MUCH IMPROVED section of the Nisga’a Highway as it winds alongside Lava Lake provides a preview for motorists of what awaits them as __ they enter the Nass Valley. A large paving project this year concludes a seven-year construction program. ERIC GRANDISON PHOTO are. “After s seven years and $50 million, the Nisga’ a Highway i is almost finished AT A cost of approximately $50 million and seven ' years in the making, the massive effort to re-do’ the highway into the Nass Valley and to improve the road network in the valley itself ends this year with a substantial paving project. Gable Construction of Kamloops is marshal- ling equipment and crews this month to start a *$10.5-million resurfacing of the section through the’ lava beds: ‘starting just north of Lava Lake. "The paving will continue through the ‘Y’ inter” section heading west toward Greenville and east past New Aiyansh, finishing at Nass Camp. The sealcoat surface through the main lava bed section north of Lava Lake was removed last year in preparation for paving. © Sections of the roadbed will be raised and some redesign work done to build it up above flood level, says transportation ministry official Don Ramsay. “The entire paving project itself is 57 kilome- tres and that’s pretty major,” he said. Other plans this year include some work in the ‘Y’ intersection area to create an intersection for _ better traffic flow and control. Ramsay expects paving to start by mid-August, once preparatory work is finished, and to end by the Oct. 14 finishing date. First announced in 1998 in conjunction with the agreement-in-principle signing of the Nisga’a treaty, the improvement project involved substan- tial engineering and construction work. Contracts of $6 to $7 million a year were let as separate sections were tackled. One of the more challenging was the stretch beside Lava Lake, just south of the Nass Valley itself. Road to spur development NELSON LEESON recalls a conversation with an elder at last year’s first-ever Kincolith Crabfest. “He reminded me that he said one day we'd have visitors coming in on tour buses. We looked around and he said, “Well, those buses have ar- rived.” The Crabfest, is now an annual event, and the. buses are examples of what the Nisga’a Highway improvement project has already meant for the Nisga’a of the Nass Valley and of the potential | awaiting valley residents, says Leeson, the presi- dent of the Nisga’a Lisims Government. 7 At just over $50 million, the highway i improve- ment program and its twin project, the $32-mil- lion road connecting Kincolith at the mouth of the Nass River with the rest of the Nass Valley for the first time, represents not only a significant investment in the future of the valley but of the northwest. It’s been a long time coming, said Leeson. “We have over 40 years of resolutions just ask- ing for the Kincolith road,” he said. The Nisga’a highway project was announced in 1998 at the same time as the signing of the Nisga’a treaty agreement-in-principle and the -construction go ahead for the Kincolith road came: shortly thereafter. . Neither was part of the treaty negotiations that provided economic development money, control over resource dévelopment and self-government powers, but both were needed for any expectation of success ina post- treaty Nass Valley world, said Leeson. The old Nisga’a Highway, with gravel on some sections, pot-holed and narrow and subject to spring flooding. could not act as a springboard to This section was straightened and widened in- volving significant blasting to remove rock. . Just as challenging was the section leading © west of the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provin- cial Park toward Greenville. . That section was subject to almost annual flooding either during the Nass River’s spring run-off or during periods of heavy rain. The roadbed was raised above flood levels and a lot of environmental! work was done to protect fish habitat. Work over the years was done by a variety of local and outside contractors with an emphasis on hiring Nass residents when and where possible. Jock’s Excavating of Terrace, for instance, re= ceived the contracts for some of the moré difficult sections of construction. The company received the project’s first con- . tract in 1999, a $4.6-million job to re-align and rebuild a 4.6-kilometre section from Sand Lake north to the south end of Lava Lake. During the first years of construction, the then- NDP government introduced a controversial pro- gram it used to build the Island Highway on Van- couver Island. The program involved Highway Constructors Ltd. (HCL), a subsidiary of the B.C. Transporta- tion Financing Authority, which was the borrow- ing agency created by the NDP government to finance major transportation projects. Under the HCL model, successful bidders were required to pay union-scale wages and ben- ‘efits. Workers hired who were not members of a construction