School Council Minutes December 08, 2008
Meeting attendees: Lisa McHarg, Candice Baxter, Bhavisha Morphet, Sarah Thake, Gail Arruda, Doug Dunford (Principal), Tracy Carnegie, Tracy McMurter, Martha Creton, Debbie Morrow, Jennifer Lumsden( Teacher), Lori Gregory-Williamson, Ian McSevney, Vanessa Seto, Sharon Colemean, Megan Duce(Teacher), Jennifer Masuda, Leslie Masse’, Mark Torsantucci(Teacher(, Rob Dennis, Leigh Vyn, Nancy LaPointe, Kelly Russell.
Call to order 7.01 PM by meeting chair - Leigh Vyn
Move to Accept November Minutes
Move to accept November minutes. Tracy Carnegie -pu the motion forward.
Sarah Thake seconded the motion. There were no additional questions. All
voted in favour of accepting November minutes.
Treasurer’s Report
Approximately $10,000.00 currently in the account. Net out:
Funding for air conditioning unit for Computer room, approximately $2,500.00
- $3,5000.00.
Hot Dog Day Costs - $483.06 (October expenses); $142.38 per day expense
for salads, remainder were for wieners ($285.35, to last for collection
period) and misc. expenses ($55.33). First collection = $1,485.
Pizza Day Costs - $296/day; October had 3 days, therefore, $888. First
collection = $4,293.
Income: Poinsettia/Wreath Fundraiser -$1,400.00
Amount available to date: approximately $5,000.00
A binder containing all financial records of this year’s council is available upon request.
Chair Report
Milk program:
DeJong’s are not available.
Hewitt’s would be able to deliver on a Friday between 10.00 - 11.00AM.
Charge: 53 cents per carton. Investigate whether would be a minimum order
number. Chocolate milk - 53 cents + GST.
Add milk option to food day order forms starting in 2009.
Fan Out System:
This is a fan out system used in case of emergency such as no electricity,
heat or water at school.
Lists to go with children at the top of the pyramid. The next step is
for Doug to touch base with Mary to start distribution process. It was
suggested that volunteers who will be assisting in fan out calls, if required,
be provided with a guideline or document suggesting what to do in various
scenarios (i.e. parent cannot be reached; child has already left for school,
etc.).
If you are interested in helping the smooth running of the fan out system please contact Tracy McMurter tmcmurter@villageeyecare.com.
Hot Meals program:
Thank you to all those that provided feedback, however in general, there
seemed to be very little interest. This program will be set aside for
future review.
M&M C.H. Bray Support Days:
$25.00 raised. Thank you to all those who participated.
M&M Meat Shops in Ancaster donate 10% of C.H Bray staff and family
sales to our school.
Purchases made every third Wednesday of the month (excluding December).
There will be in-store specials for School Day plus regular and sale items.
Tell the store staff that you’re a member of the C.H. Bray community
prior to/ before paying.
Dates: 14 January 2009, 18 February 2009, 18 March 2009, 15 April 2009, 13 May 2009
SILENT AUCTION: May 7th, 2009.
A letter that will be sent to local businesses and organizations soliciting
donations has been drafted and reviewed by Co-Chairs of the event and
the school council executive. The letter has been drafted to be very “general”
in terms up fundraising initiatives due to the uncertainly of both school
needs and amount of funds available. The letter outlines what programs
have been supported in the past with silent auction proceeds.
Donation receipts will be available from HWDSB foundation for monetary
donations - only. Cheques should be made payable to the Hamilton Wentworth
District School Board Foundation.
(# 890896046RR0001). If you are aware of any business who may be interested
in donating to the silent auction please forward their contact information
to Lori Gregory. Any one who would like a copy of the solicitation letter
for this purpose is welcome to it. Please inform Lori Gregory which businesses
you have approached.
Christmas Concert: 18 December 7.30PM
Lisa Mcharg has contacted those who have indicated interest in helping.
Thank you.
Requests have been made for donations or baked goods, juice boxes and
napkins. If you would like to donate any of these items please bring goods
on a plastic or disposable tray to the church (Salvation Army, Stonechurch
Road, Ancaster) kitchen between 7pm - 7:15pm the night of the concert.
If you want to make a donation but cannot deliver to the church, goods
will also be taken from the school to the church - contact Bhavisha Morphet
for details.
End of Year Picnic: 11 June 2009
Update in the New Year.
Bullying:
The executive disused the idea of having someone come in from the board
to educate the parents on the topic of bullying and bullying behaviour.
The purpose of this session would be for parents to know what bullying
is, what action should be taken by them, and what actions should be taken
by the school. Leigh Vyn will contact Leslie Cunningham (board social
worker) to determine availability of someone to come for an education
session for the parents.
