School Council Meeting Minutes
Wendat Village PS
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 - Library
Minutes
The regular council meeting was called to order by the co-chairs at 7:00 p.m. and a quorum was present.
Co-Chairs: Tanisha Chatterjee and Jana Jagtiani
Present:Jana Singh,Tanisha Chatterjee, Kosta Arvanitopoulos, Sarah Hathaway, Janet Shulist, Lindsay Bantis, Laura Casquenette, Natalie Chan, Keziah Ferreira-Ally, Raji Gunaseelan, Lily Jankulovski, Heather Rogers, Annapurna Parthasarathi, Andrea Paszana, Kristy Spiropoulos, Shai Shandil, Carine Hamilton, Susannah Ward, Maureen Ramanan (community member),
The agenda was approved.
The minutes of the last meeting were approved as circulated.
Treasure report: Presented by Treasurer, Kosta Arvanitopoulos
Communications update- Sarah Hathaway and Janet Shulist
- New team, new objectives
- Communicate Council activities with school community
- Proposed council news letter
- Gain sense of school community views/priorities
- Annual survey (preferences and priorities
- Email address/ suggestion box for community)
- Increase community understanding about function of council
- Making information available through website
- Making minutes public
- FAQs re: roles, meetings etc
- Communicate Council activities with school community
- Sarah suggests minutes be available after meetings, put in more languages to make accessible to broader community.
- Minutes currently circulated in Wendat Weekly
- Communications team open to monitoring email address and directing to proper channels
- Sheryl notes that communication must pass through Jana & Tanisha to avoid using personal/non-council email.
- Translators would have to be hired to provide communications in different languages (board approved)
- Council typically have booths at events, Sarah suggests having translators available on site.
- Members noted that past efforts have been made to diversify council initiatives with translators but never saw meaningful traction
- Suggestion made to leave paper copy of minutes in other languages at front office
Teacher report - Deedra Kirkby
- Markham fair - great showing from students
- Curriculum night was a success
- Athletic council just finalized nominations and interviews were conducted
- Meet in library and let student leaders run meetings
- Youth Space - leadership opportunity run by older students focusing on mental health
- Jump Start - music program
- Regional X-country - 10 students representing Wendat on Oct 23
- Flag Football team was a success
- Volleyball games are well attended, coaches much appreciated
- Choir (Mrs. Reed)
- Lego Robotics ~65 kids interested
- Gr. 7 & 8 doing announcements; helping students come out of their shells
- Lunch monitors program a good leadership opportunity
- iThink at UofT to help kids tackle problems (20 gr. 8s participated)
- Member asks how events and teams/clubs are advertised (kids only?)
- Concerns about kids not being able to hear announcements and word of mouth spreading info will lead to kids missing out
- Shared calendar proposed
- Suggested to staff to put announcements in google doc and left open for students in classrooms
- Teachers may be willing to copy announcements into their individual google classroom
- Principal Report’s - Sheryl Gray
- Festival of Lights (December 3) to bring community together
- Indoor evening event
- Communication sent to community
- Volunteers needed for a variety of positions/offerings
- Classrooms will sign up for ways they’d like to participate
- Feedback received from several people who would like to volunteer
- Jana asked what holidays the event is geared towards - Diwali is “festival of lights” so clarification requested around what the event is. Suggestion made to change the name to “Celebration of Lights” to avoid confusion.
- Fundraising Plan:
- Any funds raised need to be assigned to a use
- Specific needs identified:
- 2025/2026 Agendas $2610
- $10/student for field trips $6000
- Offsets transportation costs for field trips
- $100/teacher for classroom games
- Furniture in front hall - $4000
- Want to resume having a Hub in the front of the building (etc. coffee)
- In keeping with honouring Indigenous practices, creating a space that will enable us to connect more to “our” elders who are within our community.
- Creating a meeting place, space where folks can connect in a more informal way
- Projectors $5000
- Very costly to replace
- Athletic/recess equipment $3000
- Looking at putting together play leaders and equipment for different grades.
