Meeting minutes 2025.01.15
1. Land acknowledgement
2. Move to approve last meeting’s minutes: Kristy and Kazia.
3. Items:
a. Establishing meeting norms. Janet and Sarah working on the norms for behaviour for meetings. Sheryl presented a sample. Norms about how spend time together, our goals, how do we govern the conversation (respectful conversation). What topics are appropriate/inappropriate. Are the sample norms appropriate?
i. Heather: we have done this in the past. I will search for the norms and send. Heather will send over.
b. Treasury report: Kosta
i. Play structure: Regarding allocating funds in case of emergency, we have Learned that the warranty is strong. 10 years. I do not feel there is a need for extra funds until 10 years out. Fundraising looks good. We should have a good amount set aside after everything is spent. $10,000 to $15,000 as a buffer. We need $41,000 to cover the full year. And we are already there.
ii. Laura, Heather: Freshii and subway are doing well.
iii. Discussion about food.
1. Subway has been very good. Veggie stub will be cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce + cheese moving forward. Subway is providing individual packets for condiments.
2. Freshii, not much change after the responsive constructive feedback (Laura and Kristy).
3. Hotdogs, Laura has the projected numbers in case we want to do that
c. Teacher report
i. Today had jr. girls and boys: sold Gatorade and chips, students loved that.
ii. Intramural sports at recess are starting
iii. Office helpers, morning announcers. Grade 4 and 5s going on the announcements.
iv. Lunch monitors; intermediate students in the younger classes.
v. YOUTH SPACE: winter ball, debate team, some of the intermediate students want to make a hawks lounge in the library, so they can create a space they can set up. Indian student association, started a couple months ago, different activities, open
to all students, inviting. Youth Space is a club where the students can create their own clubs.
vi. Clubs: drama, reach for the top, eco club, Beyblade, sketching, Lego robotics, club creativity, doodle club, student newsletter.
vii. Hawks house always open during recess.
viii. Tamil Dance club (started by a junior students. Grades 2, 3, 4 focus, they are loving it.
ix. Free throw contest, then winners from each class, and girls and boy from each grade went to St. Brendan for final
x. Grade 8 games. Fun for them to have a day to compete with other classes.
xi. Biinaagami Floor map. Student learning about Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes during library time. How First Nations viewed the territory.
xii. Environmental Leadership Mentoring Conference. Went on a trip to develop leadership skills.
xiii. Feedback from Multilingual Language Learners night. Step 1 and step 2 families (of 6). The focus. Wanted to learn about resources they can use at home. Evening of Feb 5 in library Ms. Cocker and I will provide tools families can use including game sea d online activities that they can use as a family to connect home language to English. Developing a partnership.
d. Principal’s report: Sheryl Grey.
i. School improvement plan: Developing a strategic plan for improving student experiences at school. The focus of the plan is to identify areas of growth to keep making our school the best it can be. Areas to target for growth.
ii. EQAO data on par with other schools across the province in Reading and Writing. Difference between Wendat and the board is in Math. 27 and 41 (Grade 3 and Grade6) not meeting Level 3 in Math on EQAO. So math is the focus for the rest of this year.
1. Developed goals in collaboration with staff and community: staff will engage in ongoing professional learning in Math teaching (Math UP Student; tools and manipulative; question; pedagogical and instruction planning.
2. Giving staff opportunity and time to further collaborate on supporting math skills in students.
3. Building thinking classrooms within the comprehensive math program. Collaborative work for students on addressing
math problems to develop confidence in problem solving. Thinking was low at Wendat (problem solving math)
4. Special education: staff keeping understanding of Universal Design for Learning. Creating ramps for all kids. Providing skills to all children plan lesson to address the needs of the whole and provide multiple entry points for understanding for all students.
5. Staff will implement the strategies outlined in the YRDSB Waterfall Chart - How processing affects learning. If a student is having difficulty with this, then do this, this and this. Prescribed strategies to support students with different learning challenges. Particularly with regards to processing.
6. This process will take time to fully actualize (1 or 2 years) iterative process. Will adjust the plan as needed.
7. Discussion
iii. Health and wellbeing data: students expressed they generally feel belonging. A noted reduction of visits to the office when engaged in purposeful activities. Kids are busy in clubs and hawks house, staying out of conflict. EQAO, correlation between student overall happiness and academic performance, particularly math.
1. Increase in student voice and choice activities.
iv. Human rights and inclusion: some students cause harm to others through racial slurs and stereotypes; build student and staff capacity to interrupt and name incidents of hate and discrimination.
1. Increase racial literacy.
v. Discussion:
1. 5 day calendar, can the clubs be added to the Wendat weekly? Maybe we can list the clubs and the list of the days they typically occur.
2. Can we add announcements to the weekly newsletter? We will list the clubs on a poster somewhere in the school.
3. Collaborative problem solving program. Sarah will explore
vi. Instead of the project Canoe, we will have the Sewing Studio week of May 12, they bring 30 sewing machines and every student in the building make a sewing project in the time they are with them. Hands on learning, and discussion of issues. Highly recommended by the grant approvers. Former students have developed their own businesses based not hat experience. We have redirected the funds from Council from the Canoe project to
Sewing studio. Every student gets this experience and it will happen May 12.
e. Fundraising committee:
i. Campaign opportunities
1. Direct donations?
2. Partner with a pizza company for a point of sale donation?
3. Cookies/cookie dough sale?
4. Valentines day dance-a-thon?
a. Cookie grams?
b. Glow sticks?
c. Bracelet with LED light?
5. Summer movie night?
6. Gift Card vendor FUNSCRIPT or FLIPGIVE
a. Buy a gift card through the vendor and will provide donation to Wendat
7. Salt home delivery?
8. Auctions connected to events?
9. School Cookbook?
a. Multicultural, April to May timeline
f. Grade 8 Graduation committee
i. Haven’t quite started fundraising, but will soon!
1. Popcorn and ring pops
ii. Currently have $1000.00 from Grad Council.
iii. Grad trip to Niagara Falls will be approx. $200-250/student
iv. Ceremony will be at the high school
v. Looking for a location for post-grad celebration dinner /dance June 19th that is around $25-30/ person and is pre-approved by the YRDSB.
1. Available locations:
a. Sleepy Hollow ($45/person)
b. Oakview Terrace?
c. Spring Lakes?
2. Locations already booked that day:
a. 19 on the Park
b. Meadowbrook
vi. Discussion and suggestions
g. Constitution and Bylaws
i. Not able to locate previous constitution. In upcoming meetings will review 5 of the sections at each meeting (15 total sections). If
anyone has strong opinions on the sections. A week before will share a draft version.
h. Other Business
i. Sheryl: French Immersion information session upcoming
ii. Discussion about spending funds by end of the year. Unable to carryover more than a couple thousand to next year.
iii. Sarah: any options for spending on STEM night.
i. Adjournment