April NVPAC meeting summary

Thanks to all those that attended our April general meeting. These aren't the minutes but I thought I'd post a quick summary on what you missed.

1. Job Action
The BCTF has voted to withdraw all extra-curricular support as a response to the government's decision to limit contract negotiations through Bill 22. What this means for PACs is a need to work with your administrators to see understand the impacts on you schools and if you can, to see what opportunity parents may have to help out vs lose the different activities the extra-curricular support enables. Clubs, sports, sporting events, field trips and other school events will likely be impacted and only be continuing to work with your administration can you be sure of the impact. At this point its probably best to verify what will be impacted at your school.

One particular issue is the number of school trips to Outdoor School. NVTA are currently working out how the job action may impact Outdoor School events. NVTA have told me that whatever decisions are made the changes won't come into effect till May 1st, but trips after that date may be impacted. PACs should definitely be verifying the impact on this program for their schools.

2. Upcoming NVPAC AGM and Recruiting
NVPAC's AGM is coming up May 17th (at the Lucas Centre) and we are seeking parents to help us out at an executive level, am members at large and as committee representatives. We are asking PACs to please help us identify parents interested in working with us on district level issues as our team defines our ability to inform and contribute. North Van PAC represents the needs of PACs and parents to the district and the are many ways parents could contribute to this initiative.

We particularly need team members to help represent parents and report on what happens at the different District committee meetings. To keeping parents informed we need to be involved. This year the number of committee's has been reduced by the BCTF job action but there have still been discussions on new programs (soccer academy), changes to schools and learning programs (Balmoral) , covered play areas and the start of discussions on surplus land. District plans and policies are often developed through these committees and the more involved parents we have the better we can contribute to these decisions that impact students across the district.

3. Career Coaching and other Parent Education Events.
We had a very successful "Career Coaching" parent education seminar this month with 72 parents in attendance. This seminar on how parents can help coach their children in their career planning demonstrated the power of pooling our resources to offer district wide events for parents. We had to turn people away from the event and will offer it again in the fall.

Working with PACs, we would like to be able to offer this and other programs more often if we have people to help us organize. Some ideas discussed for next year included sessions on how to evaluate your child's learning styles, the school curriculum: what is it and what parents should expect at different grades. If parents are interested in helping us put together these events or others we'd be glad to put them on.

4. NVPAC Survey.
NVPAC is working on an annual district wide survey of parent satisfaction which can be used to help us and the district understand and provide more comprehensive input related to parent impressions and priorities. We are seeking parent and PAC input into the survey to ensure it is meeting their needs for information and asking the questions we think need to be asked. If parents are interested in helping us to develop this they should email chair@northvanpac.org