Wednesday, February 26, 2025 / 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Location: in-person: Library Learning Commons (2nd floor)
Virtual: Meeting ID meet.google.com/xic-kxmq-neb
In Attendance: 11 Voting members present: Sheryl Gray, Kelly Maggirias, Laura Casquenette, Heather Rogers, Scarlett Barnaby, Marilyn Madjarian, Corey Carter, Kosta Arvanitopoulos, Sarah Hathaway, Janet Shulist, Jen Snooks for teacher rep. Online: Kristy Spiropoulos, Liliana J,
Agenda
- Land Acknowledgement – Corey Carter- Co-chair
- Approval of last meeting’s minutes - Marilyn Madjarian– Secretary
- Minutes approved by Laura and seconded by Corey
- Establishing of Meeting Norms - Sheryl Gray
- Teacher report – Jen Snooks
- Primary Literacy Night- very successful this evening, about 75 families, take home bags for all, good positive feedback.
- Sports: Intermediate Boys and Girls Basketball, Junior Boys and Girls Basketball team. Areas on Friday.
- Athletic Council: Intramurals-P/J/I -Pickle Ball, Basketball, Hockey,
- Student Leadership: Office Helpers, Morning Announcers, Lunch Monitors, Athletic Council, Youth S.P.A.C.E., Indian Student Association
- Clubs: Drama, Eco Club, Lego Robotics Club, Doodle Club, Student Newsletter, Art Club, Games Club and Math Club (for Grade 1 and 2 students)-student led, STEP Dance club, Matilda, Yearbook committee, Book club (Grade 3-8). Lots of student involvement.
- Hawk’s House - continues to be busy with student activities at both recesses
- Principal’s Report - Sheryl Gray
- Parking lot update – We are working on improving parking lot safety, communications going home to guardians, asking for families not to double park to drop off as it is a major safety concern. We have seen some improvement. 4 staff members are out in the morning along kindergarten fence area, to help guide kindergarten and grade 1 children safely to their classroom so the parents can continue on through the flow knowing someone is helping their child.
- If Kindergarten parents want to escort their child to the gate, they should be parking on side streets to do so. (Laura and Lindsey)
- Sheryl: the ideal situation is that there is a clear drop off zone with teachers in place to help. - Exit area- is it possible to make it a right turn only, or have a staff member there, for safe flow of cars, and students crossing safely? (Heather)
- Sheryl: Staff members have been there morning and afternoon, they can’t direct traffic, but they can help students cross the road safely. The goal is to get a no left turn sign in, and then having the community see and adjust their driving. We are fixing and monitoring as we go, and we are moving in the right direction in a complex situation.
- Phase 2: Starts on Monday (March 3rd )
- Sheryl and Kelly will give a printed image to kids to take home that parents dropping kids off for grades 4-8 park on side streets, not doing drop off line.
- Will the cars beside kindergarten stop “parking” (Laura)
- Sheryl: Yes, we have already seen improvements as we have 4 familiar staff members helping to guide their kids to their class safely and parents can continue driving through the flow.
- How does after school pick up time look? (Shai)
- Sheryl: A bit of a flow, but it’s not great. People are less stressed after school, but it still needs some work. No left turn sign will help down the road.
- Graduation Composite Photo- request for funding
- Moving forward all grad composites will be paid for, not by the families, but by the school. It’s around $1200 for this year, but there was no previous plan in place for this. The request was sent out, there were some in agreement and some not. This year, the request is that we were using school generated funds for this $1200.
- So far, $1,000 has been set aside for the grad committee from school council. (Heather)
- Q:Is this an equity issue? How are we sponsoring any kids who need costs covered (Lindsey)
- Sheryl: No families have come forward yet for support outside of the $1,000 contribution. Fundraising is more specifically for the graduation celebration, which changes year to year depending on what the vision is of the grad committee. This year, the general fundraising is all being done by school council. School generated= non-board funds- All funds are not raised by school council, done by the school directly.
