Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Parent Council Minutes November 8th, 2010


Glen Cairn PS
Parent Council Minutes
November 8th, 2010

Present
Julie Drapeau, Amy DiRienzo, Andrea Hoyt, Paul Warner, Pat Furlong, Scott Blythe, Deb Hickey, Brian Herron, Chris Mollison, Judy Ovington

Regrets
Gwen Allingham, Tanya Campbell, Fariha Irshad, Jocelyn MacKenzie, Mike Hickey

Presentation from Entertainment Pack re: fundraising
Entertainment books sell at $35. Depending on number sold, profit per book ranges from $7 per book (minimum of 40 orders) up to $17.50. Programme outline-each child brings a book home, and they can either sell that book or order more. Books can be returned to the school at any time during the campaign, in any condition, if not sold. Books kept in a central location in the school for orders. Other cities Entertainment books can be ordered. No costs to school for the programme. This would be something to run next fall.
Judy’s history with this fundraiser has been positive, Pat cautioned when the Grade 8’s did it a few years ago, it was not met with success.

Minutes from last meeting approved

Reports
Treasurer
  • Profit and loss statement provided, statement inaccurate as there were 6 returned cheques not reflected in balances - bank did not notify us in a timely manner, nor did they provided information on the bounced cheques. Current balance approximately $6500.00
  • Discussion as to whether we would change banks or not. Right now with BMO, we are not paying service charges, nor do we pay for regular cheques. The issue with returned cheques, while ongoing and annoying, does not guarantee that a new financial institution’s service would be better or as cost effective.
  • Several purchase orders from last year still have outstanding balances-chalkboard, dry erase markers, books on CD, toys for primary yard, sensory room equipment and software.
  • Last year’s wish list came to about $4500.00
  • Chris is beginning her training as treasurer, pass all approvals to her.
OCASC
Principal
  • Progress reports have gone out, they were very stressful to produce this first time around as teachers get used to the format.
  • Student Work study initiative to evaluate literacy is beginning, permission slips sent out already.
  • Early intervention kits for struggling readers, a new programme for full time learning Kindergartens being brought into the school, kindergarten and grade 1 teachers being trained in the next few weeks.
  • The international students returned to China on October 29th.
  • ARK meeting November 16th, Earl of March, 6pm
  • Ottawa 67’s day a big hit with grades 6, 7 and 8.
  • 3 fire drills completed, lock down drill coming up. Children are told there are to be quiet and hide
  • November 26th PD day to learn about the School improvement plan
  • Remembrance Day ceremony November 11th, beginning at 10:45. All are welcome.
  • Eva Olsson is coming in to talk to grades 6,7 and 8 about Auschwitz
  • Scholastic book fair now on, some books labeled ‘mature content’ removed from general display, only put out for when parents are available to monitor purchases, with sign on table clearly indicating Mature content.
  • iRover bought by school board
  • 2 document cameras purchased by school
  • 2 former Grade 8 students, now at AY, won literary awards and are published in the short story compilation Grandmother's Attic: Short stories from Young writers of Canada. Our winners were Gilian and Sasha
OCDSB
  • Early Learning
    • 8 schools got early learning in the first round
    • Second round of schools to be phased in is tough, still minimal money for renovations.
    • Might be after-care at G.C. if we get 10 kids signed up, not enough interest to date
  • Elementary School Review
    • There is a new board policy for school reviews that has just been instituted.
    • The review committee is just starting the review now. If it had started earlier the committee would have needed to use the old policy which is VERY cumbersome for volunteers.
    • One possibility to address overcrowding at Katimavik is moving middle French immersion to Castlefrank
    • All secondary schools will be reviewed next.
    • Bell and Lisgar have thriving gifted programs .
    • Glebe and Merivale have gifted programs, but have a combined 40 students registered as gifted. These schools are at risk of losing their gifted program.
  • New board website rolls out November’ish.
    • RSS feeds
    • Sharepoint – schools and councils will be able to have their own sites.
  • City flood planning includes the ability to divert excess floodwater onto our field. Pat has been in contact with OCDSB facilities and they have been in contact with the city. Apparently there is a plan to build the field to respond to water as a dry pond would. As long as the safety of the children is not compromised this may well go ahead. A big ditch in the middle of the school yard isn’t something the school is overly positive about.
  • Student survey is coming out soon, younger grades will get parent’s help, older grades will be filled in by themselves. There was discussion about the nature of some of the questions, especially those dealing with sexuality and confidentiality. Council members were concerned that because the older students are filling them out by online at the school, that their responses would be seen by others. There was also concern about who would get the results. The information once compiled would not be able to be back-traced to individuals, possibly not even to individual schools.
  • To provide council with access to more email addresses, one possibility is to add a line to the student verification forms: “Can parent council use this email address to contact you? Yes / No”
  • Fundraising opportunities:
    • Entertainment books: 700 kids, 450 families, 300 books sold, raised $5,000
    • Meals:
      • Quizno’s
      • Mazzola
      • Lunch Lady
      • Domino’s Pizza night (on Eagleson)
      • Boston Pizza
    • Chapters-at Pat’s old school, they had the Chapters evening as part of their holiday events; the choir had a performance, encouraging the extended families to come out.
  • Food and Beverage policy
    • Smaller portions to meet the criteria apparently IS ok
    • One school has halved the pizza slice sizes and almost halved the price per piece, but it allows students to order 3 pieces (or 1.5 slices at the old size).
  • HST: school gets the HST back for purchases. Large purchases may be funneled through the school with the school keeping the HST refund.

