ee re) 5 ee eee calamitous | sao ress TERRACE — A 19-day sirike by teachiers i in n Schicol’ Ms ‘District 88 concluded over the weekend with a tentative ‘ . ‘agreement between the board of trustees and the Terrace’ " District Teachers Association. The district’s. 5 ,200 tus. dents returned to classes’ ‘Monday morning after: being, out of school since Dec. 16. ‘The ‘contract,. “concluded through a set of marathon bar- gaining sessions overseen by me- diator Vince Ready, will provide teachers with a compounded (in- cluding increments) 14.7 percent salary increase over two. years. _The agreement, was ratified by the board and the TDTA mem-- bership in votes held Sunday. . TDTA. president ‘Helmut ; Giesbrecht said the. ratification vote came in, at 94 percent in favor of the. agreement and ' deemed that an indication . of satisfaction, “It’s a. good agree- ment,”’ he said. ‘‘We now: have _ the best. class size ‘provision, in. the province.” os. ' .-The class size: controt issue was. a central point: ‘of. conten: i tion throughout. the’ whegotia- tions, with the TDTA maintain: ing that teacher- workloads had - to be specified and the board arguing that it would lose con- | trol of staffing levels. District Secretary-Treasurer. Barry Piersdorff. pointed out that the class size section was one of the few areas that | _ brought together the three issues of teacher workload, taxation. levels and the quality of educa-— tion: the more students each teacher has, the more work that teacher is required to do; more teachers, above.a certain level, to keep class sizes down requites.. ‘more local ‘taxation; . and. the « quality of education is. better’, when teachers can devote more. . time to individual students, , - The final agreement specifies ‘Ez . pupil-teacher ratios for 15° Gif-. ferent categories of classroom situations, with provisions to. exceed the maximum ratios by . up. to 10 percent under certain” circumstanices. There .is also an, arbitration clause that comes into effect, in. the event of a disagreement. The’ article comes into effect on Sept.’ 1, 1989. . we ~The effect of: the: settlement, District 88. won’t be known for two or three weeks and the tax impact of the settlement can’t be calculated until then. “We had everything costed -out, but now we just don’t know,”’ Piersdorff said. ‘‘Any- thing I would tell you at this point would be wrong.” Index - BusinessGuide .-—s‘*2 Church Directory 16 Classified Ads Comics 18 Coming Events 14 Crossword. 618 CO 19:22. Dining Directory. Editorial Horoscope Sports - Talk of the Town . TWO DECADES OF BALANCE: The Terrace Peaks celebrated their 20th. anniversary yunday with © | elaborate new gymnastic plans.. page 7 on: 4 -pr : system: by $129 million, an aver- age of 9.9. percent more than the @& previous year, in: ‘part. to: help - _ districts defray’. the... cost. of J higher. wages. ‘Piersdorff ‘said | the: specific grant increase for ‘ pti ss cabs "Shaan ba! 78 pilnie tt lge ie tardies he 8 nh 1 Sh Yess ~ ee Ch Legislative Library Parliament Buildi Victoria, B.C, mes, V8V 1X4 Despite members of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet nearly being stranded in Prince Rupert by an gyalanche,.the show went on Saturday night in the R.E.M. Lee Theatre after the company “travelled by air to Terrace. One of the show’s highlights was a performance of the pas de J} | deux from Tchalkovsky’s Swan Lake. Story on page 15. Royal Winnipeg Ballet photo. Wind, snow, rain, avalanche — a record month The first month of 1989 saw the local record for precipitation shattered. by a wide mar- gin, with most of it arriv- ing in the form of snow. The result has been a series of avalanches that have cut off communities to the north and, in one instance. in Telegraph. Creek, resulted in death, © ; George Blakey te the in January Terrace-Kitimat airport weather office said yester- day that. total precipitation - up: to. the last . day of the month came to 391.6 milli-- meters, 130.5 millimeters | of rain and 277.2 centimeters of | snow, The-old record was set in ' 1968,.a mere 300.7 millimeters. - Blakey said the Environment Canada records go back to 1956. The avalanche activity began ‘in earnest last week with a series Of 27 slides in the Bear Pass that _ isolated the community of Stew- art. One of the slides was so violent that the wind from it knocked down trees on the other side of the valley. Highway 37A was reopened Monday with single-lane traffic being taken in convoys through ‘the pass, but yesterday another -avalanche closed the road again. At last report temperatures had dropped to -18'C., skies had cleared and avalanche techni- cians were planning to drop explosive charges from helicop- ‘ters on Mt, Rainey, overlooking _ the town, in‘an attempt to break “up the unstable snow pack in a controlled manner. Dease Lake, Telegraph Creek, Iskut and other small communi- ties north of Meziadin Junction -have been cut off since early last week by two gigantic slides in the Ningunsaw Pass near Bob Quinn Lake. Recent reports in- dicate that fresh food supplies are nearly exhausted, with inter- mittent shipments being trucked in from Whitehorse. The Ministry of Highways said one of the Ningunsaw ava- lanches has covered the road to a depth of 30 meters; and there are presently no estimates as to when the highway will be open again. The only death caused by avalanche occurred Friday in Telegraph Creek, where an el- derly woman reportedly ignored warnings to evacuate her moun- tainside home and was subse- quently buried in a slide. Highway 16 was intermittent- ly closed by avalanche last week. The first one occurred Jan, 26 at 10 p.m., covering 200 meters of highway to a depth of four continued on paya 2 ela a pe Rae amie ee edi 6 Ge eal Petey