September School Council meeting - some notes

Hello Clairlea! Apologies for being slow to report back to you on the Sept 19 School Council meeting. Draft minutes have been circulated to the voting members and will be posted here once finalized and approved at the October meeting. In the meantime, some notes...

School Council Voting Members

We have 33 voting members on School Council this year. There are still many open positions that can be filled by a motion at Council so please come to our next meeting (Oct 17, 7pm) if you would like to join.

Executive

The Council elected the following executive officers:

• Chair – Irit Hartman
• Vice Chair – Christina Auger
• Treasurer – Tina Selby
• Fundraising Chair – Karen Shah
• Secretary – Catharine Heddle (that's me)

Treasurer's Report

Past Chair Ann Silver presented a treasurer's report. In summary, we are starting the year with about $1,000.

Principal's Report

Mr. McGilvray reported on:

• Staffing - the good news of 1.5 new French immersion teachers necessitated the reorganization of a number of primary and junior classes
• Safety - PLEASE follow the bus loop rules
• Facilities - A new portable is on order. We also have a new bike rack and an ice machine.
• Technology - 30 netbook computers, 2 Elmos, 4 projectors and a couple of carts are on their way
• Student Achievement - EQAO results are out; the school is analyzing them to develop Clairlea's school improvement plan. Individual results will be sent home soon. 
• Bill 115 - resulted in the cancellation of curriculum night, after-school meetings and some extracurricular activities. Some (baseball, running club) are continuing. 

Vice Principal's Report

Ms. Harroun passed on the staff's thanks for the welcome packages provided by School Council and the offer of free pizza lunch to staff.

Volunteers Needed

Sign-up sheets were circulated for those who wish to volunteer with things like movie nights, bake sales, holiday and spring concert raffles, pancake day, Halloween Howl and others. We still need volunteers so please email Irit if you are interested.

People for Education's Report on School Councils

The public-education advocacy group People for Education has released it annual Report on School Councils. Download the full report here. The following summary is pasted from its web site:

Key findings from the report:

• Once again, enhancing communication is named as the most important role for the majority (75%) of councils, but fundraising is the activity on which they spend the most time.
• 37% of councils report having no connections/outreach to community organizations such as public health, municipal recreation programs, and settlement services.
• 47% of school councils report that they are always or often notified of education policy changes by their Parent Involvement Committee, up from 39% last year.
• 60% of councils report using email to communicate with parents, but only 10% report that the school provides parents’ email addresses.
• 80% of councils report that their initiatives are conveyed to the teaching staff, but only 9% report being invited to a staff meeting.
• 80% of school councils report that they engage in fundraising, down slightly from 84% last year.
• 36% organize activities to increase the diversity of their school council.

What do you think? What should our School Council be focusing on? 

Pizza lunch tomorrow (Wednesday!)

Just a reminder that our monthly pizza lunches are on Wednesdays this year. Our first pizza lunch is TOMORROW - Wednesday September 26. Thanks in advance to Wendy and Joanne (and other assorted volunteers) for their hard work in making it happen!

Funds raised through pizza lunch support the nutrition and healthy living programs at Clairlea. Thank you to everyone who participates.

Halloween Howl! (planning meeting on Wednesday)

Great news everyone! Our wonderful new Fundraising Chair, Karen Shah, has confirmed that we will be holding a Halloween Howl again this year. Mark your calendars for the evening of Saturday October 27.

If you're interested in helping make this happen, please email Karen and/or attend a planning meeting scheduled for this Wednesday, September 26, from 7:00-9:00pm at Clairlea in the staff room. Bring all your great ideas!

For inspiration, check out Pinterest.

Pizza lunch orders due tomorrow

A reminder that pizza lunch orders are due tomorrow. If you need to, you can download and print the order form. Please send it to school with your child.

Pizza lunch raises money to support the nutrition and healthy living programs at Clairlea Public School, and funds the bowls of fruit and snacks in every classroom, as well as emergency rations for students who forget or lose their lunches. Pizza lunch is led by Wendy Whittle and Joanne Benson, two dedicated members of your School Council. It is a tremendous amount of work to organize - thank you, Wendy and Joanne!

School Council meets Wednesday Sept 19

Just a reminder that the School Council meets on Wednesday September 19, 7:00pm in the staff room. An update to my earlier post - we now have 26 voting members! This is terrific, and we look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday as we will elect our chair, vice chair, treasurer, secretary and fundraising chair.

Voting members should have received an email confirming their membership. If you put in your name but haven't received this confirmation, please email us.

All are welcome at meetings, including members of the community who wish to have a voice.

2011-12 EQAO Results

The EQAO results are out. Here's how Clairlea did last year - you can read the full report online. The graphs that follow compare Clairlea's results to the board and province, and to their own results over time. This is based on the test written by last year's grade 3 and grade 6 students. Individual results will be sent to those parents at some point soon.  



In the graph above, Clairlea's 2010-11 results are the left, darker bar - as compared to the TDSB and the province.

The graph above depicts Clairlea's grade 3 students' performance over time. Last year in black. In grade 3, the French Immersion students only write the math portion (and they write it in French).






And Clairlea's grade 6 students' performance over time. Last year in black. In grade 6, all students (French and English) write all three parts of the test (reading, writing, math) and they write the test in English.

To learn more, start with the EQAO primer I wrote back in 2009. You can also visit the EQAO website, www.eqao.com. Last year's results are summarized here.

P.S. PLEASE COME TO THE SCHOOL COUNCIL MEETING ON WEDNESDAY SEPT 19! All welcome, even if you are not interested in joining the Council in an official capacity.

2012-13 School Council

Thank you to everyone who volunteered to join School Council. So far, we have 12 volunteers for the 50 available spots, so there's no need for an election and there's plenty of room for more volunteers.

If you haven't yet sent in your form, please do so as soon as you can and please join us at the first meeting of the year, Wednesday Sept 19 at 7:00pm in the staff room. Childcare will be provided in the gym.

Clairlea is on Twitter!

Check out the school's new twitter feed: @CPSpanthersTDSB.
Also, I am pretty sure that Curriculum Night is Sept 20.

School Council nomination forms due Monday

Download and print

Hope everyone had a great first week of school!

For those parents interested in joining School Council -

If you haven't already put in your self-nomination form for School Council, please do so by 3:15pm on Monday, September 10.

Please don't put the forms in the brown manila envelopes with the rest of the school paperwork. For privacy reasons, we can't open those envelopes, so we won't receive your nomination in time! Nominations will be processed after school on Sept 10.

If you did include your form in the brown manila envelope, never fear: just download the nomination form and send it in again, or email it.