School Council

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Rousseau School Council Meeting

Wednesday September 22, 2021

6:30pm-9:15 pm

School Council Attendees: Kim Strecker (Co-Chair); Allison Assaf (Co-Chair); Harmony Maiuk-Conti (Treasurer); April Burk (Secretary); Ms. Tammy McLaughlin (Principal); Ms. Michelle Fawcett (Teacher Representative)

Student Council Attendees: N/A

School Community Attendees: Bridget Scime; Kendra Jurkovic; Alex Wachowski; Melissa Bines; Melissa Hoppe; Tim Johnston

Meeting Summary

• Welcome – By Kim Strecker including the Land Acknowledgement by Tammy McLaughlin.
• Introductions by all of the attendees.
• Student Report –N/A
• Teacher Report – Ms. Fawcett
• Student Council Elections will be held at the end of September to nominate the student council representatives (grades 3-6) and four Student Council executives (grade 6). Includes lessons about leadership and student voice including campaigns and an election. The Student Council will include a student report at the November School Council meeting.
• No extra-curricular activities being run at this time.

 Principal’s Report

• Start of the year has involved re-establishing mask wearing and consistent adherence to public health policies. Also, a focusing on wellness activities, creating a positive identity and self-regulation strategies in all of the classes.
• 2021/2022 Rousseau School enrollment currently 240 students.
• Classroom Enrollment:
• JSA – 24 Students
• JSB – 25 Students
• JSC – 15 Students
• 1A – 20 Students
• 1/2 – 19 Students
• 2A – 21 Students
• 3A – 20 Students
• 3/4 – 23 Students
• 4/5 – 23 Students
• 5A – 24 Students
• 5/6 – 26 Students
• HWDSB Additional Support Resources assigned to Rousseau
• Specialized Learning Service Consultant (Alison Boehme)
• Excel Itinerant Teacher (Michelle Mahar)
• System LRT with a K-Focus (Alexander Hample)
• English Language Learner Support for ELL Student (Diane Kim)
• Autism and Neuro-Developmental Services Team (Anissa Hersh and Jordan Fox)
• Positive Culture and Well-Being Support staff (Nicole Alexander)
• No update on Re-organization at this time
• Learning Commons has been restored as a student accessible space. Furniture that was being stored in the room has been moved temporarily to Queens Ranger’s school until they can be returned (when Public Health allows).
• Elections
• 10 Nomination Forms were submitted for member-at-large positions.
• Reviewed the tasks of the three available positions to be filled. Full outlines can be found at: https://www.hwdsb.on.ca/rousseau/council/ under “School Council – A Guide for Members.” Brief summary includes:
• Chair or Co-Chair: Create the meeting agenda, chairing the monthly meeting, organizing fundraising, family support and, if necessary, organizing sub-committees.
• Treasurer: Track and report funds with the school secretary. Assist in summarizing what funds are available to be spent.
• Secretary: Takes meeting notes to be submitted within one-week of meeting to be posted to the website.
• Final 2021/2022 nominated and accepted candidates:
• Co-Chairs: Kim Strecker and Bridget Scime
• Treasurer: Harmony Maiuk-Conti
• Secretary: N/A- Role to be shared. Will be assigned at the beginning of each future meeting.
• Health and Safety
• Outdoor classroom consideration that would reduce risk of Covid-19 transmission.
• Required Objectives:
• Must align with HWDSB guidelines;
• Must be accepted and invited by teachers;
• It is achievable to be fundraised for quickly;
• Constructed quickly to take advantage of current moderate weather.
• Approximate/ballpark cost of class set of wood one sided picnic tables would be $600 for materials.
• Other options included camp chairs, additional armour stones, stools/buckets, or stumps to quickly create more outdoor learning opportunities.
• Barriers include shortage of storage space, staggered entry/exit, accessibility requirements health and safety of children carrying items outside, and all surfaces must be wipeable.
• School Council will establish a sub-committee to collaborate with all interested parents. The purpose of which is to plan various outdoor classroom ideas that can be presented by way of a slide show to all Rousseau teachers for feedback regarding the practicality of each idea in their classroom, via a Microsoft Form.
• Currently outdoor classroom is in a circle, but would be more desirable for teachers to have the armour stones in a horseshoe shape. Ideally there is a parent contact with a machine is available to assist with this undertaking to reduce costs of hiring a landscaper.
• Benches at the top of the hill in the junior end will be moved to basketball net area with the installation of the outdoor chalkboard.
• Additional H&S Items
• HEPA filters now installed in all classrooms at the school as a Tier 3 school
• Air flushing occurs 2 hours before student arrival and continues throughout the day
• The Public Health Department has changed required policies including those that now allow students to remove masks while outside in their cohort. Language has become more flexible regarding personal space and shared materials are now allowed for 2021/2022 school year.
• Outdoor Nutrition Breaks are not possible to be conducted outside with the current board protocols, timelines and supervisor resources.
• Volunteers are still unable to come into the school, or on the playground as per the board and public health covid protocols.
• Fundraising
• Write-A-Cheque Campaign
• Quick way to increase the available funds to achieve any of the above outdoor classroom ideas, as current available funds is negligible.
• Request donations from families of any amount they feel comfortable contributing for this specific cause.
• Will begin this campaign promptly as a generic “outdoor classroom” proposal with the specific details of the outdoor learning space(s) to follow. This will allow the funds to be available as soon as the final proposal has been approved.
• Corporate Donations of Materials/Discounts
• Approach lumber retailers that may be interested in assisting in this project.
• May be able to put a plaque on the final design to recognize the contribution.
• Fundraising Plan
• Sub-Committee will be established as part of the October meeting agenda.
• Will be responsible for creating the plan which must be completed and submitted to the HWDSB by the end of October.
• Plan must include the purpose of the fundraising and manner in which the funds will be raised.