Business arising from last meeting
  • McDonald’s night - $200 raised
  • Council blog is almost ready. We will not post pictures of students nor their names. It is primarily to keep parents in the loop without overwhelming email boxes.
  • There is a preference for items council purchases to cover more than one group of students, so that everyone can benefit from the work all the classes and parents are doing to fundraise.
  • A reminder was also made to check about reward programs the school council can benefit from when making purchases. Items purchased through Scholastic, for example, generate points to use for other purchases.
  • Some members of council brought up the poor sound quality during events in the gym. There are speakers available but they need to be set up for events. Judy will ask Wayne of Bleeker Stereo to come in and show us where to put them for the best sound quality.
  • Wish list presented by Scott on behalf of the teachers
    • Speakers for the media carts. Up to $200.00. Passed
    • Projector. Up to 600.00. Passed
    • Costume set. 363.66. Passed
    • 2 sided wooden bookcase. 225.99 Passed.
    • Tchouckball set. 450.52. Passed
    • 10 music stands 350.00 Passed Mr. Fraser to provide specs so that Judy can approach Dominic’s Music store for a deal.
    • Mrs. MacOdrum’s list tentatively approved-items on the list desirable to other teachers as well. Will wait to verify quantities
  • Large ticket items - Pat will ask Mairin if she can move them through the school’s account so the school can get the HST credit, or if it is too much work.
  • Hawberry Farms in progress, extra pamphlets requested
  • Silent Auction. Still not many items. We are unable to put them up for display in time for the parent-teacher interviews. Chris may make up a description for the items if we can get pictures taken of them.
  • Chess club-Chris talked to her contact at the university and they are in the middle of exams. If there is interest, she can try again in the new year. There is a pretty good programme currently being run out of the Hazeldean Library.

Meeting adjourned 9:00 pm.
Next meeting December 14th, 7pm

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Parent Council Minutes 2010/10/12

