Montmartre School Community Council Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Present: Carla Dusyk, Sandy Kerbs, Brenda Gibson, Jodi Kress, Raelene Herold, Lance Pollard, Wendy Weichel and Janet Kotylak PVSD Subdivision Trustee.

Regrets: Maureen Kotylak, Wendy Englot

  1. Call to Order – Carla called the meeting to order at 1612 hours.
  2. Welcome & Introductions – Carla welcomed everyone. No introductions were needed.
  3. Approval of Agenda: Agenda approved by Raelene, seconded by Brenda, carried.
  4. Review/Approval of Previous Minutes: Minutes approved by Raelene, seconded by Sandy, carried.
  5. Reports
  6. SLC’s Report –Mom’s Pantry raised $5,199.70. Clothing order will be arriving mid to late January. Through fundraising and WE day committees we will expect to fundraise a donation for Telemiracle. WE day also plans to put on a Valentine’s day dance for each wing of the school as well as a food drive in the spring. SLC will donate school shirts to Happy Christmas for local needy families.
  7. Principal’s Report – Enrolment is fluctuating often but current enrolment 226. Projected Kindergarten students for next year is 21. Awards Banquet was a success, much discussion, see below in 7.9. Thank you SCC for your involvement. EYE, F & P, RAD and TTFM assessments are complete. Working with Vibank to organize a drinking and driving presentation called “Impact of One Decision” on week of March 6. Great feedback on front entrance signage. Gym floor will be installed over the Christmas break; logo will be in the center. Visibility walls are current. Community potluck, December 21, starting at 11:00 am, is headed up by Vic and Brittany. Vic should call Sandy if hams are needed. Three basketball teams starting up this month,Junior boys and girls and senior girls as well as junior and senior curling teams.
  8. Treasurer’s Report–Balance is $6139.46 with outstanding cheques and deposits.
  9. Awards Banquet –SCC catered to the awards banquet to save the SLC money because of extra guests that were invited due to the banner ceremony. SCC roughly made $1000. SLC did not have to subsidize. SLC collected the money and will write a cheque to Sandy.
  10. PVSD Trustee’s Report –
  11. Board Chair and Vice-Chair Re-elected. 2015-2016 School Year Close-Off Prairie Valley has completed the close-off for the 2015-2016 school year. We were ahead of the provincial average in six of seven provincial indicators of academic achievement and continued progress toward our system objectives and targets for student academic results, with 18 of 26 measurement areas improved or stayed the same, including reading, mathematics, science, Treaty essential learnings and graduation (compares to improvement in 22 of 25 areas last year. Staff Service Awards banquet and recognition event was held. Student Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) is now available in all schools. Lance will be sending home consent forms. Facilities group is leading the annual Preventive Maintenance and Renewal school walkthroughs this month to update annual facility maintenance and renewal plan, etc. First Nations and Métis Student Senate was December 2, 2016. Middle Years Student Senate was cancelled on December 6, 2016. High School Student Senate will be December 9, 2016.
  12. Thank you to everyone who supported the awards banquet, Carla for her presentation and hard work with the banners and Sandy and rest of SCC for their work with catering. Very disappointed not to be there due to illness.
  13. Transformational change – much work going on right now to do with this. Janet had a copy of what North Valley SCC gave out. To Do: Carla to send out to MSCC members.
  14. Correspondence/Communication - $2000 from PVSD. Bill for $286 for sponsor sign.
  15. Follow up on Old Business:
  16. Kids Matter Violence Prevention Safety Presentation – Lance sent some dates that worked for the school January 11, 13, 17, Feb 1, 7, 13, 15, 17. Haven’t heard back regarding this. We will need supportive people on hand in case something is brought to light with the students. So teachers, aides and she suggested as well RCMP, health workers and parents. When we know a date we can phone or send a letter out. Montmartre Arts Council gave us $175, Montmartre Library will give us $200 and Stops to Violence will give us some money if we go with 3 sessions instead of two but she hasn’t said how much. She knows the most the SCC could possibly add to this was $100. One session is $250, two sessions is $225 per session and three sessions are $175 per session. They would prefer, with the amount of students, that we have three sessions. Raelene made a motion that the SCC sponsors the Kids Matter Violence Prevention Safety Presentation up to a limit of $100. Jodi seconded. To Do: Brenda will keep board updated on any correspondence relating to this.
  17. Author Visits –
  18. Marny Duncan Cary–put hold on it. To Do: Carla will check out cost.
  19. TD Book Week – handout given – During TD Book Week May 6th to May 13th, the author Erin Bow will be traveling in our area and we can apply for her to present at our school if we wish. Applications have to be in by January 15 and they would let us know in March of 2017 if we were successful. Cost is $200 plus taxes for one hour. Sandy made motion that we apply online to have Erin Bow come to our school during the TD Book Week. Jodi seconded. To Do: Brenda will apply for Erin Bow to visit our school.
  20. Applications for Funding -
  21. For the Kids Matter Presentation – already talked about in6.1.
  22. Sask Energyhas declined us funding for the Literacy Night, I just got the letter today. Jodi’s husband, Dennis, is at a Knights of Columbus meeting tonight, let’s ask them to sponsor us $300 for the Literacy Night. A letter can be sent later. To Do: Jodi will ask if this could be an agenda item at their meeting and get back to us on the result.
  23. All Folk’d UP – sent in application before December 1 deadline for funding for the Willow Award Books. Haven’t received a response yet.
