Thursday, September 29, 2011

Help at the Highschool

In Aug 2011 the people living off the laneway above Argyle High school hosted a meeting in the school library to discuss some of the challenges faced by the neighbours. Since the students can no longer smoke on school property groups of youth have been congregating in the nearby laneways. These groups can become rowdy and sometime the behavior is disruptive. Drug deals and fights have been observed and sometimes the smoke has a rather odd smell. For families with young kids this is even more of a concern. Other issues raised we the amount of litter and the crowds of students spilling onto the roadways and blocking sidewalks. Several people raised concerns about the elementary students being forced on the road son their way to Lynn valley School

The meeting was well attended by our local MLA, the 3 school administrators, several school board members, the RCMP and several folks from North Vancouver district. After discussing the challenges faced by everyone involved ( funding, staff availabily etc...) several actions were agreed upon: The RCMP would observe the crowd and develop a plan to deal with the drug sales. The School administration would stress the need for student leadership and more neighborly behavior. The administration would spend more of their supervisory time in this laneway area during problem times. The District would examine opportunities to clean up the laneway and make is less "private' they would also look at the pedestrian safety issue. The neighbour agreed to try to build positive relations with the students involve and would organize a clean-up/face lift of the laneways to demonstrate their care for the local environment.


Most of these action have been taken or are underway. I was really impressed with the response of the school adminstrators who not only had to take o these action but also start this school year with the labour dispute. To me this whole event was an example of the type type of partnership we want to see across the community.

As these type of issues are a regular part of living next to a high school more ideas are needed to help improve the situation. if other parents have ideas or experience please let us know.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Presidents Council Dinner

The President's council is a committee made up of the Presidents of the various School District stakeholder groups: NVPAC (Parents), NVTA (Teachers), NOVA (Principals), CUPE (Staff), Trustees, Senior Admin.

The President's Council dinner marks what has become the traditional kickoff to the year for the groups to meet and start discussing some of the larger themes the district faces in the coming year. Two years ago it was the budget challenge. Last year we kicked off the strategic planning process.

This year the focus was on how to communicate and roll out the 10yr strategic plan the district arrived at toward the end of last year. We discussed the challenge of communicating the overall framework, the supporting plans and the measurement objectives as the district begins to implement the plan. In many ways the plan recognizes many of the things already in place in North Van but in some cases needing  attention to ensure we are making the most of our resources to educate our children.

http://www.nvsd44.bc.ca/AboutUs/StrategicPlan.aspx

More will be seen of the plan and how it will be implemented and measured over the coming months but it is encouraging to see a plan and the goals the district is working towards. To start with the document opens up more questions than it perhaps answers but the more detailed action plans under development should provide greater clarity and more effective discussions for all stakeholders.

We look forward to helping the district communicate, measure and refine the plan over the coming years.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

PAC Discussion Board

Hello to all the returning and new Parents and PAC executive across the district

As we start this 2011/2012 school year NVPAC will continue blogging here but would also like to invite all PAC executive across the district to join our discussion group for PAC executive. 

At the district PAC we are often asked by school PAC executive to share discussions with other schools and to ask for the advice of other PAC executive. This discussion group is intended to foster those types of discussions and to help us to gather and share important district wide information. Questions like effective fundraisers and coordination of fundraising, Questions like good after-school care or presenters. This message board is for the PACs and we encourage you to make use of it to contact other PACs across the district as you see fit.  

We have started this discussion with a few topics of interest and have invited all the PAC executive we have contact info for. If your PAC executive or contact info have changed please let us know. If you know of others that should be part of this discussion please invite them to join us at http://groups.google.com/group/northvanpac

Enjoy the school year and we hope to have many fruitful discussions 




NVPAC General Meetings 2011-2012

All meetings, 7-9pm at Leo Marshall Curriculum Centre 


Oct 20, 2011 
Nov 17, 2011 
Jan 19, 2012 
Feb 16, 2012 
Apr 19, 2012 
May 10, 2012 


To keep up to date with our events subscribe to the NVPAC Public Events Calendar 


We hope to see you there.