- This school has never done that (Laura).
- They didn’t need to, because council raised so much (Lindsey)
- Sheryl: Board funds gives you an operating budget, to take care of day to day needs – classroom resources, photocopying, etc.
- Q:Right now- all funds to cover the composite are being requested from school council. If we say no to the request, how will we pay for this composite?
- Sheryl: We will use the operating budget.The idea is that if the school continues in the current model where there is no fundraising outside of council, it will be brought up and voted on then. With our lower kindergarten numbers, it will be a lower cost as the years go.
- Q: Issue of precedence- if we do it this year, we should do it every year moving forward then? (Shai)
- Previously, the fundraising was understood that the funds go towards the school, vs not giving ‘gifts’ – like the photo, and the volunteers are feeling disappointed that this hard work and money is being directed to individual students vs the whole school. (Laura)
- Sheryl: When we look at how to look at school generated funds, we want to look at board policy. This issue is not outside of board policy on what this can be used for. Legislation says, funds cannot be used to purchase textbooks, no educational resources, etc. We are not in violation of legislation by doing this.
- We were carrying over funds for a capitol project before, but the amount carried to this year is high (Laura, Heather, Sarah)
- This is a general feeling of upset that people wanted to be able to vote as this was a change from previous years (Laura) Sheryl: Next year needs to take all different fundraising options into account, some restructuring needs to take place to work towards the common goal of the school.
- It would be important to note going forward as a school, that the fundraising can be divided between the school and school council, so admin can make decisions without running it past council, but then also grade 8’s can feel proud of the fundraising they’ve done, and school council has its own goal. (Meaghan)
- Sheryl: We can raise a vote for this now, if we are ready to vote?
- Vote: Bring a motion to fund or not fund a graduation composite for this year (Brought forward: Keziah, Seconded: Heather) Yay/ For: 6 voting members Nay/ Against: 5 voting members 6 yays, it is passed. Not unanimously. Noted by Sheryl.
- Parking lot update – We are working on improving parking lot safety, communications going home to guardians, asking for families not to double park to drop off as it is a major safety concern. We have seen some improvement. 4 staff members are out in the morning along kindergarten fence area, to help guide kindergarten and grade 1 children safely to their classroom so the parents can continue on through the flow knowing someone is helping their child.
- Committee Updates:
- Fundraising -Shai
- Lunches – new lunches next term are out, introducing bubble tea (a big draw for older kids especially) Bubble Tea ($6.25, same as smoothies)
- Winter Ball- went really well, 300 snack packs sold ahead of time, and lots sold the day of. Great feedback from kids and staff. Great support from volunteers.
- Lots of cookies leftover, being sold on Friday’s, about a box and a half left.
- Graduation Fundraising Committee - Heather
- Making good progress, location is booked- Sleepy Hollow, red black and gold décor, Hollywood walk of fame, red carpet, welcome drinks, buffet dinner- meat and vegetarian options, candy bar. Ceremony is at SDSS, then over to Sleepy Hollow to celebrate.
- Fundraising initiatives -ring pops and popcorn sales- student run, working on a movie night to come for families (Pizza, popcorn, in the gym), working on a Spring Fling dance idea, as well as baskets fundraising by grade 8s. All different donations into the baskets, and there will be a raffle for that through school cash online. 1 for $2, 3 for $5 and up from there. Hoping to have that start after March Break. (Keziah)
- Rummage sale- will be student led- Grade 8 students to bring in 1-2 items to be sold in the gym during the day and evening (Aprill 9 th ) before school council. Like a garage sale at school, items are being brought in by grade 8 students. Everything is being prepared for.