- Older students support Structured play for younger students
- DPA (daily physical activity) required during school time on days when Phys Ed. is not offered
- Presentations $3000
- Visiting authors and Youth Speak
- Focusing on Youth speaking to Youth - greater impact on students
- Presentations on overcoming obstacles etc.
- Visiting authors and Youth Speak
- Snare Drum and Stand $400
- For music class
- French Scholastic subscriptions
- Television for front display to update community $1000
- Airtame $600 wireless connection to present without cords
- Digital Cameras (3)
- School ipads currently being used
- Digital cameras are more appropriate for this use
- Good news assembly & Year Book use
- Cost Sharing $4500 (Board will match us for any technology i.e. chromebooks, ipads);
- $34,110.00 TOTAL
- Fundraising plan captures where ALL funds raised will be directed towards
- Gr. 8 grad is separate (chips/cookies/yogurt)
- Much of this is raised through Hot Lunches
- Conversation to be focused on where the money is going
- Question asked about bringing experiences IN to school. Sheryl confirms we can look into it.
- Paul Davis - Pro Grant ($2000)
Q & A Period:
- How do we determine where we source our hot lunches from?
- How do we decide the cap on how much families pay?
- Some lunches have “small size” options
- Specifically Bar Burritos noted as being more costly
- →Lindsay clarified that schools choose their own vendors, but meals have to meet very specific guidelines that the board sends out. We pay 3% on anything that comes through online payments. Sheryl decides how much we make on each. Most schools add $1-2 on each meal. Vendors who are more organized are selected. Etc. Greek food - too much waste/packaging.
- Meaghan Harley feedback on Bar Burrito - kids are raving, they like the food and feels it’s worth the cost. Kristy echos positive feedback.
- The next cycle will go out Early December
- Celebration of Lights - is it a fundraiser?
- No, it is not. May be some charity fundraising initiatives but not the purpose
- Poinsettias - Kristy has reached out to nurseries
- Bradford Greenhouse has 7 sizes and make the order process very simple
- Waiting for email confirmation from Sheryl
- Waiting to find out if it’s a YRDSB approved vendor
- Orders need to be in by mid-november
- Vandemeers also suggested by Heather
- Amaryllis bulbs also suggested
- What Council fundraising initiatives are planned? - none.
- Do we have enough with Hot Lunches?
- What are our fundraising goals?
- In summary, we don’t really need to do much fundraising this year because we have a lot coming in from Hot Lunches and we have a surplus from last year
- Question about do we have more ideas about what we could fundraise more for
Sheryl’s Plan- to have a mounted projector with a large screen in gym - $20,000.00
- Smartboards are dying in Kindergarten classes; Interactive whiteboards 3x$5000.00
- Get Wendat up-to-date technology-wise
- If we wanted to fundraise, this is where the $$ would be well-spent.
Suggestion to add a speaker/Cultural presenter.
- Caribbean heritage group - October recognized informally as Caribbean heritage month.
- Tradespeople to speak to kids- (Deedra Kirkby takes students to skills trades fair)
- Steelpan drums (get enough for a class) can borrow through the board and it’s free.
Janet asks - Do we still have a license to have movie nights?
- Sarah confirms we do.
Heather asks - Who is in charge of Pro Grant?
- Tanisha and Jana by default; PARENTS REACHING OUT Grant - given to the school to host an event for families
- $850
- No deadline
- Paul Davis = online safety/devices
- Books far in advance but we will try to get him
- Council agrees that he would be an ideal speaker
- ~$2000
- In person only for gr. 7 and up.
- We could also do a Youth Speak for younger kids.
Heather suggests that we make a plan for Technology fundraising to have a tangible project for parents to donate to. Council agrees this should be a long-term goal to work towards.
Can get tax receipts for YRDSB.
Have to sell something, can no longer solicit funds without exchange of goods.
Suggested to get a visual thermometer for fundraising so people can see measurable goal.
Jana moves to adjourn meeting.
Lindsay Bantis moves to adjourn the meeting
Keziah seconds the motion
20 attendees