Minutes of Glen Cairn Public School Parent's Council Meeting
2010/10/12
Attendance:
Paul Warner, Chris Mollison, Andrea Hoyt, Jocelyn MacKenzie, Pat Furlong, Amy DiRienzo, Brian
Herron, Deb Hickey, Fariha Irshad , Scott Blythe
Regrets:
Gwen Allingham, Julie Drapeau, Mike Hickey
Agenda:
Handed out as well with Profit and Loss by Class August 1st – October 12, 2010
Change to minutes from last meeting:
- we will be hosting 10 international students
Reports
Treasurer: (Deb)
  • profit and loss report;
  • we are making more money on the pizza;
  • more pizza orders this year – typically more in the fall than in the winter any way;
  • the school is providing pizza for the international students;
  • breakdown of the Open Purchase Orders – Pat has purchased some additional items but will accrue receipts;
  • Pizza money amount is included in this report.
  • A couple of questions:
  • How many international students and how long?
    • Students are here for 4 weeks at 2 slices for 10 exchange students;
  • There were 2 cheques unsigned from people. Pat will follow up on that.
  • There was a question regarding the $250 amount for the accounting software and whether or not it comes out of the Parental amount. There as some discussion on how we should spend money out of that fund. There was some additional discussion about whether or not we should use open source software or even the commercial solutions. But again it is important that we figure out whether the money can be used. Brian will investigate.
OCASC: (Deb on behalf of Mike)
  • The system is looking into grade 3 students being introduced to swimming skills and extending “Swim to Survive”. It is not done through the board. It is done through a different organization. It is all free.
  • A student's survey to provide assistance when necessary. K-6 for adults to fill out, 7-12 the children can fill out. Apparently the teachers filled it out last year and had a great response so the granularity will be lowered to bring in the parent’s and children’s input. Essentially looking into bullying, country of origin, languages at home, and comfort with English. Essentially it takes less than 30 minutes to perform. It is anonymous in that your comments will never be shared but the board will know that you've responded. “Confidential but not anonymous.”
  • The Ottawa Police Services will be trying to set up an autism registry. This is just in case there is an incident in the schoolyard, or out in public, the police will know how to approach the child as opposed to how they used to deal with them. Options to include a face only picture similar to a passport photo and confirmation record and flag. Homes marked appropriately will allow the Police to identify whether or not someone in the home may not respond to verbal clues in the same manner as most people.
Principal: (Pat)
  • Progress reports on November 4th – out to the family. This is different than a report card as it's marking progress and holistic approach to how the student is performing. Progressing well, progressing very well, and progressing with difficulty. They are all mandated by the Ministry Education.
  • In the process of the school improvement plan:
    • Phase 1 here now – literacy and numeracy goal. The Math scores reflected a need to communicate and not cognate;
    • Kanata Accommodation Review. It's to look at all schools and distribution of students. There is a possibility that this could impact to the Parents and Children at Glen Cairn Public School. A Parent representative should attend the meetings. There is no timeline as of yet but as soon as Pat's aware of the timeline, she'll pass on the information;
  • $900 raised at the Terry Fox Drive;
  • Health and Safety inspections are proceeding well;
  • Student Council has been elected;
  • November 11th assembly coming up – that evening will be for the Parent's interview – overflowing to November 12th.
Business arising from last meeting:
  • McDonald's fundraiser night planned for Oct 27th – confirmed. A percentage of the GCPS sales from that night return to the school
  • Air conditioners:
    • none in stock at Home Depot.
    • According to Pat – the window air conditioning units are frowned upon by the School Board but not
    • completely ruled out – other solutions might be examined.
  • Council Blog:
    • Brian to forward the credentials for the gc.parents@yahoo.ca account so Paul can set up Blogspot.
  • Sporty Kids:
  • Teacher is currently looking into running with it – Pat will keep us informed as to when we'll be set.
  • Wish List:
    • continuing to evaluate
New Business

Fundraising:
  • October 29th to November 22nd for Hawberry Farms orders in for November 26th – one of our top money makers – Gwen should go ahead with this;
  • Julie received the McMillan's cookie dough information – possibly shift it to February which gives us a bigger cut – agreed selling the items for February;
  • Fariha brought up online information should be more available as well as the paper forms. Fariha brought up the issue that not all of the stationary requirements are listed prior to the beginning of classes. Pat will make a note to remind teachers and parents about this issue at Report Card time in the Summer. It was suggested that an additional update be made to the web page with any possible stationary needs in August during the back to school sales.
  • Homework club is starting up soon – need 10 students who want to be there to learn.
  • Silent Auction:
    • there are items left over from last year;
    • we should advertise the items as soon as possible and display them whenever possible;
    • have them available on the Parent Interview Night;
    • move the pictures online;
Chess Club:
  • Chris brought up the idea for a chess club – once or twice for someone from Chess Masters to volunteer and teach how to play chess. The volunteers are over 18 and Pat will look into seeing how many people might be interested. Chris will investigate.
Meeting Adjourned 8:20

