CASC meeting September 13th, 2011

CASC Meeting
Tuesday September 13th, 2011 6:30 pm

AGENDA
1. Welcome and introductions 6:30 – 6:35
2. Approval of June minutes and agenda 6:35 – 6:40
3. CASC Positions for 2011-2012*looking for 2nd secretarylooking for 2nd treasurers 6:40 – 7:00
4. Coordinating Positions for School Events 7:00 – 7:10
5. Committees*List of active/inactive committees *Brief “who we are/what we do”*Budgets for committees due to CASC at October meeting 7:10 – 7:30
6. Principal’s Report 7:30 – 7:45
7. Teacher’s Report 7:45 – 8:00
8. Treasurer Update and Report*CASC/School Fundraising*CASC Budget due the end of October 8:00 – 8:15
9. Other Business 8:15 -8:30
Next Meeting October 11, 2011 8:30

Approval of June Minutes

Welcome and round table introductions
Approval of June Minutes – Britt to approve minutes, seconded by Pam
Approval of tonight’s Agenda – Dan to approve minutes, seconded by Pam

CASC Election of Positions
At our school we do not do elections so if anyone would like to step forward please do so. The elections have to happen within 30 days of school starting.

Co-Chairs – Pam & Dave
Appointment Motioned - Anders
Seconded - Dan

Treasurer – Anders Nordstrom
Appointment Motioned - Pam
Seconded - Dan

Secretary – Sara Purdon (Carolyn to step forward to be second secretary)
Appointment Motioned - Pam
Seconded – Steve

Action – we are still looking for a second Treasurer and webmaster

Coordinating Positions for School Events
Arts Committee – Donna & need name!
Education Committee – need additional members
Fundraising – need members
Sports Committee – need members
Playground & Back to Nature - Eloise
OCASC – need members

Email Communications
People have felt that there are too many emails - we hope to have one email go out on Thursday. Only if things are critical will that go out at any time.
Facebook Page – need people to update this
Website Updating – need to work on our website

Discussion – can we not try and link these types of things together so that we have one site for information. Can we not just have a single website that would link things together? Website is out of date - should we just use the one school site that Megan is updating? Megan would like to have one website for all the information

Action – Dan to check the school policy for having the CASC website and school site as one.
Sara to see who had attended last years meeting. Dan, Pam, Britt, Anna, Sara to set up a meeting for next steps.

Committees
Education Committee – Dan McKinnon
A sub committee of CASC that functions to help make families aware of their education related issues and to have their problems heard. If there is a specific education issue this is the place to air it. We try and produce content for parents and documents to raise awareness about the alternative program – this is motivated by the Alternative Review where we had to get motivated and be able to articulate the program
Last year we had some programs for families and would like to do this this coming year.
Barry Macdonald Presentation – October 15th. They wanted to know if there were any issues that Churchill wanted him specifically to address at that presentation. Dan and Wendy to report back.

Fundraising
We received a grant last year and received $250 for the printing of Inside Churchill.
Dan would like to propose to print off 100 copies of this to hand out at the barbecue for next week and for new parents. Megan says that we use about 50 copies between may and June.
$150 for food for our family welcome event – we could use this at a CASC meeting, kinder coffee
$400 for an information night – last year we did Internet safety and bullying. We have a list of topics that have been suggested. We also have a $200 childcare subsidy for that event.
We wrote a report on “what makes Churchill alternative”. Dan has a draft of the report that the education committee put together. Dan to send a letter to our trustee asking her to read the report and we will post a copy of it on the website.
The committee found that this was a very good exercise to go through. The committee has pictures that they can include. Pam suggest to print off 5-10 copies to have

Action
Dan to get in touch with Janet to check the cost. Megan suggest that we have the graphic printed in colour.
Dan to send the “what makes Churchill alternative” pictures and text to Dave to reformat.
Include that the Churchill students helped with the report.

Active and Save Routes to School
An initiative that we partnered with to try and lower the amount of car and bus transportion for kids that are trying to get to our school. We are working on our travel plan and parking restrictions to make it as easy as possible to walk or ride to school. We organize events like Iwalk, bike rodeos
This year we are going to put more emphasis on physical activiy so that those children who must drive do not feel excluded. We are working on getting new grants and producing an updated travel patterns. We may need to bring in the police if we do not see people complying with the travel pattern. Megan has ordered bylaw to come for the last week in September to do a blitz.
Ongoing issues because we are in a busy place with busy streets and we will continue to try and raise awareness about the travel patterns.

Action – need to contact the city to try and change the garbage pickup times so that it is not in the morning.

Arts Committee – Donna
There will be a craft table at the barbecue – they wanted to paint the schlokey tables as part of the craft. They will also try to do knitting bracelet’s. Last year they were very involved in the electives, there were lots of musical programs, chalk festival, knitting club, wall murals, weaving. Arts Committee does the Ukrainian eggs every second year. A very active committee and always looking for extra volunteers.

Craft Fair
Need to have someone step forward to shadow this year and run the craft fair next year. There are many different parts to this, toy sale, craft show, canteen, kids crafts, bake sale

Kids shopping area – Maureen to step forward
Canteen – Liz Goodman & Sara Purdon

Action – Pam & Maureen need someone to take this over next year.