 Financial Update

• No update
• Orange Shirt Day
• Important that it is not just a day. It is a good introduction but should be used to learn throughout the year. Includes a variety of topics such as, What is a community? What is a Country? What does it mean to say we are all people?
• Rousseau School is encouraging students to wear orange shirts on Thursday in support.
• https://www.hwdsb.on.ca/rousseau/2021/09/20/orange-shirt-day-september-30-2021/
• Grade 6’s will provide slips of orange paper other classes to create bracelets as it relates to their own classroom actives.
• Individual teachers will teach lessons based on the age and needs of their students.
• On September 20, 2021 Grade 6’s participated in an online book launch of Phyllis Webstad’s new book, “Beyond the Orange Shirt Story.”
• Grade 5/6 teachers are interested in a virtual field trip to the Woodland Cultural Centre which includes a tour of the Mohawk Institute Residential School. Cost is $8.05/student and supports the Woodland Cultural Centre.
• Other plans for supporting this learning involves having the students write letters to their local MP with their questions, thoughts or concerns regarding residential schools.

 Other Items

• N/A
• Next Meeting: Wednesday October 13, 2021

Meeting Closed at 9:15 pm

Rousseau School Council Meeting

Wednesday October 13, 2021

6:30pm-7:55pm

School Council Attendees: Kim Strecker (Co-Chair); Bridget Scime (Co-Chair); Harmony Maiuk-Conti (Treasurer); Ms. Tammy McLaughlin (Principal); Ms. Caroline Stinson (Teacher Representative)

Student Council Attendees: N/A

School Community Attendees: Alex Bojcevski; Allison Assaf; April Burk; Melissa Hoppe; Melissa Bines

