SHERWOOD MILLS SCHOOL COUNCIL

Thursday, March 23, 2017

6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

SCHOOL COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

Attendees :

School Staff : Marg Patterson(P), Tracey Lai Thom (VP), Bita Watts (T)

Parents: Quyen Hoang (co-chair), Deborah Walton (co-chair), NalimSeneviratne, Yasir Ali, KuralaiMedetsekova, WijdanRaboui, DalalHamdan, GunjanMathkaf

Approval of Minutes: Minutes from the last meeting were approved.

School Sharing:

Religious Accommodations

  • Marg shared information regarding the Board ‘s released document called, ‘Religious Accommodation: Key Facts’
  • Document highlights Board’s policy and helps to clarify some recent highly publicized deliberate misinformation regarding the Board’s Policy on Religious Accommodation in schools.
  • Marg shared the Board’s website address and how parents could access the Key Facts document.
  • Marg also shared our School procedure on how we accommodate Religious Accommodations
  • Parents who are requesting an accommodation are required to have a meeting with administration and discuss exactly what concerns them in the curriculum
  • Students receive accommodations on an individual basis
  • Written accommodations are kept on file and need to be updated every year
  • Prayers: Currently we provide 10 students an area (Reading Recovery Room) to pray if they choose to do so. We do not directly supervise students (however there are always adults in the office). We do not monitor whether students pray or not. It is strictly on a voluntary basis and the school provides a space to accommodate parent’s written requests.

Fundscrip– school fundraising

  • Marg shared that last year our school sold $9355 in gift cards and school recently received a cheque for $355.75. The cheque was only sent after Marg went online and initiated the payout procedure.
  • Council would like the Fundscrip fundraising to run from April 3rd – April 28th and have May 5th as the delivery Date
  • A volunteer sheet was circulated to recruit parents who would like to help count money
  • After much discussion, Council has requested to have Fundscrip done online. Quyen will investigate to see if we will be able to do that for the April 3rd start date.

Pizza Day – school fundraising

  • Deborah will be visiting local schools to explore how other schools run their pizza days.
  • Would like to have our school have at least one pizza day this year.
  • Circulated a volunteer sign-up sheet to see if parents were interest in assisting with Pizza
  • Tracey will give Deborah information to explore regarding LunchBox orders (company that helps with online ordering) to simplify the handling of money (Pizza Days).
  • Marg highlighted the importance of considering the restrictions of some Cultures (i.e.Halal) when considering the different toppings and pizza. Council agreed to offer only cheese pizza which is Halal.

New Business

PRO Grant – Parent Reaching Out Grant

  • Quyen shared info on the $500-$1000 grant that Councils could apply for (to engage parents).
  • We applied successfully over the past three years and used the pro grant funds to bring a speaker on Sibling Rivalry, Active Chefs and last year, for the math bags. Parents shared their enthusiasm regarding the Math Bags and would like to apply for the grant this year to bring in additional Math Bags so that students could take a turn to take them home more often.

Math Curriculum Evening

  • Parents discussed their desire for having a Numeracy curriculum Evening at Sherwood Mills P.S. Ideas such as sharing math language with parents and helping parents understand the problem solving approach to teaching, were shared.
  • Marg will investigate options and present at the next school council meeting

Peel District School Board Budget Consultation

  • The school board is seeking input from staff, parents, students and community members about what we collectively see as budget priorities for the upcoming school year

Online survey can be found at

Meeting adjourned at 8pm

Next meeting – May 11th, 2017 @ 6:30pm in the Library