School Council Minutes

WINSTON CHURCHILL PUBLIC SCHOOL

SCHOOL COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

 

Wednesday November 27, 2013

Winston Churchill Public School Resource Centre

PRESENT: Principal Alison Fraser, Chair David Hatt, Vice Chair Jane Young, Secretary Cindy Cameron, Nerissa Mulligan, Laura Bark.

1.       Call to Order: Dave called the meeting to order at 6:35pm and welcomed Principal Fraser back. She will return part-time for now.

2.       Adoption of Minutes: The minutes were reviewed. The minutes from the meeting of October 23, 2013, were adopted by Dave and seconded by Jane.

3.       Principal’s Report:

1.       Principal Fraser was happy to hear that our Card and Game Night was a great success. We have more families showing up to each event.

2.       There is a boys’ volleyball tournament next week and they have a game this week. The badminton team has been chosen and they will begin practice on Tuesdays starting next week.

3.       Kindness and Caring will be the Character Traits for December. The students are organizing ways of showing these traits. For example, there will be a mitten and hat collection and a request will go out for donations to the food bank.

4.       The new student council was elected last week and met for the first time this week. Sara Bell, grade 8, was elected President. The council want to do a toy drive this year and will provide a pizza lunch to the class that brings in the most donations.

5.       Parents pulling into the teacher’s parking lot at 3:30pm continue to be a safety concern. Principal Fraser will try to get the pylons out again. This seemed to deter most parents from pulling into the lot. A message will go out in the Churchill Chat again. Mr Calver places the pylons for us. He won an award for outstanding contribution last year.

6.       In December there will be a presentation on bus safety. Appropriate information will be delivered to the Primary level students and the Juniour/Intermediate grade level.

7.       The P.A. day in October was used to look at academic and school climate data. The staff created 3 goals for themselves around the areas of Literacy, Numeracy and School Climate. The next P.A. day is December 20.

4.       Chair’s Report:

1.       Dave attended the Limestone District School Board Chair’s meeting. They discussed the forms the treasurers should use as well as the introduction of using Paypal to pay for school items, eg. Hot Lunch. An initial pilot project was successful and Paypal will be in place in the future.

2.       There was a great turn out for Games Night. We had some new families come to play. We also introduced a variety of board games into our previous “card” night. We might have to consider moving into the gym if the group gets any larger. We are fully prepared to that.

5.       Vice Chair’s Report: No report available.

6.       Treasurer’s Report:

1.       See Balance Sheet for account information.

2.       Dave went to City Hall to clear the lottery account issue. He filled out forms and provided statements. Now we need to place those funds into the “lottery account” from the Trust account. The amount is approximately $1400. Dave will ask Joan at the Board office if we can use the laptop receipts. We need a record of money going into the account and what it was used to purchase. We are able to set our raffle up but we can’t sell tickets yet.

3.       This leads into our fundraising issue. We are waiting to start the raffle soon. If the lottery problem isn’t resolved by December 6, we can go down the path of putting out a General Campaign letter instead. But we will assume the issue will be resolved and we will hold the raffle in January, 2014.

7.       School Yard Enhancement: Snow plowing went well today. We still need to discuss where the snow will be piled. It can’t go against the fence or up next to the climber. The LDSB is prepared to assist us with the drainage issues at the bike racks, the south gate and in the field. They need our plans and they will provide some funds towards the work.

8.       Mabel’s Labels: Our account is in place. Use the code “Winston Churchill Public School” and a portion of the funds from the order go to WCPS. We get payments at certain trigger points. A message will go out in the December Churchill Chat.

9.       Movie Night: We discussed having a family movie night at the school. We need to get a licence to show movies. Sara Bell, Student Council President, will be getting a licence so they can have a movie day at school. We discussed serving pizza and drinks and will figure out what to charge. Nerissa will look into public viewing movies at the library.

10.   Family Board Game Night  Tuesday January 21, 2014, from 6:30-7:30pm.

11.   Next Parent Council meeting  Wednesday January 29, 2014, from 6:30-7:30pm in the WCPS Resource Centre.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:25 pm.  

 

 

WINSTON CHURCHILL PUBLIC SCHOOL

SCHOOL COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

 

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Winston Churchill Public School Resource Centre

 

PRESENT: Retired Principal Trudy McKeown for Principal Fraser, Teacher Representative Jane Roberts, Chair Dave Hatt, Vice Chair Jane Young,  Secretary Cindy Cameron, Treasurer Jennifer Osmond Hatt, Laura Bark.

1.        Call to Order: Dave called the meeting to order at 6:35pm. Cindy added Mabel’s Labels to the Fundraising report.

2.        Adoption of Minutes:  The minutes were reviewed. The minutes from the meeting of September 25, 2013, were adopted by Jane Y and seconded by Dave.

3.        Principal’s Report: as submitted by T. McKeown.

1.      I received a wonderful welcome to the school community from staff, students and parents. It is delightful to be back again as it completes my cycle at Winston as student, teacher, special assignment teacher for gifted students in central area, vice principal, now as principal. I visit classrooms regularly and see students focused and enjoying rigorous curriculum. My time each day at noon on the school yard has given me a chance to watch social interaction which is usually cooperative play. Plentiful supervision helps to support problem solving when situations occur. I’m confident students are developing social skills and interacting positively.

