General Meeting Minutes - Wednesday January 28, 2015



NVPAC General Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

7:00 pm Mountainview Room, ESC, 2121 Lonsdale Avenue 

Chair:  Jane Lagden Holborne (Sutherland)

NVPAC Attendance: Jane Lagden Holborne, Karen Nordquist, Homa Sorooshi, Debra Dennehy, David Whitehead, Amanda Nichol, Deborah Johnstone, Heather Skuse

Attendance: 20

Guests:  Carol Sartor - Safe Routes Advocates, Harvey Kooner – ICBC, Tom Walker – North Shore Safety Council.

Schools Represented:  Argyle, Braemar, Brooksbank, Canyon Heights, Cleveland, Highlands, Lynn Valley, Montroyal, Norgate, Queensbury, Ridgeway, Seycove, Seymour Heights, Sutherland, Upper Lynn, Westview

Regrets: Carson Graham

Call to order 7:05

7:06 Approval of Nov minutes: moved: Amanda Nichol, seconded: Birte Hunter, all in favour, carried

7:08 Board budget discussions: next two Finance and Facilities standing committee meetings, the board is seeking input on the 2015/16 budget. NVPAC would like to know from PACs what budget suggestions NVPAC should be putting forward to the district.

7:12 Treasurer's Report: have been getting requests for grants but we still have some available. Please include PAC name and address and nature of request when you email us with requests.

7: 15 BCCPAC report: AGM coming up, please contact Debra Dennehy if you are interested in voting information and proxies. NVPAC will try to coordinate attendees within families of schools. If you have paid directly to BCCPAC for registration send the receipt to us so we can reimburse your PAC.

7: 20 3 speakers: Traffic Safety

Harvey Kooner - Road Safe - ICBC Youth Strategies.  Harvey.kooner@icbc.com

Harvey is the road safety coordinator locally to promote awareness campaigns, including enforcement and different ICBC campaigns

·         78% of crashes are human error based. Education is key.

·         Road accidents are #1 killer of children in BC

·         Resources are available from ICBC for traffic safety education in schools and other stakeholders

·         Free curriculum for teachers for ages K-10 - pedestrian, cycling and road safety.

·         Presentations in high-schools

·         Approved by ministry of education

·         Gr 11-12 funding for speakers PACs on driving safety issues.

·         Up to the schools / teachers /  to request and deliver the materials

·         Cost-sharing crash reduction funding - depends on the municipality - ICBC will share a portion of the cost of safety changes for roads

Tom Walker - North Shore Safety Council.

·         Promoting safety at schools for 60 years, twice a year at elementary schools

·         Safety council is about preventing injuries

·         Promoting safe cycling, walking, longboarding and other active transport measures

·         Reduction of traffic volume and speed is critical. Don't drive if you don't need to.

·         Transit, ride share - anything to drive less.

·         Convenience should not over-rule safety when making traffic planning decisions: Need to choose safety over convenience.

·         Years of PAC effort to get 1 stop sign in at Highlands. Safety council wants to be involved in helping PACs advocate for safety. October meeting focuses on schools. 1st Thursday noon at Delbrook. Looking for different advocacy issues to help schools with road safety. Would love to help more PACs with safety issues.

·         Teaching Fall prevention at grade 2 - how to keep grandparents from falling down.

·         Offer a Bike Rodeo program for schools - teach road traffic safety in a simulated environment for schools and help kids learn how to navigate roads safety.

·         Risky play is important, kids need to understand risk learn about it the right time not avoid it. Physical literacy is important and learned through stage appropriate risk and learning. Administrators need to understand that risk is good and, unlike the US, liabilities are very limited in Canada.

·         Street Lighting is an under-promoted issue.

·         Teaching kids to walk safely and cross safely. Eye contact, walk facing traffic.

·         Slow Down, Take fewer trips. Safety Council will support PACs to make safety changes around their schools.

Carol Sartor - Safe Routes Advocates - Montroyal

·         "Walk on Wednesdays"

·         Walking to school is a way to connect with kids

·         SRA presents to council and other meetings to advocate for planning changes

·         Presents to PACs on how to increase active transportation options  and how to gather data on active participation to help prioritize District/City changes

·         SRA consultation grant to help plan around trouble areas. SRA is looking for schools to work with to improve active transportation. Application by Feb 28th if PACs are interested.

8:05 NVPAC Policy Planning: conflict of interest policy 103

There is a discrepancy in the policy with constitution. According to the constitution parents who can serve as NVPAC executive include all parents except employees of North Vancouver School District or the Ministry of Education. Policy 103 restricts any employee from any school district from representing NVPAC on school district committees. The two should match.

Discussion: Should we revise the policy 103 to match the constitution so North Van parents working in other school districts can represent NVPAC on North Vancouver School District Committees.

Karen: concerned that teachers are already well represented, having a parent who is a teacher on the committee means that parents aren't sufficiently represented. 

Deb D: they are parents first, teachers second. Having more voices is more important than having specific voices

Question: What is the norm for other districts?  we don't know

Amanda: conflict of interest process is there to deal with specific issues if they arise. No need for a blanket policy blocking everyone.

Floor: Parents voice is more important, we need to have that in meetings so parents can share their views.

Floor: We currently have a small pool of voices, enabling more people to contribute is important,

Tanya: just because you are part of the group doesn’t mean you agree with them. Should not tar everyone with the same brush.

Jane: Policy discriminates and reduces the pool of participants.

Dave: Agree with Amanda, need to apply the conflict of interest policy to specific issues and not have a blanket policy that automatically excludes anyone.

Amanda: many NVPAC policies are generally reactionary and many are inconsistent and need review, rationale behind needing them is unclear. Bigger issue is that we need more voices.

Recommendation:  Executive will take back and propose policy change for next meeting.

9:05 Parent Survey Results presentation:

David Whitehead presented the results of the 2014 parent survey. The concerns raised in the comments and the results were very similar to the first year. Consistent themes in the results and the comments were.

·         Importance of student-teacher relationship in education success.

·         Parent difficulties related to informal reporting in the classroom

·         Difficulties trying to successfully approach the school when there are issues When issues arise it can be difficult for parents to see resolution in what they consider a timely and effective manner.

Major recommendations from the survey are for NVPAC, PACs, Teachers and Administrators to work on two things:

·         NVPAC should work with teachers and administrators to define best practices concerning the informal communications process about ongoing activity in the classroom so that teachers are aware of the things parents most want to see on an ongoing basis to be able to help their children.

·         NVPAC should put together a group to work with administrators and teachers to develop best-practice guidelines to help parents understand how to approach schools and teachers if there are problems and to understand what is reasonable to expect in terms of response times and options.

9:35 Motion to adjourn

Next Meeting:   General Meeting

Topic: Self-Regulation in Students

Jan 28, 2015

7:00 pm

Education Services Centre, 2121 Lonsdale