Parent Council Minutes 2010/09/21

Glen Cairn Parent Council September 21st, 2010 Minutes
Attendance: Julie Drapeau, Brian Herron, Chris Mollison, Scott Blythe, Tanja
Campbell, Pat Furlong, Amy DiRienzo, Paul Warner, Deb Hickey, Mike Hickey
Regrets: Gwen Allingham, Andrea Hoyt
Review of 2009-2010 school council activity: fundraising, purchases, initiatives.
Election of new parent council board
· Chair-Brian Herron
· Fundraising-Gwen Allingham and Amy DiRienzo
· Treasurer-Deb Hickey and Chris Mollison
· Secretary-Julie Drapeau
· OCASC representative-Mike Hickey
· OCDSB representative-Brian Herron
· Communications-Paul Warner
· Picnic lead-Paul Warner
Old business:
1) Air conditioners: Purchase not completed in 09-10 year. Dimensions of four
rooms passed to Amy for her to call around for quotes. Pat to confirm that
OCDSB does not have any restrictions on types of A/C units bought and used
by schools.
2) Outstanding 09-10 wish list items: whisper phone, chalk board, dry erasers, ¼
of funds allocated to sensory room purchases, some books on CD
3) New food guidelines and their impact on fundraisers; school councils and
schools are encouraged to begin implementing new guidelines now ‘in good
heart’. The guidelines are not being enforced this year but will be next year.
4) There is currently a lot of discussion on the principal’s list about finding
appropriate vendors for pizza, as pizza is a large fundraiser and relatively easily
managed by schools. Parent Council to go forward with Pizza Pizza whole
wheat crust pizzas for sale at school. Price to remain at $1.75 a slice.
5) Home expo results: $270 raised in table sales. Most vendors felt that it was
good value for their money. Vendors would prefer an earlier start and finish.
Weather had a negative impact on turnout from community. Parent council
booth held the ballot box for the door prizes, as well as having sign-up slips for
council information. We were able to get 30!! Email addresses without sending
out requests via the students, and increased our visibility in the community.
Several vendors offered to run fundraisers for the school.
6) Purchase of accounting software (Quikbooks) and its licensing has been
approved to $250. Chris to ask her friend to keep an eye out for the best deal
on the purchase. Chris to shadow Deb this year and take it on full time next
year.
7) Principal’s report
i) ARK is moving forward this year, hopefully for implementation in 2012-
redistribution of boundaries in the Kanata south region.
ii) Pat’s budget for this year was delivered and is available to interested
parties. Staff last year did an outstanding job in managing photocopy
costs and created a small buffer to be used this year for school
purchased big ticket items, possibly.
iii) EQAO results are in. Grade three results will not be published as there
are only 13 students in the cohort and board minimums are 20. Grade
sixes did reasonably well in languages and below standard in maths.
There is a School Improvement Plan in the works to remedy the
situation. There are also plans to foster parental involvement to improve
these scores.
iv) Glen Cairn will host six international students this year.
v) Sensory room prepared, now looking at how to determine its best use
with respect to how to decide scheduling and frequency.
8) New business
a) Wish list items for 10-11: the new year has just begun. Teachers are still
figuring out their students’ needs and classroom needs. Pat will ask but
probably no responses for a few months. Magnetic speakers to accompany
A/V cart sort of requested, as well as a possible subsidy to run the Sporty
Kids programme...
b) Hawberry farms jams and jellies is going to move forward. Some discussion
of going through local home based vendors, but since we need as much
revenue as possible, we’ll go directly to the manufacturer.
c) Lump sum to Pat for her discretionary fund was offered and declined until it
is needed at a later date.
d) Silent auction at Holiday Concert to move ahead. We have already received
a gift certificate from Extendedstay Hotels and bracelets from a Silpado
home show. Deb to ask her church friend for a list of her regular donors.
Chris to ask around as well. Items to be held in display case near office.
e) Paul has accepted the task of beginning a blog for Parent Council,
comments de-activated. Parents will be able to know what is going on in
the school without divulging their personal email addresses. We can use it
to take pictures of Silent Auction items, keep parents in the loop about
fundraisers and where to go for more information about what we are doing
and when.
f) Pat has offered to have a PC box on the GCPS homepage for dates of
fundraisers and meetings
g) Parent council initiatives discussed briefly. Chris’ previous educational
involvement had a “Catalyst” programme wherein a professional would
teach a class about their area of expertise, not just a this is what an
engineer does, but hands on showing and teaching how to do something in
that particular field. The Boost your School article in Today’s Parent lists a
whole bunch of initiatives we can take part in.
h) Brian to contact McDonald’s about holding a fundraiser late October, early
November.
i) Sobey’s fundraiser offer to have a Nascar ‘burn donuts’ in the lot then cohost
a BBQ declined
j) Andrea is willing to train someone to take over Campbells’ soup labels. Pat
recommends that we stop doing the labels as the amount of work is
staggering compared to the return of product.
k) Add link to Pace Car programme so that new and returning parents are
aware that GCPS is in fact participating
Next meeting: Tuesday October 12th, 2010.