  24. Enbridge – Application is on hold until we get estimate on both Water Bottle Filling Station and Reverse Osmosis Filtration System. We have about 40 days to get this information or application will have to be redone. We will have it installed outside the staff room, close to where there is already plumbing. It was decided that application will also go through PVSD facilities department. In the application to Enbridge put Awards Banquet fundraiser as well as the Hat fundraiser profits will go towards this project. To Do: Lance to get estimates on water bottle filling station and reverse osmosis filtration system and apply through PVSD facilities department.
  25. Date for Literacy Night – Thursday, February 16. Middle years has picked out their movie. “The Finest Hours” and they have all the books needed. Will discuss details at next meeting.
  26. Presentations –
  27. ICE-Tabled this
  28. PARTY–Montmartre and Vibank schools are working together to do “Impact of One Decision”.
  29. Fundraising and spending plans – we will readdress this in January after bills and income from banner sponsors and awards banquet are in.
  30. New Business:
  31. Income –
  32. Awards banquet–240 tickets sold. SCC made about $1000. Lots of discussion about what a great event this was, about what a great job Carla did with the banners and speaking, about how great the supper was with Sandy in charge and what a great job Lance did speaking and keeping things running quickly.
  33. Hat Fundraiser – We should do this tomorrow if we can get them before Christmas break. We could send information out through youngest at school. Wendy W. will collect info and money using runners from each class. SCC will do the rest. To Do: Carla will text the company and see if we can get them supplied to us by December 20. If so Carla will distribute information to go home to youngest and Jodi will advertise on SCC Facebook page. Wendy W. will handle collecting from grades. If more orders are wanted, we can do that December 21 at Community Potluck.
  34. Locally Determined Options, and age at which we offer French- Offer this at grades 7, 8 and 9. To change this would be to survey parents and students. There is a process. Kids who don’t take French use the time to get caught up. But this isn’t the best either. If we took French away the time class time could be better used. Lance will look into the procedure and report back to us in future.
  35. Look at SCC Resource Material Binder – table for next meeting.
  36. Transformational Change and emergency SCC meeting with Janet – An emergency SCC meeting took place in Vibank on November 29. There was discussion about SCC’s role with this. It was discussed to have something on the SCC Facebook Page with a headline that would grab people’s attention and then inform public of what they would be losing through amalgamation and/or loss of elected school boards. It was felt in the end that the info circulated from SSBA and our board was good information and sufficient to put on Facebook page. To Do: Carla will send Jodi information that Janet had given us to put on SCC Facebook Page.
  37. Discuss
  38. SCC contribution to school newsletter – See handout Chapter 9 Positive Home-School relations from the book What Effective Schools Do and summary. Summary could possibly be good for a newsletter article. For January’s newsletter submit information about our Literacy Night. To Do: Brenda to send a contribution to newsletter via Laura McNish for January newsletter.
  39. Pictures to submit to Celebrate – could awards banquet pictures and write up be sent in to Celebrate. To Do: Lance will send Award Banquet pictures and a write-up into Celebrate.
  40. Supporting Literacy LIP goal:
  41. Books Before School, Early Literacy Plan –See attached. This is an idea where SCC gives books to children before they reach school and during kindergarten. The books would be age appropriate – so for age three reading readiness skills like learning about patterns, shapes, sorting, etc. Age 4 about the alphabet. Age 5 very easy reading. The goal is to help all children with school readiness. Would request funding from the Lions. Much discussion about this, not much positive. An idea that came out of all the discussion was to have a SCC kit for Kindergarten parents, to give to them at pre kindergarten day. The kit would include SCC pamphlet, parental instruction and a book ordered from scholastic. There was some concern about the parental information would be. Members need to think about it. This will be discussed again at next meeting.
  42. Summer reading program– Tabled to April.
  43. Giving a book to graduates–Wendy W. talked about each graduate picking theirfavourite book and signing it and leaving it at the school. Sandy talked about giving each graduate a gift of a book. Tabled until March-April.
  44. Discuss
  45. SCC Pamphlet – see handout. Approximately 40-50 were taken during parent/teacher interviews. Pamphlet was will received by SCC.
  46. SCC Page on Montmartre School Website– An example done on Word was sent though e-mail for SCC members to look at and comment. Brenda, Carla and Lance have yet to find time to work on this. Tabled to next meeting.
  47. Vote on mission statement – It was decided that our new mission statement will be: The Montmartre School Community Council is committed to encouraging student learning and achievement by connecting school and families and building community partnerships.
  48. Awards Banquet and Banner Presentation
  49. Feedback - Already discussed in Principal’s report and Trustee’s report
  50. Tax Receipts – In order to give tax receipts for sponsorship of a banner, we need to give PVSD information about the sponsors and when the money was given to us. It was suggested that we get deposit books where you can list the cheques but in the end it was decided to buy a receipt book and write out receipts when this is needed, if it ever is needed again. To Do: If needed, Sandy will buy a receipt book and give out receipts to sponsors.
  51. Closing:
  52. What went will tonight? Our meetings would be better if...they were shorter. Our meetings are too long. What can we do to shorten them? Each person take ownership for their items on the agenda and speak to it. Everyone else respect what the speaker has to say and listen until speaker is done. Have discussion and then vote or decide on action if needed.
  53. To Do List– see to do’s throughout minutes.
  54. For next meeting – Carla is to ask for agenda items from SCC members before preparing agenda.
  55. Next Meeting: January 10, 2017, at 6:00.-
  56. Thanks for contributing! Adjournment: Carla adjourned the meeting at 1835 hours.