Monday, November 24, 2014

November General Meeting Agenda


NVPAC
North Vancouver Parent Advisory Council

General Membership Meeting

 
Wednesday, 26 November, 2014

7:00 pm

Mountainview Room

5th floor - 2121 Lonsdale Avenue

 
Agenda:

  
1.   Call to Order, Welcome and Introductions        

 
2.   Approval of Minutes – 22 October 2014

 
3.   Guest Speakers:  Carmen Farrell and Wendy Holtan:

 
Friendship Groups

 
4.   Guest Speakers:  Cathy Jenkins and Conor McMullan:

 
Cheakamus Centre (North Vancouver Outdoor School)

 
5.   Treasurer’s Report:  Homa Sorooshi
 

6.   BCCPAC Liaison/Registrar’s Report:  Debra Dennehy


7.   NVPAC Survey Report:  Dave Whitehead
 

8.   Adjourn

 

Saturday, November 22, 2014

General Meeting Minutes - Oct, 22, 2014



NVPAC General Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, October 22rd, 2014
7:00 pm Mountainview Room, ESC, 2121 Lonsdale Avenue

Chair:  Jane Lagden Holborne (Sutherland)
NVPAC Attendance: Jane Lagden Holborne, Karen Nordquist, Debra Dennehy, David Whitehead, Homa Sorooshi, Amanda Nichol, Debra Johnstone,
Attendance: 16
(DPAC Reps & PAC Chairs):
Guests:  Joanne Robertson - Director of Instruction and Kathleen Barter from NVSD
Schools Represented:  Argyle, Braemar, Brooksbank, Canyon Heights, Cleveland, Highlands, Lynn Valley, Montroyal, Queen Mary, Queensbury, Ridgeway, Seycove, Seymour Heights,  Sutherland, Upper Lynn

7:06 Meeting called to order

7:08 Introductions by all present

711: Approval of the minutes of the May 28th, general meeting
Motion to Approve the minutes: Birte Hunter - Seycove. Seconded by  Heather Skuse - Argyle.
All in favour - unanimous, motion carried

712: Treasurer's Report: Past treasurer  Joanna Woronchak  presented the 2013/14 treasurers report
Highlights include:
·         Only 19 of 33 schools submitted expense claims for BCCPAC membership
·         NVPAC spent $3600 on conferences vs $2000 budgeted due to higher than usual interest.
·         Many grants were allocated to schools but ended up unused by those schools, while preventing other schools from getting grants - proposed process changes should address this.
·         $8819 balance
·         Motion to Accept the report as presented: Amanda Nichol - Braemar. Seconded by Birte Hunter - Seycove.
All in favour - unanimous, motion carried and report accepted.

7:31 Homa Sorooshi, current treasurer presented the draft 2014/15 Budget (see budget document)
·         Goal is to provide more grants to schools
·         Support @$250 for 5 people to each attend the BCCPAC fall and spring conferences
·         Safety grants have been under utilized  and may be cut if unused
·         Food Safe certification now only lasts 5 years.
·         New rules restrict the initial allocation of grants to 2 grants per school on a first come, first served basis. Applications are now open. All allocated funds will only be held until mid-year, at which point unclaimed grants will be made available to all schools.

Motion to adopt budget as presented: Joanna Woronchak, seconded by Debra Dennehy - Sutherland.
All in favour - unanimous, motion carried and budget adopted.

7:50 Joanne Robertson - Director of Instruction and Kathleen Barter from NVSD presented a session on the new approach to student assessment currently being rolled out in North Vancouver School District.
·         The new focus is on "communicating student learning"  Vs. the current approach of reporting grades.
·         Last year the implementation of the handbook was focussed on training admin and teachers on the new approach. The new assessment processes and now in place and are being introduced to the parents starting this year and adopted in individual schools and classrooms.
·         Joanne asked what do parents remember of assessment in their schools?
·         Overall the feedback on the current system is that there is too much mystery about what was/is expected. Which creates anxiety and fear in the classroom. The new system wishes to avoid this.
·         New Focus is on helping  students understand how they are assessed on an ongoing basis, to help them self-assess and learn from the assessment.
o    What do students need to learn
o    How will teachers and students know they've done it
o    How would the kids know they have learned it
·         New Assessment Handbook is best viewed online. The handbook is to help teachers understand what the expectations are of them for doing assessment and communicate that with teachers, parents and students.


9:00 Deb Dennehy reported on BCCPAC items of interest
·         PACs, please send us you info on whether you have registered for BCCPAC. You must register by Nov 1 for us to pay for you.
·         Fall BCCPAC conference is Nov 21-23 in Nanaimo. Grants for conference fees available.

9:05 Other announcements - Jane  Lagden Holbourne
·         Family of schools assemblies - NVPAC is trying to get schools in different families of schools connected to work together and will take time in future meetings to enable better FOS connections.
·         NVPAC is planning an outreach to PACs to talk to PAC exec or at PAC meetings in order to better communicate with our member school PACs
·         NVPAC presentations , we would welcome speaker or topic suggestions  for our meetings
·         PAC Communication Guidelines now approved, please use them as the school administrators are now familiar with the published guidelines for parent / PAC communication
·         Next month - presentation on the outdoor school, reports from BCCPAC conference.

