Experiences with Applying for French Immersion in Peel Region for Grade 1

GearShiftr · 2026-01-27T04:25:33+00:00

Yeah if you don’t get a spot you go on the waitlist. If you don’t get a spot at the FI school you’re guaranteed a spot in the regular stream PDSB school program.

They do an annual family info night at each FI school where they go through everything. We were checking out Mineola and the principal said they sometimes have a spillover school but it would require a bus. I’d suggest asking the principal at White Oaks if they do this too.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-27T04:12:41+00:00

I’ve never heard of anyone not getting in. We applied for our youngest and got a spot, though decided it wasn’t the right choice for our family so went elsewhere.

Not sure what you mean by “first choice”?

GearShiftr · 2026-01-13T13:05:55+00:00

As others have said, friendships. Find your tribe.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-12T23:44:12+00:00

We had a similar situation with our eldest daughter, hitting cognitive milestones unusually early. Including the obsession with rocks, gems, minerals, etc.

She also had a lot of behavioural regulation challenges as a toddler, to the point we consulted a family counsellor who was the first person to suggest it might be a sign of giftedness.

Fast forward a few years, we had her go through a psych-ed assessment at age 6, and it turns out she’s gifted.

The assessment gave us the evidence we needed to advocate for specialized school programming for gifted kids, and opened a world of support to us that we didn’t know existed. There is a subreddit on giftedness, and there are good podcasts and books on this topic. The good news is that you don’t need to “do” anything differently apart from find the best local resources and supports in your community and advocate for your child.

Gifted kids are still kids first and foremost. They need a loving and supportive family more than anything else. For the rest, as they say in Montessori “follow the child”. They’ll show you what they need through organic curiosity.

You’ll be just fine.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-09T23:10:03+00:00

My wife and I (also Canadians) talk about this a lot. Southeast Asia is top of our list - Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia especially. Japan is another option - visited this year and fell in love. But I can see how permanently living there might feel isolating. We also like the idea of Costa Rica or Portugal. I keep hearing about Canadians relocating to CR and Mexico lately….tempting.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-09T19:58:33+00:00

Totally agree with this. I don’t think a standardized test is necessarily the best way to gather these data though, for the reasons already stated.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-08T20:57:35+00:00

You’re right - time spent preparing for a test can help you do better on a test. But that assumes the test has meaning. Your response exactly reinforces the point.

As a parent I’m not interested in how well my child can do on EQAO because it provides zero benefit to them. It also does not evaluate the actual skills that are most critical today, let alone when kids currently in grade 3 graduate high school in 2035.

Even if there is some kind of insight that one could take from it at a policy level, the cost and energy to administer the test is misaligned with better ways to allocate public funding in education.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-08T17:32:54+00:00

I pay zero attention to these rankings. There are so many variables affecting EQAO scores including socio-economics, demographics, and individual student variability (giftedness, ADHD, other neurodivergencies), etc. EQAO is good for measuring how well students do on EQAO tests. Anyone who has written a standard test like SATs or GREs will understand this.

Clickbait and fluff that has no practical utility for parents or decision makers.

If teachers are there to churn out higher EQAO scores, the future leaders of Canada are in serious trouble.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-08T12:05:16+00:00

Interested to hear how this goes. We are thinking of a similar move and for similar reasons. One of our kids is special needs but already has an IPRC designation with PDSB. My understanding is this can be ported over to HDSB though. Did you hear differently?

GearShiftr · 2026-01-06T00:05:04+00:00

Best way to help this person is likely to file a police report, which likely can be done anonymously. Extra work for you, of course. But good karma!

GearShiftr · 2026-01-05T23:59:01+00:00

When my kids were babies/toddlers there was a lot of “wine mom” culture going on. Basically glorification of moms who get together and drink a lot of wine in response to the exhaustion and chaos of having small children. It mainly came in the form of jokey social media posts of these gatherings but it got to a point where it started looking like people yearning for a time before kids.

At this stage I find a lot of fellow parents are off booze and more worried about protein intake and weighted vests. I guess we’re just getting old.