Mr. Dunford briefly explained, that according to the School Safety Act, the principal must investigate issues arising in both the school as well as those in the community. In addition, it is the parents responsibility to let school know about any such problems.
Bullying Behavior_ 90% so called good kids excluding others.
On January 13, 2009 there is a Safe Schools meeting. Topics include: Code
of Conduct and Bullying Tactic suggestions to help - Peer mediation. Ms.
Callacott and Ms. Arruda will be the parent representatives at the meeting.
Fundraising Report
Poinsettia Fundraiser – $1,400.00 profit made from sales. Thank you to Gail Arruda and all those who volunteered. Dozens of orders are still unclaimed. Mary Watson is kindly watering them for us.
School Clothing: Patsi Hunter - absent. Bhavisha Morphet gave us her
update.
Green and Gray will be the color option.
Adult sizes and pricing will be available.
Order forms will go out at the end of January or early February.
Cards
Children will be doing artwork in class, thanks to the support of the
teachers, that will be taken to a local printer to be done up in cards.
Artwork to be done in February 2009, with ordering and return of cards
to parents in March 2009. The paper for the artwork is being donated by
a parent.
The cards will be sold in bundles of 5 for $5.00 and parents only need
to buy their own child's artwork. Original artwork will be returned. Parents
will have the option of reordering.
.
.
Pizza
There was concern from a member of the parent community over the cleanliness
of Ancaster Pizza. Cost is 50 cents cheaper than Dominos, who was our
previous supplier. Pizza Pizza is most expensive. Candice to investigate
pricing from Cugini’s – a local establishment in Ancaster.
If pricing is not comparable, then we will investigate going back to Domino’s
who has always been a great supported of our school’s silent auction.
Air Quality:
The air in the school was tested from November . As it stands now, the
plan is to have Maria McDonagh from the board come to our meeting on January
12 to discuss results and further action.. The parent community has been
concerned about the air quality in our school for a number of years now,
and the purpose of the representative coming in Janaury is to provide
answers to some questions that the aprents have. In order to make the
meeting more efficient, and maximize the amount of good informaiton we
get, any questions that you currently have should be sent to in advance
to Leigh Vyn and Bhavish Morphet. These questions will be forwarded to
Maria so she can prepare her responses.
Jack Astor’s Family Dinner - 21 April 2009.
All day event as that is a Learning Community Day.
Principal’s Report
Movie Nights: Licence cost: $400.00. Donations and sale of food to cover
this cost.
Primary Family Movie Night, Friday 23 January
JK- Grade 3 - Parents and children to attend. Advance sign up will be
required.
Start at 6.00PM and end at 8.45 – 9:00 PM
Gym capacity sitting on the floor is 414
Next movie night after this will be, Friday 20 February Primary or Junior
depending on interest..
Third movie night will be , Friday 6 March (focus to be announced).
Questions were raised as to whether or not siblings could attend these
events and what that would mean for capacity. It was decided that Mr.
Dunford will be sending out a note to gage interest in order to determine
whether or not we could run over capacity. The idea is to split into Grades
Jk-3 and 4-6.
Other questions/issues included:
•If capacty becomes an issue, Is the highschool auditorium available?
•Will there be a sign in and out procedure?
Mr Dunford to discuss some of these thoughts with teachers and assess
interest via a survey home with the parents.Stay tuned for updates.
Website: Thank you to Lori Gregory and Andrea DeVries for assistance. The site will be unveiled in January 2009.
Air Conditioner:
The Manager of Maintenance and Energy came to Bray last week. It will
be installed in spring 2009 - $2.500.00 cost.
Literacy Week Activities: January 26-30 2009. (Jen Lumsden)
Monday: Stop and Read.
Tuesday: Smudge Fundies- Two performances (primary and junior)
Wednesday: Chapters Night - 5pm to close.
Thursday: Book Swap. Public Library will be in the school to up date cards,
mix grades. There will be individualized presentations (½ hour
slots) for different age groups.
Volunteers may be needed.
Friday: Dress up as your favourite literature character. Character Day
with Parade.
Technology:
Board concerns re: Old computers on wireless connection (in order to provide
Internet in each classroom) Work is in progress.
Pencils to support students in Haiti as part of an Ancaster Rotary initiative
Students are asked to donate pencils and perhaps sharpeners.
Air Quality Update:
The test results from the November 19th -21st tests were done under unsatisfactory
conditions (roof fans not working, several thermostats needed to be replaced,
vents built into shut cupboards for example) but not below the Ministry
of Labour’s mandated safety level. At the same time, the results
could be improved to a greater comfort level once the unsatisfactory conditions
are upgraded. Once the mechanical changes in the building have been made
(please see below), the air will be retested. The Board’s Manager
of Maintenance and the Board’s Safety Officer have both been at
Bray in the last 2 weeks.