union became union. members: for ~ the life of the project on which they worked. The model came under criticism because it was viewed as.one way by the NDP government ' to bolster its union allies. Backers of the HCL model said it put in place local hire requirements at good wages with an emphasis on building job skills. The provincial Liberal government, after it was elected in 2001, soon moved to dismantle the | HCL hiring provisions. . The Liberal government also added nearly $10 million to the project, stemming from what ob- servers. said was good negotiating on the part of the Nisga’a. : When first announced in 1998, the project was to cost just over $41 million, a figure which did not:include exact costing for all of the project specifications. Provincial officials, before and after the 2001 election, tried to scale down the project with a plan to put down sealcoat on new sections instead of pavement and to keep intact existing sealcoat. But shortly after the new Liberal government settled in, Nisga’a officials flew down to Victoria to meet with Judith Reid, the new transportation minister, and her. senior people. They told Reid the commitment made by the previous NDP government called for pavement, not sealcoat. “A commitment is a commitment, quite frankly speaking,” said then- -Nisga’ a presi- dent Joe Gosnell. . “They said sealcoating was pavement and we didn’t agree,” added Nisga’a government official Collier Azak at the time. The Nisga’a eventually won their argument and the additional monetary commitment for an _ all-blacktop project was announced by Reid at the July 2001 open cabinet meeting. MORE VISITORS at are e expected to visit the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Provincial Park now that improvements to the road into the Nass Valley are nearly finished. either economic.or social development, he said. “We needed that road if we were ever to have any value from the treaty, if we were ever going to develop services for our people or to welcome visitors to our valley,” Leeson continued. “Our number one goal is to have an economy again in the world out there and to become self sustaining.” The Nisga’a lobbying effort for a better road included the support of Terrace automobile deal- erships who told provincial government officials they were doing an inordinate amount of warranty work on new vehicles owned by Nass residents. “That old road was so bad that it would shake apart a new truck in just two years,” said Leeson. “It was not only dealerships. I think all Terrace businesses realize the benefits that would come from a.new road.” A former NDP MLA and cabinet minister said the decision made by his government only made sense. Helmut Giesbrecht, Skeena’s MLA from 1991 to 2001, said benefits will flow both into and out ‘of the Nass from the new road. “T also think that when you consider the amount of [mainly timber] resources that came out of the valley, it was more than justifiable as a return,” he said. The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - A5 ee CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD The Mail Bag False impression Dear Sir: The May 18, 2005 article on the recent Fraser Institute ranking of elementary schools entitled “School officials dismiss new report showing adecline” gives the erroneous ‘impression that French immersion students are the cause _ of the low rank received by Cassie Hall Elementary. By reporting only school district chair Lorrie Gow- program, the article gives the false impression that the _ academic performance of French immersion students is by the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) exam results the Fraser Institute uses as the basis for its rankings. Despite having to write these exams in English, French Immersion students have routinely outperformed the general Cassie Hall school population. Over the last five . years, the results for the immersion students exceed the results for all students at the school 79 per cent of the time for Grade 4 (the first year that English is introduced as a subject) and 93 per cent of the time for Grade 7. Hence, ‘French immersion students raise the overall performance of the school, rather than lower it. tion, your article fails to inform readers that Cassie Hall contains a significant proportion of identified ‘students — English as a Second Language, special needs and ab- ‘fied students are lower than the resuits for all students, not only within Cassie Hall and the Coast Mountains. school ‘district but also across the entire province, . in student population are not adequately accounted for in the Fraser Institute ranking, which is based on average FSA results for all students. Hence, unlike Cassie Hall, contain only limited numbers of identified students. The not, on its own, provide an adequate relative measure of the quality of education the students in the school are re- ceiving. The presentation of