Meeting Summary

• Welcome – By Kim Strecker including the Land Acknowledgement by Tammy McLaughlin.
• Attendance and September Minutes Approved.
• Student Report –N/A
• Teacher Report – Ms. Stinson
• Terry Fox Run was very successful, raising over $2,100. Historically, whole school ran at the same time, however, this year individual classes ran during a specific timeslot. All day long students were running, from 9am until after 3pm and it turned out well.
• Bennett reports that the cross-country team was a great school spirit event with over 70 students participating from grades 3-6 and a mini-meet was held at the school on Tuesday October 12^th.
• Outdoor blackboard has been installed and the round metal tables were moved down the hill under the tree basketball court. Thank you to Mr. Tony LaBelle, Sophia LaBelle’s father, for making the blackboard for the school.
• Fawcett reports Orange Shirt Day was acknowledged with orange shirts across all classes. Orange Shirt Day flags were purchased for the school fencing from a business on the Six Nations. Next steps could include connecting to indigenous voices, getting to know the people on whose territory we reside and weaving reconciling into a variety of classroom subjects in culturally appropriate ways including math, language, social studies dance etc.
• Bishop has requested school council consider funding a wooden picnic table or some other natural type furniture for the kindergarten ‘pen.’
• Sebeslav and Ms. Carte Combs have suggested that if an area was covered in the kindergarten area it would be very well used. They have also suggested that outdoor/forest school educators or indigenous educators could be invited/engaged to come and work with teachers. Outdoor Learning Does not equal learning outdoors.

 Principal’s Report

• Results of reorganization:
• Bishop returned to Rousseau to teach JSC effective October 4, 2021.
• FDK Remote Learning class has been added to Rousseau school. Miss Arbuckle was hired as the permanent educator, and Rebecca Staples as the DECE.
• Sunnucks who was an LTO, was replaced by Miss Turco in a permanent capacity.
• A tree was removed from the playground due to the unsafe state of learning.
• A white board was installed on the junior wall to extend that outdoor space.
• Area supervisor came to look at the forest vegetation and confirmed all berries were identified as non-toxic. Forest wildlife includes Riverbank Grape Bush and a multi-flora rose bush.
• In the process of obtaining more swipe-card readers for the school.
• Ideally school council can assist with funding colour-coded outdoor equipment bags for each classroom that would include balls, pinnies, beanbags, cones etc. for outdoor activities at nutrition times. These could be purchased from Flaghouse Canada at a cost of $1,751.50 for 11 classes.
• Outdoor Classrooms
• Outdoor learning slideshow was presented to staff and comment questionnaire feedback has been returned to the sub-committee for review.
• Theme of comments is a covered area/enclosure and is feasible starting point for the sub-committee to consider. Overall opinion was largely positive of the 7 teachers responding.
• Some of the concerns for moving nutrition times outdoors were bees, litter, and the staggered exit.
• Logistical concerns for outdoor teaching spaces included wind/papers, wi-fi capacity, smart boards etc. School council may be interested in assisting with the cost of wi-fi extenders or class sets of clipboards to resolve some of the concerns.
• Continue to encourage “air-breaks” where possible to use existing facilities in subjects and times, where possible.
• Ensure opportunities exist to assist teachers with this objective, including the DPA equipment bags, clipboards or other items as requested.
• Look into lightweight, portable outdoor benches.
• Sub-committee to reconvene to integrate comments into the next phase of the plan.
• Volunteer Opportunities
• Signage updates – Volunteered by Allison Assaf.
• To be updated for spirit days, school council dates etc.
• Volunteers are still limited to assisting with essential services, such as essential nutrition programs. It is encouraged to be avoided unless absolutely necessary within schools.
• Fundraising
• Donations For Outdoor Learning
• Parent letter to be approved with final revisions and will hopefully be activated on the website by Friday if board staff are able to post quick!
• Donation amounts to be confirmed, as only a finite number of spaces available.
• Language needs to be clear to minimize confusion.
• Fundraising Plan
• Initiate a Fundraising Sub-Committee.
• Will be responsible for creating the plan which must be completed and submitted to the HWDSB by the end of October 28, 2021.
• Plan must include the purpose of the fundraising, the manner in which the funds will be raised, and the expected budget of funds collected.

 Financial Update

• To be confirmed and reported at next meeting.

 Other Items

• No food programs are able to be initiated at this time, including the milk or popcorn programs.
• Photo Day is a HWDSB directive. It is not ‘cancelled’ as of yet, just postponed until Public Health directives indicates otherwise.
• Remembrance Day – Rousseau will acknowledge the moment of silence at the traditionally observed time of 11:00am.
• Next Meeting: Wednesday November 17, 2021

Meeting Closed at 7:55 pm