Oct 18th General Meeting Summary

I'd like to thank all our PAC reps in attendance at our Oct 18th meeting for making it such a lively event full of discussion and interest in the areas of discussion.

Presentations

District Plans for 2012/13

We began the meeting with an introduction from our Trustee Liaison Christie Sacré followed up by a short summary of the main themes for the year from the district perspective from Superintendent John Lewis. Of these the need to re-establish the trusting relationships between the teachers and the school system that was broken up by last years labour action is a key one from my perspective. When we are unable to communicate everything becomes more difficult than it should be and it is very good to have those lines of communication open again, if needing some repair.  Superintendent Lewis' presentation was a shortened version of the one provided at the Toward the Future of Schools board meeting.

School IT Plans

Following this we had a presentation from Monty Bell, Director of Learning Services and David Jennings, Director of Information and Communications Technology on the District's efforts to raise the level of technology usage in schools through EdCamps to help teachers and others learn best practices from each other and the newly introduced school tech plans which intend to help schools match their technology needs to the educational goals in the school plans. PACs are being asked to play a role here by participating in the discussion to connect the IT equipment support we often provide to the IT needs of the school by ensuring they are matched to educational goals. This is the start of a process across the district. We have a lot to learn from each other about how this could work and it was clear from the discussion that ensued that it is the start of a lot of interesting discussions.

EdCamps and Technology Plans Presentation
School IT Plans

North Van PAC plans for 2012/13

North Van PAC has a full schedule of activity for the year with three major themes: PACs and IT, Parent Engagement and a Parent Education.

PACs and IT

PACs and IT is an effort to support the school district in the development of IT plans for individual schools. This will be a challenge for PACs as we'll be asked to tie investments we make to the school plans. From a North Van PAC perspective our efforts will focus on enabling PACs to share our best practices and possibly to pool resources and take more of a district wide look at how we are funding these practices. Expect to hear much more about this as schools work on their plans throughout the year.

Parent Engagement

As the school district has made welcome improvements in their ability to reach out directly to parents via email NorthVanPAC needs to develop new mechanisms to connect with PACs and gain an understanding of parent perspectives on school issues. With our NVPAC school liaisons we are intending to visit PACs and join your meetings more so we have a better understanding of your issues and can help you with district concerns. We are also working with the different partner groups (District, Administrators, Teachers and CUPE) on a parent survey to help us all get a better understanding of parent issues across the district.

Parent Education

Part of our role at NorthVanPAC is to help parent's better understand how to navigate the school system to support their children. Throughout this year we will be presenting a number of speakers of interest to parents. We started with our session on Parents as Career Coaches in October and will be presenting other speakers throughout the year, including Ann Whitaker in November who will be talking about how parents should advocate for their students within the school system. Within this, we will are also inviting speakers to an event later in the year where they can come and explain their services to each of our PACs. We don't know who to invite to this yet so we are looking for PACs to recommend speakers they would recommend to other PACs.

Other Discussions 

School Liaisons

Expect us to contact you and invite ourselves to meet you at your PAC meetings so we can better share district and school ideas and challenges.

District Committees

With the job action over there are a number of committees getting started again this year and we are looking for parent volunteers to represent district parents on these commitees. Please contact us if you are interested but also if you want to find out more about a committee. We had two energetic parents volunteer to represent us on the safe and caring schools committee and another step up to the emergency preparedness committee at the meeting but still need lots of help. See the page on district committees for a list of vacant positions, but even if a committee says it is full contact us as we're always in need of alternates. 

Traffic Safety

Many schools in the district suffer from traffic issues as kids travel to and from school. While the specifics are tied to the school the effort needed to address the issues is often common. Recognizing this we are looking for parents interested in working with us to develop a district-wide perspective on traffic so we can help figure out effective responses. Interested PACs should send an email to Info@northvanpac.org indicating they are interested and include contact information for their rep(s).

Anti-Bullying

Much deeper than the traffic challenges are the bullying issues in our schools and communities. How do we as parents help to manage this persistent issue. Part of the solution is resources but a large part of the solution is communication and best practices. A number of parents would like to setup a committee to look at sharing best practices surrounding this common issue and it makes sense to do this at a NorthVanPAC level. Recognizing this we are looking for parents interested in working with us to develop a district-wide perspective on anti-bullying so we can help figure out effective responses. Interested parents should send an email to Info@northvanpac.org indicating they are interested. 

BCCPAC Memberships

BCCPAC is the Provincial representative of parents to the school system and its voice is stronger if we support them. PACs should make sure their membership forms are completed and let BCCPAC know that NorthVanPAC will pay the membership fees. 

Available grants

We have grants available for Emergency Preparedness, food safe ($50/person up to 3 per school), Parent Speaker grants and Family of Schools event grants. Please let us know if you have any of these expenses coming up and we will help to fund a portion of the costs. North Van PAC will also pay for registration and other costs incurred by parents wishing to attend the BCCPAC conferences.

Upcoming Events/Speakers

Our next North Van PAC general meeting on November 15th is open to all parents, not just DPAC reps, and features Anne Whiteaker speaking how parents and PACs can work effectively within the school system to advocate for their children and schools.. Click for more information.

As the October event was over-booked we are hosting another session of the Parents as Career Coaches workshop in November. Click for more information.