Principals Report – Megan

We need support in our resource rooms so are looking for volunteers to help clear out these rooms.
Megan is asking parents to be sure to sign into the school – parents MUST do this.
We are training the kids to look for nametags and we will be cracking down on people without identification.
We are also trying to minimize classroom disruption so unless you are going into volunteer please leave items downstairs to be picked up later.
Staffing is still not finalized until October 11th. We will probably not be hiring this fall and we are now over our caps right now – we are full right now and will stay as status quo. There may be some shuffling at that time.
Travel planning will be assisted by Roy and Owen.
We need a quilt square for Barry Hammond –every school is doing one square. Donna to
Lunch Monitor – we have a position was filled by Cheryl Brouse who will monitor the lunch rooms.
With children with sever allergies we have moved the second floor into the gym to eat their lunches. The 5+6’s are lunch monitors as well as two teachers.
Megan applied to the program to make sure that all children will have medical alert bracelets.
Student Levy is coming in and the school board will help us to subsidize this if we need to.
Megan is bound by a very strict guidelines regarding this fee. Our storage closet is stocked and we are blessed to have so much at this school. The Agenda comes out of this levy cost – the yearbook does not come out of this.
In the past CASC has contributed money for the agendas this year $1250.00 – this is half of what it cost last year.
Cleaning the capital – Zack will be doing this again this year
Sports & Cross Country – Heather Earl will be doing this again this year. She needs a three day a week commitment if they are going to the meet
School Yard- we need to be out of the yard by 3:15 so that the daycare can come out and use the space.
Sharings - will be booked soon so that parents can see the date and time in advance.
We do have 5 students with serious heart conditions so are encouraging good behavior in the stairs.
We have two new students onsite that will be volunteering at the school
Fire Drill – we want to clear the building at 2 minutes and our first was a great success!
Skating - we will have a few less times due to cost.
Foodbank Drive – they are looking for November food drives this year.
CASC sign up for the teachers so that we will be rotating each month.
We are putting together dates for electives for the coming year and will be communicating that soon.
Terry Fox will be organized by Ray this year and we have a presentation this week for the students.
Bussing forms are being taken now and so please send those in now.
Wish lists will be send to CASC soon
Pizza lunches will start soon
Entertainment books are coming in – Megan has raised $6000 in the past.
Cards by Me will be offered this year as well. All children will participate in creating this art.
Morning Runs – still chaotic and we are off to a good start. Great response and we have had no lates the past two days. Need more parents to line the routes so please come out. There is a late protocol in effect for children coming later.
Outdoor Classroom – this is something that the education committee may become involved in ?
Hope for Erin Website – there is a website where you can go and sign up for meals etc. There is a golf tournament as well that you can support. www.hope4erin.com

School Levy
This year we are only able to ask for a school levy from parents.
$20,000 to supply the kids with school supplies – this will go up between 6-7000 this year.

Discussion - In the past we have all paid a lump sum for school supplies
We may get into a position where we need to at some time buy our own supplies.
There is confusion about the communication around the levy - are we supposed to buy supplies or not? This money is earmarked for specific items.

Agenda Discussion
Is this something that we want to spend money on? 8 classes are using agendas at School.
It takes a lot of time in some grades to use the agenda in the class – Heather G.
We will be brining in less money over the year. So should we try and look at the bigger picture and see where we should be spending our money – Wendy
If we go ahead and donate this money then we will have more money for school supplies, the fee is important as it is egalitarian and all the kids have the same supplies.
Make it more specific to school supplies and try and support the school, we need to make sure that the wording is correct.
This ties into the whole fundraising issue that we need to take offline – Anders
Do we need to set money aside for school supplies? We are not collecting the money this year so we will not be seeing that surplus. We used to give money to the school
In the past, the supply that was collected went right to the school. The fee for the agenda was collected separately in the past., if we did not collect enough then CASC would split the additional cost. – Donna
The school will have fewer supplies, as a school council can we not give them additional monies? - Anders
What can Megan ask for from parents?

Motion
Motion to put $1250.00 to offset the lack of school supplies funds
Motioned by Dan
Seconded by Anders
All in favor.

Discussion – is there enough time for the kids to eat their lunches? Will they be to warm in the winter in their snowpants? Why were parents not told about this change?

Action – communicate the new lunch plans to the parents.
Change of time schedule could also be communicated to parents.

Treasurers Update and Report – Anders
Lest year we raised 1500 and spent 20000. Only $60.00 per student – can we not just ask the parents to send in the money? We need to build community with events like the craft sale but if you look at the amount of time that we spend on it can we really call it fundraising?

Discussion
What would happen if we just asked parents to cut a check? The money would then go directly to the school. Dave
What are we fundraising money for? Are we raising money to buy supplies. How do we used corporate sponsors and what are the guidelines for this? Anders
What is the Crete for fundraising at our school. Pam
Maybe all fundraising should be done by CASC, is it confusion for both the school and CASC to be fundraising? – Anders
Can we do directed fundraising because we have an alternative believe system – is this the case? Dan
Should we think of two or three different models for how we should thinking of fundraising? Dan

Action – Anders and Pam to meet with Megan to put together some questions for the town hall in October 11th

Expenses coming up for the School
$23000 for the Deck to be fixed
$12000 for the fabric coming up from under the sand
one more year for the play structure

Action
Dan to report back on the ministries new guidelines for School Fundraising.

Sub Lunches – Sue Carkner
New form is available and Subway has raised the price of the subs. The form allows us to offer students healthy choices with options.

Actions
Invite new parents to come to CASC and that you do not need to be on a committee. We should have a member of CASC go to all the teachers meetings and invite them to CASC.
Would it be a good idea for the Co chairs to go and meet and iron out the details and have a shorter meeting with a teacher making a presentation on a specific topic.