LPCI School Council Meeting
In Attendance: M. Schummer, J. Rother, A. Starkman, B. Turner, N. Kotush, Z. DaCosta, J. Jaffary, P. Trenton, I. Kovalev, G. Wyett, L. Addis, S. Paetkau, L. Gray, J. Bragg, W. Sheremata, L. Turkish
Welcome by Co-Chairs (L. Gray, S. Paetkau)
- Review and Approval of Agenda
M. Schummer approved, seconded by J. Bragg
- Approval of May 4, 2015 Minutes
J. Bragg approved, seconded by L. Gray
Student Council Update (Ezra & Jameson)
- Transition tonight for the new reps for student council, Josh will also be a liaison officer along with Ezra and Jameson.
- Explained that summatives are going on and exams will start soon.
- June 23 is exam review day
- Sports Banquet dinner June 1
- Spring Fling event of the previous week was a huge success with more student participation than in the last 5 years
- Grad 12 One Acts were successful
- Grade 12 Prom is coming up next week.
Principal’s Update (L. Jovanovic)
- Labour relations
L. Jovanovic does not have insight information and is not informed of meetings or outcomes. Her understanding at this time is that if anything was going to happen, it would not happen until the start of school in September. Wait and see.
- School Climate Survey
Every week the school receives a report on how many students, teachers and parents have completed the survey. LPCI has had 82% of the students complete the survey, which is much higher than the other 4 schools our family of WR3 schools at: (66%,50%,4%,0%) LPCI parents: 151, other schools: (33,10,1,1) LPCI staff: 70 out of 95, other schools: (59,49,27,8) A decision was made to not send another reminder, as many have been sent.
- Timetable & Electives
The timetables are being worked on now. The school will be sending verification letters of the chosen classes and elective priorities. Changes will not be possible to your requests after this week. Exact classes and teachers are not able to be provided until timetabling is completed. There will be a few students who can not fit in the classes they want, compulsory classes will always take priority.
- School Improvement Plan
Our Principal shared the School Improvement Plan briefly, which is our road map. It is based on the Ministry and Board improvement plans. Some topics she mentioned include:
EQAO results – improvement in literacy and math
Goals- applied math has room for improvement
Instructional strategies and instructional learning
Pathways portion of the plan is where we look at he success of the students. (16 credits when 16 years old, looking at students at risk, percentages of kids graduating) They have 3 meetings a month to discuss individual students. We have a psychologist who will be able to see 5 to 10 students when she comes.
Community Culture and Caring – which includes the Health and Wellness committee.
- Equity Committee survey and action plan
An equity survey was obtained from TDSB and administered to grade 9 & 10 students with the results being very positive. There were two results from the survey that showed room for improvement and lead to discussion.
1- less than 50% of the students felt that they had the opportunity to learn about various festivals and days of significance.
2- less than 30% of the students feel they know the school’s steps in solving a student’s discrimination or harassment complaint.
Next year there will be a Bullying awareness and prevention week
- School-Wide Initiatives
Jovanovic gave a brief overview of the Buddies program. They are discussing making the program more formal and organized in the future. Possibly through credits to be earned, certificates or community hours. A few parents in attendance brought up the idea of changing the name away from Buddies, as to sound more appealing to students and look better on a college application as well. The school is starting to work on a template for meetings and 25 lessons for the meetings. Buddies will be meeting in the mornings for the start of the school year and then will change to a lunch time meeting, in an effort to retain more students.
Co-Chairs update (S. Paetkau)
-Teacher Appreciation Breakfast needs volunteers: M. Schummer and J. Roth agreed to assist along with S. Paetkau. Cold breakfast, coffee and juice will be purchased and provided for the teachers Wednesday from 7:30-8:30am.
-School Council Elections will be at the next meeting, with these positions needing to be filled: Co-Chair, Treasure, Secretary, Webmaster,Community Representatives
-S. Paetkau worked on a donation letter that will be going out to parents in the student packets.
Proposal of 2015/2016 School Council Meeting Plan
Based on the comments coming in that parents were interested in post secondary career planning and to add more structure and transparency to our council meetings, S. Paetkau and J. Bragg worked on a plan for the school council meetings for the coming year. S. Paetkau proposed an agenda for the council meetings and explained the thought put into it. The proposal is to have the business meeting from 6:30-7:30pm and presentations/speakers from 7:30-9pm. Much discussion ensued as there are parents coming to the meeting for various reasons and who would like to get different things out of the meetings. Many people do not like the idea of too much structure and are worried the shortened meeting will only take away discussion time.
J. Bragg motioned to pass the proposed agenda. A vote was taken with 6 approvals, 4 opposed – the rest choosing to abstain.
S. Paetkau suggested we do a review checkpoint at the meeting in December and see how we stand on the way the meetings are working.
L. Turkish Proposals
- Robert’s Rules – L. Turkish provided copies of the Objectives of Robert’s Rules and proposes to adopt some of these rules into the meeting to facilitate the meetings and limit unnecessary discussion.
Side track – A parent suggested the idea of a parent support group for the future, so that parents could discuss ideas and issues.
J. Roth moved to pass the Robert’s Rules and give them a try at the next meeting. It was seconded. A vote was taken with 9 approvals and others abstaining.
- Installing turf at LPCI field – L. Turkish would like to look into having the field turfed. Estimated cost of 1.1 to 1.2 million dollars. No parents funds would be used, as the TDSB would go into a partnership with those who would want to put sod on the field (example: North Toronto Soccer Club). As of 2013 there are 1300 children in the area who play for North Toronto Soccer Club, so it would be many local children. They would use the field between March and November from 6pm till dusk during the week and 10am to 6pm on the weekends if there is no school activity planned. A parent expressed concern about the health concerns of turf and asked people to look into that themselves. L. Turkish strongly feels that the turf would greatly benefit all students.
Motion: L. Addis made a motion to investigate the pro and cons and how we would go about moving forward. It was seconded. A vote was taken with 6 approvals and no opposing, the rest abstained.
Other Business:
W. Sheremata followed up on if students who were elite in activities outside of sports (i.e. music) would be included an “elite athletic” type program. L. Jovanovic confirmed that, yes, they will be included and information would be coming out in the agenda.
W. Sheremata asked about being able to get teacher feedback so that the students could understand in detail their summative scores and english essay marks, exam scores and final grades. L. Jovanovic will get this information and provide the answers to those interested and who left their email addresses after the meeting.
Adjourned at 9:30pm