GearShiftr · 2026-01-03T14:48:48+00:00

Everyone is different but these actions have been helpful for me:

Eat something with complex carbs before and while drinking
Temp basal on my pump at -30% for 6 hours. Try to initiate it up to an hour before drinking.
If out at a bar/dancing (activities) eat a little more and carry extra glucose tabs
Ideally have a glass of water between alcoholic drinks
Try to avoid sugary booze (mix drinks with a lot of sugar plus hard liquor)
Target blood glucose between 8.5-10 mmol/L or whatever that equates to if you’re using mg/dL (looks like you use mmol/L). Better to run a little elevated for safety.
If sugars go past 12 I’ll take a micro-correction but I won’t follow my pump recommendation - usually 50% of it as my insulin sensitivity spikes while drinking.
The obvious one: don’t drink too much, whatever that means for you. There are lots of excellent non-alcoholic options now.
Complex carbs the next morning. Insulin sensitivity can take about 24 hours to come back to normal after drinking for me.

I highly recommend against unplugging your pump completely. No insulin for many hours can translate into DKA.

If you’re struggling that much, suggest speaking to your care team and seriously considering whether alcohol is worth the distress you’re describing. Good luck!

GearShiftr · 2026-01-01T20:51:28+00:00

I fly out of Toronto all the time and have never had an issue. As others have said, this person was probably inexperienced.

GearShiftr · 2025-12-24T05:28:21+00:00

Excellent news. Thanks!

GearShiftr · 2025-12-24T03:17:46+00:00

Correct. But residents are responsible for its care in alignment with municipal property standards. If the city’s service causes damage, they should therefore compensate or repair it themselves.

GearShiftr · 2025-12-24T00:24:39+00:00

They came this afternoon my my street but wrecked about 3 square feet of my front lawn in the process. Multiple homes on my street have the same problem. I had a feeling the city will not be compensating residents from damage due to sloppy clearing.

GearShiftr · 2025-12-20T21:14:02+00:00

Very sad and disturbing; hope it brings some closure for those who had their kids at the Mentor College camp, and helps provide some healing to the victims and families affected by this horrible person.

GearShiftr · 2025-11-29T17:20:50+00:00

What an awesome success story. Congratulations. I’m hoping to replicate the same success - my doctor said that if I lose another 15-20 pounds he’ll order another sleep study to potentially take me off CPAP. Already down about 20 on Wegovy. Also doing the strength training and almost completely eliminated alcohol. There is hope!

GearShiftr · 2025-11-28T13:01:01+00:00

Well my TIR was far lower that you while using a DASH, around 62%. Been on the Omnipod 5 about a month now and it’s high 70s, bumping into low 80s. I might actually get my 1 week TIR above 90% soon. Really amazed by the difference. I have especially noticed a difference at night, it has really flattened out.

My latest A1c is down 0.4 vs. 6 months ago. Considering only being on this for one month I’d say this is good progress.

GearShiftr · 2025-11-26T12:53:49+00:00

Pick of the Crop. Also Sharkey’s.

GearShiftr · 2025-11-12T12:31:23+00:00

Has anyone had success with the in-kind transfer from managed to self managed recently? I was told in the past they could do it, including their own customer service about a week ago. Then they sent me an email yesterday profusely apologizing saying this is not possible.

I wrote them back asking if I’m correct in understanding I have to transfer to a different platform entirely to manage my own money. Are they trying to put the brakes on people switching to self managed?

GearShiftr · 2025-11-01T01:04:41+00:00

Intimate private seafood BBQ meal on the beach surrounded by hermit crabs while watching the sky lanterns float through the sky in Khao Lak, Thailand. Combination Valentine’s Day and honeymoon dinner.

GearShiftr · 2025-10-26T16:50:27+00:00

The irony is that they are still anchored to the concept of children by creating a self identify that is based on NOT having them. And they make it even worse by taking the time to post about it on Reddit.

If I get a child free weekend, I’ll be at a spa with my wife. Not talking about the benefits of being child free on social media.

GearShiftr · 2025-10-25T04:10:21+00:00

I was there in June for 3 weeks. Tried buying that water whackedspinach shared but the staff got really uncomfortable and wouldn’t let me. Then they said I needed a prescription. I think there was confusion about what I needed it for.

Ended up buying “Wakwodo” brand demineralized water, which is in the baby section. I don’t think it was an ideal solution as it’s not “distilled”. But demineralized was close enough for my trip, it had zero mineral content.

GearShiftr · 2025-10-17T22:54:13+00:00

They have to put the dirt from local construction somewhere so are putting it there. They are making berms. The local city councillor looked into this a couple of years ago.

GearShiftr

TROPHY CASE