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.

http://www.sd44.ca/Board/Meetings/2013_14/Documents/CommunicatingStudentLearning20140121.pdf

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