Lady Evelyn Alternative School Council

School Council Meeting Minutes

Monday March 23, 2009, 7 - 9pm

In attendance: Lori Lovett (principal), Monique Cuillerier (co-chair), Alison Wood (Teacher), Joey Gunn, Kerry Faga, Annette Hegel, Richard Deadman 

1. Introductions.
2. Chair's report:
   • Monique is looking for some help with council tasks. So far she has had voluteers to:
     • compile chairs' reports for council meetings (Annette)
     • check and sort council mailboxes in the office (Annette)
     • develop a plan for recruiting and managing voluteers (Tanis)
     • keep calendars in the foyer up to date (Tanis)
     • take council minutes (Richard)
   • March Newsletter is being compiled ans should be available this week
   • Need new co-chair(s) for next fall. It would be ideal to have someone before June for a smooth transition. Teresa has provided some instructions in the past.
   • Both Kim Hicks and Heather Muir, who have been very active volunteers in the school but are leaving the school after this year, are being pro-active and ensuring that there are people to dod their jobs next year
3. Committee reports
   1. Arts (Annette): No report
   2. Education (Tanis): No date set yet for the EQAO meeting
   3. French (Amanda): No report
   4. Health and Environment (Kerry): No meetinghas been held
      • Salad Bar being handled by Michelle McIntosh. Not everyone seems to have got the sign-up forms since enrolmentis down and some are asking about the forms.
      • Question about seedlings for the yard. Ms. Ship and Mr. Jeffreys are interested in this. May also want to check with Julia Sneyd who is involved in theChildren's Garden.
      • Question on what can be done for Earth Day. There is an event planned for Apr. 25 that could adopt this theme. Ideas include a bike fair or swap. Joey is in contact with some local enthusiasts. Perhaps a cube van could be rented to get people's parts/bikes to the event. This is only one week after the moved "Lady Evelyn's Night Out", but would attact a different crowd.
      • Suggestion that the children could be reminded not to step on the areas where tulips were planted last fall. Since the children were involved, there is hope that they will be careful.
   5. Social (Robin/Sherry Lynn/Joey): Lady Evelyn's Night Out has been moved from March 27thto Saturday April 18th.
   6. Fundraising (Robin): No report
4. Rep. Reports
   1. ASAC (Monique/Annette/Richard)
      • Reminder about the Lisgar Lecture this Thursday: "No Child Left Thinking: Testing, "Accountability," and the threat to Canadian democracy"
      • Trustee John Shea has asked the board staff to provide financial estimates to the savings of eliminating busing to the Alternative Program. This is troublesome because:
        • This would be the only program without busing.
        • It would make the program elitist
        • ASAC has not been consulted (and he is the new board rep. on ASAC)
        • Since 60% of Alternative families would not have otherwise choosen the OCDSB, this will lead to a smaller board.
      • Need to provide John with positive information and suggest that the program now needs to be expanded board-wide
   2. Zone 9 (John): No report
   3. Student Council (Monique): No meeting. There are plans to have a meeting in the next two weeks and work with the students to go back to their classes and find issues they are passionate about.
5. Treasurer's Report (Jen): No report
6. Principal's Report (Lori):
   • Student Led conference next week
   • Report cards also due next week
   • Lori is currently reading The Element by Ken Robinson. This highlights the need to find things that you are passionate about.
   • While the French class is going well and has avoided the elitism often encountered in immersion, there are some concerns that the ESL students are not receiving as much from the program due to their ESL time overlapping with French instruction.
   • Working with teachers to ensure that larger blocks of time can be made available to support specific teacher passions.
   • The school was offered a Garfield Weston award in honour of top-30 "most improved" EQAO schools in the province. Lori indicated that we don't really pay attention to EQAO between schools and don'tusually accept awards. Indiccated that we would go is funding was provided.
   • Other books being read by Lori: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwel and Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World by Craig Kielburger
7. Upcoming events: N/A