On Monday, premier Iain Rankin made an announcement that seemed to come out of the blue—Halifax and Sydney area schools will reopen. They’ll be opening a day later than the rest of the province’s schools, with students back in class on Thursday, June 3 instead of Wednesday, June 2. But they will be opening. Rankin […]
Education
Posted inNews + Opinion
What Halifax and Sydney schools lose by staying closed in June
Premier Iain Rankin announced during Friday’s briefing what Nova Scotians could expect for the first phase of the provincial plan to loosen the most recent lockdown. Among the restrictions lifted, the one that was perhaps the most unexpected is that all in-person classes for public and private schools—except for schools in the Halifax Regional Municipality […]
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Shortage of English testing drives brains away from NS
When Bunmi Adedeji learned about the new policy for international students to apply for permanent residency in Canada, she was excited. Now the Dalhousie University graduate didn’t need to wait to work for a year before applying to be a permanent resident. On April 14, the federal government announced a plan to speed up the […]
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Women scramble to find childcare in lockdown—again
Last week, schools around HRM began shutting down for cleaning after COVID-19 exposures. “We didn’t have to get tested, we were not told that there was a case in the school, but it was a case in the community,” says Ronit Milo, whose eight-year-old son’s Dartmouth school shut down Thursday. As the days went on, […]
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Short-staffed and with sick students, Halifax schools close for two weeks
In the past seven days, there have been 30 cases connected to schools in Nova Scotia. That’s more than in the previous five months, so a junior high math student could figure out there’s a growing COVID-19 problem in the school system. Sure enough, with 323 active cases in the province, most of those—266 to […]
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Schools with COVID-19 cases in Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia’s school system was already on its standard March break when the first wave hit in winter 2020, and the lockdown restrictions meant students never returned to the classroom that school year. Remote learning went so well, that the second wave of COVID-19 infections brought a new commitment from government to keep schools open […]
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In lockdown, Halifax universities backtrack on reopening plans
“It is pure joy to write this note about the coming academic year,” University of King’s College president William Lahey wrote in an email to students just last week. (Disclosure: Jonathan Werbitt is a King’s student.) “The good news is that teaching and learning, and our communal life in general, will once again be largely […]
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What it’s like to quarantine in a dorm for two weeks
Ready or not, students are back in Nova Scotia this fall. They come from far and wide, and they’re stuck in quarantine if they’re from outside the Atlantic bubble. Last week, a student at St. FX University in Antigonish was ticketed $1,000 for failing to self-isolate, setting a strong precedent for university students not to […]
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Frosh weeks move (mostly) online in the age of COVID
On Thursday, Premier Stephen McNeil announced that all students returning to Nova Scotia from outside the Atlantic bubble for school will need to receive three negative COVID-19 test results before heading to any in-person events on campus. This applies to both students in residence and living off-campus. “If students are asymptomatic, these tests should help us […]
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Mental health services on campus in Halifax
Nova Scotia Community College NSCC has three campuses in metro Halifax.Among all their NS campuses there are professional supports. From dedicated advisors for each program, cultural supports for Black, Indigenous and international students, learning strategists (disability supports) and registered personal and career counsellors that can be accessed through the student services office at each campus. […]
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Which donair are you?
Y ou can’t go very far in this town without bumping into a donair of one kind or another. Cousin of the doner kebab, and friend to boozy crowds after the bars close, the donair is a true Halifax original. Although its basic recipe of grilled spiced meat, sticky sweet sauce, diced onions and tomatoes, […]
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The Coast’s back to school guide to drugs
A survey last spring by researchers at UBC says young people hate being told to ‘just say no’. The truth is, there are drugs out there. You might meet people who do them. If you decide to try them, there are risks. Last year, 56 people in Nova Scotia died of accidental opioid overdoses. We don’t want […]