- Idea: A punch card for kids -rather than coins- for them to bring and use at popcorn/ring pop sales (Janet)
- Let us know dates so we can collaborate and not cross over in sales and activities (Shai). -Yes absolutely, maybe we can do a shared calendar or shared timeline. We would be open to communicating and making it successful for both committees and the school. We have never done so many initiatives at the same time in 1 year, usually just 1 or 2 fundraisers per year with lunches (Heather)
- So many lunch options are because parents have asked for them repeatedly (Kristy) -It’s great, we just need to collaborate scheduling and not to burn parents out financially. (Heather) -These pop up lunches are a great option, pop it up on school cash online, and it will be successful. Eg: Harvey’s or Hot dog day etc (Laura)
- Constitution and By-laws (Sarah)
- Email was sent out to council members with the mission statement. Constitution and By-laws are finished already, Sheryl has them now to look over. We’d like to have it finished up by the next meeting to present to committee. The main thing for everyone to have input on is the mission statement, as it represents our school community. We got a copy of the old constitution from Heather R.
- Polling the group, is there a need for better communication of information of student council, somewhere to store all of this information for people to access? (Janet )
- Sarah and Janet included a list of roles and voting members etc. annexed on the bottom of the documents. This should be something that is easily accessible from current and 7 previous years for the Wendat community to find. Any questions, changes, etc for the statement? (Sarah)
- Academic achievement point, we would like to see funds put towards helping our kids grow academically (Laura and Lindsey)
- Change “parents” to “families” (Meaghan)
- Send it out so that council members can make comments on the pdf or Word doc, or reply back by email so that everyone has the opportunity to look through and improve the statement by next meeting. No major changes from the board’s template. (Janet)
- Fundraising -Shai
- Treasury Report - Kosta Arvanitopoulos - Treasurer
- See Treasury Report for detailed list of expenses, fundraising money, etc
- To note: Play structure is still under warranty – don’t need to allocate $10,000 as we thought for any repairs etc. But will keep this in mind for years to come
- Other Business & Q&A:
- Communication to community:
- What made council move to a set number of voters vs town hall model? The topic of graduation composite and how funds are being spent. We have a large parent community who is volunteering in the background, and there isn’t much communication to the community about the votes and what is happening. How does a parent in the community voice their opinion, or feel heard on a topic. (Lindsey)
- Sheryl: in September meeting, we voted on format of council moving forward. Challenge with town hall is we need to establish a total number of quorum. Things were unclear about previous by law and constitution in place or not, so we referred to the board’s suggestions in handbook for council. Then beyond that, we decide on how many voting members for quorum. There was no Constitution in place about town hall model previous, so it was discussed in September to create.
- To zone in on this conversation, how do we revisit the conversation of council model? – that would be next year when this council is dissolved. This can be revisited then. Communication is the key, we need to share with community.
- There’s been a huge shift in communication and voting this year with the new model. (Lindsey and Laura)
- Sheryl: In September this can be revisited and changed. We want to determine can we engage in a better information model where everyone is sharing information. IE: What else needs to happen with communicate after the parent council meeting.
- Facebook group can be helpful to communicate, is there another way besides this to effectively share information? (Keziah)
- The last two years communication went out in the weekly, and on the FB Group, so that anyone who wanted to add anything to the agenda to email Laura or myself. Then we would add them to the agenda. This year only the voting members get a say of the agenda. (Kristy)
- Sheryl: We will continue this discussion in the consideration of time, and we can put information (Meeting Minutes and Treasury Report) in the weekly, and get the agenda out in a timely manner to allow for the community to be heard and have the opportunity to come and have a voice.
- Can we add a bullet point to the agenda about helping academics do better, using fundraising from council. What do we need to fundraise for to get more math and science into the school. (Laura) Sheryl: We are very restricted about what we can do as council for the classroom.
- Communication to community:
- Other Business
- On an aside: Please note to the staff that the parent council appreciates all the staff participation, it was a great night. (Lindsey)
- STEM night: Sarah STEM night- what are the date options. April 30 th? May 7 th? April 9 th and 10 th is rummage sale, 23 rd is movie night (Heather) Looks like leaning towards May 7 th is better.
- Move to adjourn- Corey 8:47pm, seconded by Marilyn