Meeting Minutes: Jan 22. 2013 General Meeting (draft)

NVPAC General Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, January 22nd, 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, Joanna Woronchak, Mike Sexsmith, Amanda Nichol

Regrets: Deborah Johnstone, Alex Best,

Attendance: 18

(DPAC Reps & PAC Chairs): 14

Guests: 

Schools Represented:  Blueridge, Braemar, Brooksbank, Canyon Heights, Cleveland, Handsworth, Larson, Mont Royal, Queensbury, Ross Road, Seycove, Seymour Heights, Sutherland

1.   Welcome & Introductions:  Jane Lagden Holborne called the meeting to order at 7:08pm

2.   Approval of Minutes: Debra Dennehy (Queensbury), Seconded by Amanda Nichol (Braemar), moved that the minutes of the Nov 2013 General Meeting minutes be accepted as written.  All in favour; carried.

3.   Upcoming Parent Involvement Opportunities

Jane listed a number of events of interest to parents that the district is hosting in the near futur including the Feb 4, March 11 Finance and Facilities meetings, budget discussions, and the calendar survey

4.   PAC registration Update: Debra Dennehy reported that we now have contact info for all 32 schools. Please keep this information up to date. May 29th BCCPAC spring conference (new date). Proposed resolutions deadline recommended to be circulated by Jan 30^th to be able to be circulated for discussion beforehand.

5.   Treasurers Report:  Joanna Woronchak:

$115 left in gaming account. $6000 in other accounts. FOS grants for Handsworth, Windsor and Sutherland? BCCPAC  we only have 14 receipts for reimbursement so far. All speaker and spring conference grants are now allocated. PACs, should please submit their receipts so we can reimburse them.

Discussion of how to manage requests so early movers don’t end up consuming the entire budget. Options disussed: Limit # of grants to 1 per school until a certain date.  Possibly more justification. Consideration of need. Bottom of list following year.

6.   School Calendar Steering Group Report: Karen Nordquist

3 Options under consideration

·         No longer a provincial standard

·         Starting to experiment this year with addition of collaboration time

·         No consensus within the meeting

·         Option A – combines spring break and Easter. Adds 10 minutes a day to the calendar because of the teacher contract. Inconsistency between school districts is an issue, especially for teachers with kids in other districts

·         Option B – goes with the 1 week holiday

·         Option D – closer to the Vancouver, WV, etc otherwise but means Easter and Spring Break separate. Teachers prefer D

·         30 day comment period starting soon, will be announced via school connects.

·         Teachers really find value in the collaboration time.

7.   Parent Services Role for School PACs: Mel Montgomery

Mel Montgomery discussed her experience as a “parent services” representative for Cleveland PAC. As an example of best practice in engaging with parents.

Next month’s event will be on best practices for advocating for your child at the school

•       Creating more inviting PACs

•       Welcome to Cleveland program –

•       Getting volunteers is hard, always the same people

•       Why would someone volunteer? For every action there is a reaction. Most correspondence is general – the school as a whole – needs to be more 1 on 1 interaction to make it personal and done on an ongoing basis

•       Starts with the kindergarten tour, introduce the people on the PAC and how parents are involved, all the activities, show the parent pride in the school and the parent engagement.

•       Participate in the tour to offer information on the schools in the tour.

•       Start the contact there and keep the contact going. Invite people to contact you individually.

•       Kindergarten orientation

•       Meet the parents, introduce them to each other, get their contacts, start the conversation, build the community.

•       Give them more information than they need from the start, all the practical things they need to know to orient themselves to the new school. Provide the information over the summer.

•       Demonstrate the relationship with the administration

•       Summer Socials – at the school playground with the kids

•       Get to know the parents, get them to know each before school starts/

•       Give them the parking info before they first show up – where can they park!

•       Setup the walking school bus

•       3^rd session to introduce the school and Where to go on the first day of school ahead of time and how to navigate the school. Good time to hit them with the volunteering, especially in the classroom.

•       Kindergarten is for learning about the volunteering opportunities not the year to hit them with the main volunteer roles.

•       Same thing for new families

•       Become a trusted representative for them in the school.

•       They become unable to be anonymous on the playground and very willing to volunteer.

8.   Draft Parent Services Handbook – Mike Sexsmith

30 minute session to identify best practices for PACs to raise parent engagement.

9.   Meeting adjourned at 9.28 pm.

Next Meeting:     February 22, 2014

7:00 pm

Education Services Centre,

2121 Lonsdale Avenue