9:21 Motion to adjourn

Next Meeting:     General Meeting
Nov 26, 2014
7:00 pm
Education Services Centre,
2121 Lonsdale Avenue

Sunday, November 9, 2014

School Trustee Election 2014 - Candidate Q&A responses

On Thursday Nov 6th, NVPAC hosted an all-candidates meeting and we were able to hear from 18 of the 19 City and District candidates running for school trustee in the November 15th election. Unfortunately Bobbi-Lynn Nestor was unable to join us due to illness in the family.

At the meeting we asked questions to respond to a mix of questions that we provided to them ahead of the meeting, and to audience questions collected prior to the start of the event.

List of NVPAC Prepared Questions
List of Audience Questions

Over the 2 hours of the event, we were able to ask a wide variety of prepared and audience questions on education topics during the meeting and were able to give all the candidates a good opportunity to represent themselves and what they stand for if elected to be a school trustee.

All Candidates Meeting Video

For those that would like to hear from your candidates we have made the entire event available on YouTube. We would like to thank Amanda Nichol for shooting the video and Shane Nelson for his help publishing it on YouTube.

Nov 6th School Trustee All Candidates Meeting - Event Video

Written Responses to NVPAC Questions

We gave each of the candidates the option to have us publish written responses to the questions we asked of them. The responses they provided are linked below.

City Candidate Responses

Megan Higgins
Tanya Lahulek
Bill V. Papandreou
Christie Sacre
Susan Skinner
Mary Tasi
Antje Wilson

 

District Candidate Responses

Edward Desaulniers
Yael Drinkle
Barry Forward
Cyndi Gerlach
Dave Jackson
Susan Lockhart
Kelly Muirhead
Shane Nelson
Bobbi-Lynn Nestor
Heather Skuse
Jessica Stanley
Franci Stratton



Wednesday, October 22, 2014

All Candidates Meeting


North Vancouver Parent Advisory Council

presents the


2014
 SCHOOL TRUSTEES ALL CANDIDATES MEETING


for the 2014 Municipal Election
 
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Sutherland Secondary School Theatre
1860 Sutherland Avenue
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
 
Doors open at 6:15 pm
 
 
Limited seating; please RSVP to rsvp@northvanpac.org


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Agenda For October 22 General Membership Meeting


NVPAC

North Vancouver Parent Advisory Council

General Membership Meeting

 Wednesday, 22 October, 2014
7:00 pm

 
Mountainview Room
5th floor - 2121 Lonsdale Avenue

Agenda:

 
1.   Call to Order, Welcome and Introductions        

2.   Approval of Minutes – 28 May 2014

3.   Treasurer’s Report – Joanna Woronchak and Homa Sorooshi: 

          a)   Approval of Financial Statements at 30 June 2014
          b)   Approval of Budget for 2014/15

 4.   Guest Speakers:  Joanne Robertson, Director of Instruction, and
                               Kathleen Barter, District Administrator: 


 5.   Registrar’s Report and BCCPAC Report – Debra Dennehy

 6.   Family of Schools Assemblies

 7.   Adjourn

 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Upcoming Meetings and Events

NVPAC General Meetings:
 
Our General Meetings are on the 4th Wednesday of most months throughout the school year.  Please refer to our Meetings page for the exact dates.  All parents are welcome to attend our General Meetings, regardless of whether or not they are the District PAC Rep for their school.   In addition to a business meeting, we typically have a speaker on a topic of interest to parents of school-age children and youth.  Our October 22nd meeting will include a presentation by school district personnel Joanne Robertson and Kathleen Barter on the District's Assessment Handbook, and our November 26  meeting will feature a presentation on Outdoor School - now known as the Cheakamus Centre.  An agenda will be posted closer to the date of each meeting.

All-Candidates Meeting:
 
Municipal elections are coming up on Saturday, 15th November.  See the City of North Vancouver and District of North Vancouver election websites for details of polling places and candidates' names.
 
NVPAC will be hosting an All-Candidates meeting for the candidates for School Trustee during the first week of November.  Watch for more information coming shortly regarding the date, location and time of this event.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Parents have the strongest voice in advocating for their children

The following is the text of an email message sent earlier today:

Dear PAC Chairs and DPAC Reps,
Please forward this message to your parent communities.
 
The role of NVPAC is to represent parents in the North Vancouver School District.  In addition, we have a duty to assist parents in informing themselves regarding educational issues.  In light of the current labour dispute affecting our schools, we hope to ensure that all parents in our school district have access to information that will assist them in advocating for their children.
 
The following are links to a number of sources, together with a link to the key group that represents parents:
While the Executive of the NVPAC recognizes that there is no clear consensus amongst parents in our district as to the best way to resolve the current situation, we have heard a strong message from parents that their children need better supports in place to assist teachers in educating the diverse needs in our classrooms.
 
Parents are the primary advocates for their children.  It is important for parents to recognize that their opinions matter.  The NVPAC Executive believes that the individual voices of many parents are needed to make a difference in this dispute, and we urge you to make your opinion heard by contacting:
Parents who are unsure who their MLA is may find the MLA Finder helpful. 

Regards, 
The Executive of North Vancouver Parent Advisory Council
 
Jane Lagden Holborne, Chair                                    Susanne Till, Member-at-Large
Karen Nordquist, Vice-Chair                                      Mike Sexsmith, Member-at-Large
David Whitehead, Secretary                                      Deborah Johnstone, Member-at-Large
Debra Dennehy, Registrar                                         Amanda Nichol, Member-at-Large
                                                                                   Heather Skuse, Member-at-Large