such spurious rationale to account ‘for Cassie Hall’s low ranking does the French Immersion program and Cassie Hall Elementary School a great dis- service. Both the French immersion program and Cassie providing their students with quality education. While this district would certainly benefit from addi- — tional provincial and board level support to provide our students with assistance in attaining their full academic ance in this endeavour is not beneficial. - Terrace, B. Cc. “Not the gospel truth Dear Sir: ; I’m happy to clarify my quoted comments of May 1 18, 2005 regarding the French immersion program, the Fraser Institute Repost, and Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) ‘results. When’ asked if the Frerich Inimersion program could be impacting the Fraser Institute results at ‘Cassie’ Hal, I answered that if a child were to transfer out from a " ably happen at Cassie Hall. I said that I thought that if a child has taken: only French in schools for four years at Kiti K’Shan, then goes Student would have some difficulties transitioning. How many children are we talking about every year. Probably not enough to make any significant impact on the total FSA results as could have, been assumed by my comments quoted as they were. I was not commenting on the actual French Immersion FSA results in any manner. . ‘the results from provincial FSA exams and then ranks the schools according to the results. FSA exams are given to Grade 10, but they now do provincial exams. Where would our society be if we used only one small piece of information to base our decisions, without looking at the “big picture?” I shudder at that thought. to year when you have Grade 7 students leaving a school ‘Each year you are going to have different results for that school. The only true way to measure student achieve- system. So perhaps the Fraser Report should only be pub- lished every 3 years. A better picture would be to test Group “A” in Grade 4 and then again three years later in Grade 7 and report those findings. Did they improve? That would be a more accurate reflection rather than a year to year snapshot. To use thé Fraser Report to compare how schools rank against one another is unfair to everyone connected to the public education system. Comparing Cassie Hall, a Grade 4-7 school, to Uplands a K-7 school, is comparing apples to oranges. Each school is unique; each classroom is unique in its make up. A child transitioning from one _ school to another is difficult - new school, new teachers, new classmates, a whole new ballgame. This is one of the reasons why this district is trying to go from K-3, 4-7 weird concept we have picked out of the air. Can transi- tion impact FSA results, I believe it can. Let’s keep in mind that FSA exams are only one tool we use to measure student achievement. The school dis- trict does not look at how one school does ‘compared to another. Why would we? We are concerned with indi- vidual student and school achievement. This is why we have school growth plans. When a school sets its school growth plans, the FSA results are only one diagnostic too] we use to measure student success. I ask that anyone who reads these reports to not treat them as the gospel truth of what is actually happening. I _ urge parents to get involved in the parent advisory coun- _ cils and more’importantly the school planning councils to help set direction and goals for your child’s school. Lorrie Gowen, + Chair, Coast Mountains School Terrace, B.C, About the Mail Bag | address is 3210 Clinton St., Terrace, B.C. V8G S5R2. You can fax us at 250-638-8432 or e-mail us at newsroom @ terracestandard.com. No attachments, please. Name, address and phone number required for verification. _en’s comment regarding possible difficulties French-Im- _ mersion students may have in returning to, the English — compromised as a result of receiving their education.in _ the French language. Such a conclusion is not supported - In presenting only Ms. Gowen’s unsupported specula- _ original — in its’school population. The results for identi- As Ms. Gowen attempted to explain, such differences the schools that are ranked highly by the Fraser Institute” Fraser Institute rank that a school obtains, therefore, can- © ‘Hall School have dedicated staffs that are committed to . . potential, reliance on the Fraser Institute ranking for guid- 7 “‘Tanis Purssell and Pam Haldane, Na French Immersion to the English program it would prob-' to a new school and transfers to an English program, that ° Now what exactly is the Fraser Institute report? It takes students in Grades 4 and 7. Those exams used to include. How can you look at FSA results for a school from year . . _each year, and a new set of Grade 4 students coming in? - ment is to follow the same cohort of students through the © school configurations to the K-7 model. This is not some District, The Terrace Standard welcomes letters. Our.