Parent Attendees: Jaime Alexanderson, Elisa Dalla-Giustina, Virginia Dimoglou, Dan Lock, Joanne Mitchell, Sarah Mooney, Samantha Ridsdale, Kari Svenneby, Rhiannon Thomas, Hillary Whyte, April Wilson-Lange
TDSB Attendees: Carina van Heyst, Nitsa Kondakos
Agenda Items
Principal’s Report
- 2016-17 Staffing
- Ms. Ginies will be remaining all year on long-term occasional
- Working to fill vacancy in lunch supervisor position
- School activities
- Girls’ basketball and boys’ volleyball is finished
- Starting in new year, girls’ volleyball and boys’ basketball will begin
- Hockey games will begin in new year
- Leadership club, Me to We, and Rafiki bracelets will continue
- Choirs are ongoing and will be performing at holiday concerts
- Choirs will start work on school musical soon which is Alice in Wonderland
- School Fundraising
- A number of fundraising initiatives
- Highway of Heroes
- Living tribute
- Tree planting and bulbs planted
- Communications
- School Improvement Planning
- School Climate
- Focused on student well-being, school climate, and anti-bullying
- Held Power of One presentation
- Involving leadership club in school climate initiatives
- Colour teams are also focusing on leadership opportunities
- Bullying prevention week extended to two weeks with assembly on Nov 30
- Colour teams will present plays and other presentations they’ve prepared
- Second step continuing in classrooms
- Reading
- Kindergarten and grade one classes working with early reading coach
- Focused on having every student reading by grade one
- Kindergarten changes
- Kindergarten staff have updated curriculum and PD Day focused on this and new assessments
- All kinders will now receive report cards at all three points
- Math
- Focused on problem-solving and deeper understanding
- Ministry of Education released renewed math strategy but no changes applied yet
- Norway has been doing on math work in anticipation of changes in new year
- Outdoor Improvement Planning
- Beautiful physical site for a “downtown” school but also has some needs
- Issues with trees and drainage
- Anticipate that some funding will be available
- Often these projects are made possible by a variety of funding sources
- School Council has been talking about possibility of larger capital funding
- Grant opportunities exist though we’re not eligible for some grants and School Board will help to decide
- Board put together workshop on participatory design
- Suggestion is to put together 2-3 month engagement plan involving students, parents, teachers, YMCA, etc.
- Implement engagement process Jan-Mar
- After March break, Board will bring in landscape architect and all ideas to feed into design
- Mar-June will focus on finalizing plan and major construction would take place summer 2018
- Idea is that plan would be mapped out into phases that extend over multiple school years
- Parent group is meeting Nov 30 to discuss outdoor improvement plans
- School Climate
- A number of fundraising initiatives
Action Items
- Decision: Can School Council contribute to musical?
Eco Team Report
- April, Ms. Van Heyst, Ms. Taylor, Ms. Ginies, and Joanne attended eco-schools kick-off
- Aiming to become certified eco-school but there are a number of requirements
- Have to conduct waste audit
- Registered for certificate, next step in April
- Ideas have been generated and some can be brought forward as part of the outdoor improvement campaign
- Bike education in conjunction with new bike lanes on Woodbine Avenue
- Walk & Wheel Wednesdays
- Examine physical/accessibility barriers
- Bike parade at fun day
- Host a bike clinic
- Add butterfly or vegetable garden
- Improve garbage receptacles in school yard (with green bins, garbage, and recycling); better waste management everywhere
- Battery recycling, each classroom has container, can have a trophy for which each class competes
- Promote litterless lunches
- Recyclable tech depot
- Crayola marker recycling
- Ensure kids are using reusable water bottles = better water fountains
- Sell litterless lunch kits
- Sell reusable water bottles
Lunch Program Update
- Last year parents had expressed interest in starting lunch program at Norway
- Administered survey and feedback was positive
- Put out another survey this school year
- Brought together committee to explore possible at service providers
- Will include survey in next newsletter and if response is still low, will send home in backpack
- Looked at a number of companies (kid essentials, lunch lady, Rose Reisman, etc.) and narrowed it down
- Criteria included quality and little to no extra effort by school/parents
- All vendors are currently working in TDSB schools
- Some providers were ruled out on price alone
- Shortlist ranked, Real Food for Real Kids (RFRK) came to the top
- For every 20 students, they provide free lunch for one child in need identified by principal
- Could cancel lunch or choose to donate to someone else that goes into bank
- RFRK are all online, parents have account and do ordering/payment online
- All parents get menu sent every month
- Allergies are accommodated
- Orders are made monthly
- Any staff who are in schools serving food need to have PRC
- RFRK comes out and does site visit, then we’re invited to their kitchen, then decision is made
Action Items
- Van Heyst will speak with colleagues about how lunch program is working at other schools
- Will include survey in next council newsletter and if response is still low will send home in backpacks
- Set up trail(s)
Breakfast with Santa Review
- Raised more than $2600
- 1st time in over six years that we were completely sold out
- Recruited 60+ volunteers to plan and execute
- Volunteer appreciation day will be held at peppery cat Thursday December 8
Budget
- Locked out of PACE account so cannot access most up to date reports
- Sitting at $23,986/$27602 including Breakfast with Santa
- Pizza lunches cost $700
- Spent $1873 so far this school year
- Front load year with one-time donations
- Planned expenses for school year
- Buddy bench $500
- Bulletin board $300
- Groove workshop $725
- Power of One$909/$805 (depending on whether or not we have to pay HST)
Parent Knowledge Conference
- Will be held Feb 24/25
- Friday 630-8
- Keynote speaker
- Van Heyst will do presentation
- Food and beverages
- Saturday content and timing to be determined
- Need to pay for child care, caretaking, food, speakers
- Idea is to give parents information on a variety of topics:
- Math
- Helping kids with homework
- Managing anxiety
- Parenting
- Reading
- Active bodies