2.      Hot lunches began last week with wraps. The pizza supplier will be ready in 2 weeks and we have a fill-in company only for this week.

3.      QSP magazine fundraising orders have concluded but we are accepting a few late orders.

4.      Halloween costume parade and class activities will take place on October 31 in the afternoon. More details will come to parents from each teacher.

5.      Celebration Assembly on Friday October 25, 1:45pm will honour the 2 soccer teams, running club, and discuss the Character Education focus for the month-Responsibility.

6.      The Chair of LDSB, Helen Chadwick, will visit Koebel Gr. 5 and Doutre Gr. 4/5 classes in connection to local government week. Doutre Gr. 4/5 visited Kingston City Hall this afternoon for a tour and activities.

7.      Congratulations on a successful 3 day trip last week to RKY for the intermediate classes Putnam Gr. 6/7 and McFadyen Gr. 7/8. Excellent team building and leadership skills developed.

8.      Two Winston Churchill students performed at the LLF Crystal Ball gala- David Kim (piano) and Reimy Mulligan (violin). They were part of the pre-dinner entertainment.

9.      We had successful P.A. day sessions for teachers and it is the one day for this year. Discussed Growth Mindset article (see copy), School Effectiveness Framework (self-assessment), Needs Assessment of data from EQAO, IIR, Report cards, TTFM, individual class assessments, School Improvement planning has begun, Collaborative Inquiry proposals are being developed and 2.5 release days are provided.

10.  Progress Reports are due to the office November 4 and will be sent home November 14. IEPs have already gone home on October 15.

11.  Remembrance Day ceremony is planned for November 11 – 10:30am start.

12.  Additional student support is in place – ESL, Deaf and Hard of Hearing, behavioural support through the Student Support Counsellor, and psychological and language assessments are being conducted and shared in parent feedback sessions – coordinated by Jane Roberts SST.

13.  Lise Doutre, Erin Koebel, and Therese Blondel have our 3 lovely teacher candidates now.

14.  Badminton is scheduled to start with tryouts Nov.  12 and 19. League play begins Dec. 3.

15.  Volleyball coaching and supervision is being discussed now.

16.  Trudy has spoken with Alison. She reports she is resting and recuperating post-surgery. We will send flowers.

4.      Chair’s Report:

1.      Next Tuesday Dave will attend a meeting for school council Chairs. He will update the council at our next meeting.

2.      Dave has drafted a new letter for the annual general campaign. We want to focus on transparency and show where the money that people donate is being spent. We also want to encourage parents and caregivers to join council and become involved in the school community. We, as a council, will focus on 3 items: the drainage issue, FunDay and school community events (for example Cards Night, soccer outside, craft fair, skating in the winter at Vic Park).

3.      The next Cards Night will be held November 20, 2013, from 6:30pm until 8pm.

4.      We need to get some fundraising going. We have budgeted for this year’s expenses but the account is almost empty. We need to replenish our funds.

5.      We would like to get Parent Representatives from each classroom attending the council meetings and spreading the buzz about what’s happening at school. An individual letter will go out with the School Council  letter. There will be a tear-off to return to school if interested.

5. Treasurer’s Report: Please see report submitted. Dave presented the report. The teacher “Start up” of $200 was not included in the report. There was a question of whether or not we can carry money in the account from year to year. We want people who donate funds to be able to see where their money is going and have a say in it. But there has to be a way to save for a large expenditure (like a climber, for example).

6. School Yard Enhancement: We would like to find out what funds the School Board would provide toward a path. What kind of path would we like to see and what are the associated costs? Dave will call Manny at the Board office regarding the original record of the climber installation.  We want to get a new slide but we need it purchased and installed by the original company, for liability reasons. Henderson did it; they do most of the schools. We would also like to get a quote on getting the structure sandblasted and repainted. Years ago it was repainted by school volunteers but it really needs to be professionally prepped and painted.

7. Fundraising: The General Campaign- it would be good to get the Annual General Campaign letter out in the next week or two. The money coming in goes to the school’s budget, not the School Council account. We administer it but it’s not in our budget. We discussed combining the request with the raffle. Perhaps people would like to buy tickets instead of a straight donation. There was a fairly lengthy philosophical discussion regarding having the children sell tickets for the raffle and having prizes associated with high sales. A precedent has been set with QSP sales whereby the kids “sell” magazines and while there are prizes available through the website, we don’t partake. The school does not support door-to-door sales at any time, just sales to friends and family. We will postpone the letter for a week while Dave checks into the lottery/raffle situation from FunDay 2012. We need to reinstate our licence to hold another raffle. We have an outstanding payment to be made before we can move ahead.   Mabel’s Labels – Nerissa has set up an account to raise funds for the school. We will get 20% from all sales.  Enter “Winston Churchill Public School” in the code section.  This is a Canadian company that has been around since 2003. There should be a notice in every Churchill Chat regarding this promotion. Cindy will prepare an article for the Chat.

8. The next meeting will be Wednesday, November 27, 2013, at 6:30pm, in the WCPS Resource Centre.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:37pm.