Sir Ernest MacMillan School Council 2021-2022
Monday, October 4, 2021, 6:30-7:17pm on Google Meet
Present: Chris Row *Karmyn Bokma
Andrea Howard *Sarah Bean
Christian Brudnjak *Nikki Pembleton
Diane LeClerc Shahi Farooqui
*Voting Member
Welcome
Election of New Council: Karmyn will continue as chair of council. Sarah is taking on the secretary role. Nikki is a voting member. Chris and Victoria Mottram (head secretary) will take on the treasurer’s responsibilities. Diane and Jenna will come as they can to meetings.
Passing the Minutes from June 14, 2021 meeting. Nikki motioned to pass the minutes. Sarah seconded, motion passed.
Principal's Report:
Good start to the school year – clubs and sports are back – volleyball teams have been picked, and x Country happened. Student senate will be starting up for this year. Music room is set to reopen next week. Choir and a school play are allowed to happen this year with COVID guidelines (i.e. – physical distancing) but the focus for the fall will be on closing the gap in the students’ learning after a year and a half of in school/virtual school.
Chris noted the concern of the mental health of kids – it’s been a long 2 years and staff are noticing this in students and families. All are feeling it.
Spirit wear is back – grad orders are a part of this now. Orders must be in by Oct 11th.
Code of Conduct – the student census in the spring revealed that less than 50% of kids knew that there was a code of conduct for the Halton board. As a result, there will be lessons for the students to become familiar with the code of conduct. Mr Row will share more information around this in a future council meeting.
Gearing up for fall season – open house is going to be next week. Teachers will be setting up time and date virtually. They have been encouraged to make a video of their classroom so that parents can get a glimpse inside the building. This has now been approved by the board.
Outdoor classroom construction will be started on Tuesday, Oct 5 and should take about 2 weeks to complete. The space chosen is the back field on the side of Canadian Martyrs, just off the black top.
Treasurer’s Report
New Sr. Secretary, Victoria Mottram and Chris will be working together to keep track of the money for council.
Update on the new library – it is 90% completed and it is looking great. There will be a makerspace and green screen desks. The new books and furniture are already in the room and being used by students. Pictures will be coming on social media once the library is completed.
General Discussion
Meeting Dates: November 1 will be the next meeting. There will also be meetings in Feb, May and June.
Pizza Days – Chris suggested that pizza days be moved to Tuesdays so that we don’t miss out on some weeks due to holidays. There was a discussion of whether to stay with Panago or switch to getting pizzas through Lunchbox Orders. The pros of staying with Panago is that we have a great relationship with them, they gave us free pizzas for our events last year, pizza is hot, families order for a semester, and they have options for delivery. The options are whole class pizzas where a grade 8 student wearing gloves passes the pizza out to the kids ($2.50/3 a slice) or having individual pizza packs but that would increase the price to $5/slice. The cons are that we have to have a point person to go between the school and Panago and have the payment set up via School Cash Online. The pros of School Cash Online is that you order it each week and we don’t have to handle any of the money. The cons are that families must put an order in each week, and we lose the good partnership with Panago. Lunchbox orders will start in a couple of weeks. It was suggested that we hold off on pizza days and see what the uptake is with the hot lunches. Sarah motioned that the school have pizza days this school year. Nikki seconded it, motion was passed. Council will have offline discussions on what it will look like.
Focus of the next meeting will be to brainstorm some fundraising ideas.