kiwanis Club of Liverpool.
The service organization donated $7,000 toward the $17,000 piece of equipment that will hang in the gymnasium at the Grade 6-8 school.
Principal Stacy Thorburn said the donation is “amazing”.
“To know that one of our organizations in Queens donated $7,000, it’s just unheard of. Even through our fundraising, as thankful as we are to everyone, we weren’t able to raise that much money, so a one-time donation of $7,000 is huge.”
Currently, a scoreboard is projected onto one of the walls of the gym.
“Which is great when technology’s working, but it had its time,” Thorburn said. “And so we thought well, we don’t have a scoreboard and we have lots of community basketball coming in, we have sports teams from other schools coming in, so we thought that would be a priority for right now.”
Thorburn said the whole community pitched in. A youth in the community donated what he made from giving basketball lessons, Liverpool Regional High School donated proceeds from their annual alumni basketball tournament, the school itself held an online auction and the school’s advisory council contributed $2,000.
“We couldn’t have done it without the community and the parents from South Queens, which is amazing.”
Dave Schofield, president of the Kiwanis Club of Liverpool, said usually the club gives up to $1,000 for specific projects.
“Initially we were thinking a smaller amount. And one of our members said, we got extra money this year from running the canteen at Queens Place, let’s go all in on the scoreboard, so that’s what we did.
“You like to see everyone working together for a common goal.”
The school held a short ceremony on Wednesday morning to unveil the Kiwanis contribution. Students, staff and Region of Queens Mayor Scott Christian were there, as well as Kiwanis Club members from Liverpool, Halifax and Kingston, Jamaica.
Pam Rodney-White is governor of the eastern Canada and Caribbean district for Kiwanis International.
As part of her duties, she’s touring Canada’s six districts. And she was in town on Wednesday visiting the Liverpool chapter.
She said the Liverpool chapter’s support for the scoreboard is an example of the kinds of contributions Kiwanis clubs make to help kids and communities.
“It’s fantastic. I really want to congratulate the Kiwanis Club of Liverpool for the donation of the scoreboard. I’m sure the students are going to be happy when they look up there and see that they are making some runs, not fouls.”
Thorburn says she hopes to have the scoreboard installed over the summer in time for when students return in the fall.
Nova Scotia Power crews at work on Waterloo Street on Monday. (Rick Conrad photo)
A power outage in parts of Liverpool has closed two schools and some downtown businesses for the day.
Wickwire Academy and South Queens Middle School are closed because of the power outage just before 5 a.m. Monday.
Nova Scotia Power says it’s because of a “transmission interruption”. It affects 728 customers. The company originally said Monday morning it expected power to be restored by 3 p.m. But its outage map now says power should be restored by 8 p.m.
The outage has hit parts of downtown Liverpool and extends to Old Port Mouton and White Point roads.
A downed power line briefly trapped students inside a bus Monday afternoon.
Shortly after 3:00pm a bus carrying 23 students on route 122 from Liverpool Regional High School, South Queens Middle School and John C Wickwire Academy, encountered the power line on Barss Street in Liverpool.
Captain John Long of the Liverpool Fire Department explains what led to the downed line.
“Another vehicle had hit the pole, or rubbed the pole and pulled the mast off the house. The bus came along and didn’t notice the low-hanging wire and so it got tangled up in it,”said Long. “As soon as they realized what they were in they stopped the bus and called for help.”
South Shore Regional Centre for Education officials contacted the parents of the 23 students on board to make them aware of the situation.
Nova Scotia Power, Liverpool Fire Department, and RCMP worked together to remove the line from the bus.
The ordeal lasted about an hour but with no air conditioning and temperatures approaching 30 degrees in the mid-afternoon, the only relief students had from the heat was to open the windows.
Liverpool Fire Department provided students with bottled water when they were able to exit the bus.
Some parents arrived to pick up their children from the incident site.
SSRCE Communications Coordinator Ashley Gallant says students were checked out by EHS before being released.
Gallant credits the quick actions of the bus driver for ensuring the safety of everyone on the bus.
“Really have to give some recognition to the bus driver who immediately recognized that something wasn’t right and stopped, according to procedures and contacted Nova Scotia Power, as we should,” said Gallant. “So it’s really the best outcome here. Everybody was safe and no injuries.”
Olivia and Garfield Gallant-Zwicker alongside the Mersey River. Photo Ed Halverson
A brother sister team at South Queens Middle School are part of classes hoping their science experiment will lead to a cleaner Mersey River.*
Two classes of grade-seven students have been testing sites up and down the Mersey since October tracking levels of enterococci bacteria in the water.
Garfield Gallant-Zwicker says they were inspired by teacher Jill Leuschner’s lessons about another student who took on a similar mission.
“We started learning about Stella Bowles and personal empowerment, which is where you feel like you can make positive change,” said Gallant-Zwicker. “Stella had tested the LaHave River so that gave us the idea to test the Mersey River.”
Gallant-Zwicker says the results of that testing were not good.
“The level is 70, you should not swim and [at] 170ml, the water should not come in contact with your skin. We had over 170,” said Gallant-Zwicker.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, enterococci are indicators of the presence of fecal material in water and, therefore, of the possible presence of disease-causing bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. These pathogens can sicken swimmers and others who use rivers and streams for recreation.
The siblings brought their findings to Region of Queens Council in the hope the municipality would take action to stop whatever was polluting the river.
Mayor Darlene Norman explained, unfortunately, there is little the region can do on its own.
“As a municipality, we can not go traipsing across people’s properties,” said Norman. “We are legally not allowed, besides, it’s a homeowner’s responsibility to have a functioning system.”
Garfield’s sister Olivia Gallant-Zwicker says they didn’t get as much support as they hoped but council did point them in the right direction.
“We were kind of hoping that council would help us more. They did encourage us to go right to (Queens-Shelburne MLA) Kim Masland and (MP for South Shore-St. Margarets) Bernadette Jordan, which we did,” said Gallant-Zwicker.
Regional council did go a step further and wrote a letter on behalf of the students to the provincial environment minister.
The response from then Minister Gordon Wilson said, “Nova Scotia Environment does not undertake water quality studies or prepare/undertake remediation plans. In instances where water quality impairments are suspected, the development, funding, and undertaking of these types of projects are often led by local organizations, to which we may provide guidance upon request.”
The students decided to reach out to the same organization that had worked with Stella Bowles, Coastal Action.
Assistant director Shanna Fredericks says she will join the students in collecting samples and conduct what is known as parallel testing to validate their results.
“The kids are going to collect their water samples as they normally do and test them with the equipment that they’ve been using and I’m going to collect some samples right alongside them and take them to our lab in the city, so an accredited laboratory. We’ll have those samples tested at the lab and then we’ll compare the results and see how they line up,” said Fredericks.
Olivia Gallant-Zwicker says once they had taken the water samples, their process is relatively simple.
“We incubated it for 72 hours,” said Gallant-Zwicker. “After that, all the dots on the cards would show up and, [it was a] surprising amount.”
Fredericks says to see young people tackle these large problems is inspiring.
“It’s just great to see these kids feeling empowered and passionate about environmental issues and being able to follow in Stella’s footsteps and see that they can actually make a difference,” said Fredericks.
Now that they’ve found their community partner, the students will continue taking water samples from the Mersey and documenting their findings.
Garfield Gallant-Zwicker says their end goal is simple.
“We’re hoping to see at the end of this that our water will return to how it used to be, nice and clean, so then people can swim into it.”
*The story has been changed to reflect the two classes of SQMS students involved in the water testing project.
