School Council Minutes
Date:
Time:
Location:
Present: Sofia Alim (co-chair), Anne Belanger
(Principal) , Kim B Uyede, John Cosgrove, Nancy Elliott, Angela Hill
(co-chair) ,Patty Luubert, Valerie Milligan, Sandy Moriarty (Treasurer) , Barb
Munro, Deb Rhodes (Secretary), Rashmi Swarup (Vice Principal), Linda Valley,
Kim Sikora & Rajeev Narang
1. Sofia and Angela welcomed everyone and we introduced ourselves.
2. Heela was unable to attend with the student council report.
3. Quest
Conference Report – Each year the York Region District School Board hosts
an international workshop on education.
This year’s theme was “Effective Schools”. The tickets are quite expensive so
administration shared tickets with staff and Angela and
4. Vice Principal Report – Rashmi
Friday December 3 was a P.A.Day. Markville’s staff had a focus on literacy day. A committee of teachers organized the day. Teachers from different departments paired up and found out what other departments do for literacy. Later they went back to their own departments and aligned the literacy focus within their department. They were to report to administration about the focus for literacy within their department.
i) writes with purpose and clarity
ii) locates and accesses information from a variety of sources
iii) thinks critically
iv) reads for purpose and pleasure
v) uses oral communication appropriate to purpose and audience
vi) reads and interprets visual text forms (graphs, etc.)
vii) uses visual text forms
viii) blank piece of the puzzle – this profile will continue to evolve
Rashmi showed us the South Asian Student
Awareness power point presentation which was shown to the staff at the
beginning of the school year. It contained
information for teachers dealing with students and parents from
5. Principal’s
Report – Anne
Laptop lab – The school has received 24 laptop computers intended to be a portable computer lab. The computers have been engraved with the school’s name and are chained to carts so they can be rolled to classrooms.
Transition Team – Teachers from Markville have been working with elementary schools to make the transition from grade 8 to grade 9 easier.
Character Matters Team – Several staff are involved with this initiative. There was a seminar at U.H.S. which 5 students from Markville attended.
Instructional Intelligence Team – Instructional intelligence presents the best strategies for teaching / learning. This is under the guidance of Barry Bennett.
Student Success – Teachers have been going to workshops to learn how to deal with at risk students. Through Bridge to Literacy the school has received $2000. At this time, it is felt that the best use of the money would be to buy books interesting to at risk boys. These at risk boys could take the books to elementary schools to read to boys.
Heritage Fair – Markville’s Heritage Fair
will take place in the cafeteria Thursday December 9. Grade ten students show the evolution of
Multi-Cultural Day – Friday December 10, different ethnic groups will wear traditional clothing, share traditional food and dances.
Fireball Show – Students from engineering at Ryerson will do a presentation next week.
Music Concerts – The bands had their
concert at Markham Theatre December 1st. The choirs will have their concert at
Modified School Year Update – The students
were given a survey about the modified school year. An overwhelming majority voted to continue it
again next year. The suspensions for
October and November were cut in half from the previous year and the classes
missed were sharply reduced. There is a
meeting for parents Jan. 12 to discuss the proposal for next year. The week holiday will be Oct. 31 to
6. Treasurer’s
Report –
We have raised almost $2000 through the parent initiative. We have purchased a camera for the co-op department and there is almost $1400 left. Angela will draft another letter and e-mail it to parents asking them to donate to the school. We would like to shoot for $5000 for a lighting board.
7. Other business – Deb questioned the minutes from the November meeting. She thinks that board employees can have voting rights on a school council but cannot be the chair. Sofia, Angela, and Anne said they would look into it.
There was discussion on how to get more parents to attend our school council meetings. We felt that it would be a good idea for the synervoice system to send out a voice message on the Sunday before the meeting. There is no pressure for parents to say or do anything at a meeting. Parents will get more information in one night than they’ll get from their kids in months.
Note ** The January school council
meeting has been cancelled. The next
meeting will be