Portapak: The air filters are scheduled to be changed regularly, 1 thermostat upgraded: 2 others will be upgraded. Stained ceiling tiles replaced; water still in portapak roof. One tile re-stained by water. Board safety team (the Board’s Officer and Lead Supervisor of Maintenance: 2 weeks ago), inspected the portapak and will need to deal with the water. The inspection also involved looking for mould. Eave troughs fixed and downspouts have been changed so they can’t be climbed. The board reported that the roof leak was caused by vandalism. Another eave trough was broken recently and will be changed.
Main building: Air fans on roof need to be on all the time. To do this, they needed to be fixed as they have not been working. One was fixed the week after the air testing. The others are in the process of being fixed. The air needs to be kept in movement. Part of this involves the windows being opened a small amount. The air intakes need to be fully functioning (i.e. the roof fans need to work) and the air vents need to be free (two rooms have the vents behind walk-in cupboards). Work orders have been placed to create openings for the vents.
The parents have requested that Don Hall -Plant manager, Corey Boyle,
Maria McDonagh, Air Quality Inspector, and Kevin Morton be at meeting
on January 12th where these issues will be dicussed. So far, the plan
is for only Maria to attend this meeting.
Please formulate any questions for this meeting and send them to either
Leigh Vyn or Bhavisha Morphet.
Response from Parents:
• Test Results. The parents were concerned that the results from
the testing done in November was not made available. Mr. Dunford had not
yet seen them either. A request was made to produce these results by the
end of the week (December 12th) so that parents could review and formulate
questions for the January meeting. There was question as to why these
results were not made available more than three weeks after the testing
was done.
• Action Plan protocols. Mr. Dunford responded that work was currently being done to the school and the air would be retested. One parent asked how we could ensure that this is dealt with in both a timely manner with communcation to the parents. It was suggested that if the results were not forthcoming then perhaps the media should be involved. Doug responded and said he would sent a note to the appropriate people asking for the results and outlining our concerns and thoughts as to next steps.
• One parent asked if the whole should would be tested when the next tests took place (the first test was limited to 6 rooms). This question will be included in the list to ask Maria.
1. Testing was done in 2001 as well as May 2007. Maria will be asked how the current results compare to these results as they were not made avilable to the parents.
How Canada’s 15 year-olds ranked internationally as a result of the Programme for Intertnational Student Assessment (PISA). (reported in MacLeans magazine November 24th, 2008)
57 countries took part in these tests focused on math, science and reading.
Canada’s 15-year olds were ranked
o 7th in the world for math,
o 3rd in the world for science and
o 4th in the world for reading.
In Canada, Ontario follows only Alberta in ranking as far as quality of education (the Economist, summer 08)
SMART Goals: this is a province-wide initiative to improve student achievement.
The Hamilton-Wentworth Board is focusing on Literacy. Bray is focusing
on Better Answers across the school to support student growth in literacy.
Here is the Better Answers framework.
Restatement
? Underline important words
? Use words from the question
Gist Answer
? Just a few words
? Hints at your answer
Details
? Connecting words, first then, next, last
? Big ideas from the text
Connections
? I remember when…
? This reminds me of…
Conclusion
o Restate the ‘restatement’
Classroom Book Lists:
Teachers are requesting more appropriately leveled books in the classroom.
The emphasis will be on non-fiction books where ever possible. These books
are specialized resources that essentially need to be purchased directly
from publishers. In addition teachers, depending on their class needs,
might request books from parents to support classroom libraries using
Scholastic Orders..
Blue Spruce/Silver Birch:
List of best quality children’s story books. Books stay in school
(the Book Room) for everyone’s’ use. A parent did communicate
that perhaps in the past years the amount of children taking advantage
of this program was dwindling. Mr. Dunford will find out how many juniors
are enrolled in the lunch time reading program for Silver Birch. Blue
Spruce books (because as primary books they are short enough to read aloud
to the students) are shared directly with the primary students.
Funding Ideas:
Parents requested more ideas/initiatives on which to spend school council
money on, other than books. Although we fully support all literacy initiatives,
in the past couple of years, the majority of council money has been spent
on literacy. We would like to investigate whether there is a need in other
areas of education such as math, science, or supplies for classrooms.
Mr. Dunford will bring back data regarding what Council money has recently
been spent on to the January 12th meeting.
Vote deferred regarding funding Blue Spruce/Silver Birch as too many people had left meeting This topic will be carried over to the next meeting
Next meeting: Monday 12 January 2009
7.00 PM 2ND MONDAY OF THE MONTH
12 JANUARY 2009
9 FEBRUARY 2009
9 MARCH 2009
6 APRIL 2009
11 MAY 2009
8 JUNE 2009
