Building Brighter Futures Together
at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
School Council Update #12 - November 22, 2019
Schools are busy places these days. There are several important updates in this newsletter, so please take a few moments to read it.

Three important things about next week:
  • There will be an increase in labour action, however, all schools will be open. Parents received an email update today;
  • On November 26th, the OCDSB will launch our 2019 student survey. Parents will complete the survey for students in K-6 and students will complete the survey in grades 7-12. You can read the survey questions on our website. A direct link will be sent to K-6 parents next week.
  • The PRO grants for school councils have changed. The province is no longer running the program. See more detailed information below. Please share  your thoughts about how we might reimagine funding opporutnities for school councils. Remember submit your thoughts by Monday, 02 December 2019.
Important Information
Both the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) and the Elementary Teacher's Federation of Ontario (ETFO) have announced labour action beginning on Tuesday, November 26th. The actions are primarily administrative in nature. All schools will be open and regular classroom and extra-curricular activities will continue. More detailed information is available here .
This year, the Ministry of Education made some changes to the Parents Reaching Out (PRO) Grants . The school council PRO grant application program has been discontinued and, instead, the OCDSB received $40,521 in PRO grant funding for 2019-2020. The Ministry has set expectations about how the funds can be used, which can be read here . All funds must be spent by 30 June 2020 and reports must be filed by 15 July 2020.

The District, in collaboration with its Parent Involvement Committee (PIC), is seeking your input about how to allocate those funds. We invite you to submit your thoughts by Monday, 02 December 2019. 

The Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) had a preliminary discussion about this at its 20 November 2019 meeting. Some of the ideas we heard include:
  • Allocating an amount for each school council based on the number of students enrolled in the school;
  • Offering Speaker Series by family or group of schools across the District;
  • Administering a grant application process for school councils with a limited number of recipients and bigger grant amounts;
  • Distributing a fixed amount to school councils based on needs (RAISE index); 
  • Focusing on projects that align with one of the goals of the Board and School Improvement Plans; and
  • Using the funds to develop a parent engagement activity/module for school councils to use.

You may have other ideas and we would like to hear them. For more information, please refer to this report .
All children attending school between ages 4 to 17 need to be immunized according to   Ontario's Immunization Schedule . Under the Immunization of School Pupils Act, students attending school in Ontario are required to be vaccinated against nine (9) diseases or have a valid exemption. Learn more .
On Saturday, November 23rd, educators and parents are invited to attend Breaking Barriers: Achieving Black Student Excellence , a free conference on addressing anti-Black racism in schools. This half-day event will be held at the Confederation Education Centre from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Come join the Ottawa Carleton Choristers for their 30th Anniversary Christmas Concert “Pearls of the Season” on Saturday, December 14th, at 7:30 p.m. The event is being held at Woodroffe United Church. Freewill offering, dessert reception to follow.
Identity-Based Data Study
The OCDSB is committed to improving equity of access and opportunity for all students. To do this, we need to better understand the challenges our students are facing and where more support is needed.

As part of this commitment, the district will be conducting a survey called Valuing Voices – Identity Matters! The survey will be conducted between November 26th and December 13th, 2019. The survey will be completed by parents of students in Kindergarten to Grade 6, and by students in grades 7 to 12.

Learn more here . 
OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills
The OCDSB is currently participating in the OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills. The data gathered from this study will be used to help identify factors that support the development of social and emotional skills. The study began on October 8th and will close on November 30th.

Examples of social and emotional skills include collaboration, open-mindedness and self-efficacy. These life skills are critical for student success, and contribute to many positive life outcomes.

Further information can be found here.
Reminders
Have questions about the International Baccalaureate Program? Colonel By Secondary School and Merivale High School will be holding free Information Nights in November.
Come out and support of the Education Foundation o n Saturday, December 7th, at Greenfield's Gastro Public House, join The Lads for a night of great music and fun.
To enhance our existing absence-check procedure, we are introducing a new, more efficient student absence reporting system called  SchoolMessenger SafeArrival .
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our OCDSB Parent Conference and School Council Training Day. Please visit our website for electronic copies of the presentations.
School Council Information
Video Licensing Agreement 2019-2020
In order for schools and schools councils to show copyright protected movies, the OCDSB has renewed their video licensing agreements with Criterion Pictures, and Audio Cine Films Inc. for the 2019-2020 school year,
effective until September 1st, 2020.

School Councils 101 - Quorum and Voting
A quorum is required to convene a school council meeting. To form a quorum, the majority of the current members of the school council must be present, and the majority of the members present must be parent/guardian members.
Once quorum is attained, your council can make decisions either by consensus or by a vote. If your council chooses to reach decisions by a majority vote, everyone on the council should be well informed and the council as a group should discuss all of the implications before a vote is called by the chair. A simple majority vote is 50% plus one of members present. Remember, all council members, except the principal, have voting rights. In the absence of a quorum, present members could meet for purposes of discussions if
they agreed to proceed.

School Councils 101 – Chairing a Meeting
Here are some tips to help in chairing your school council meetings:
  • Think of the topics on your agenda that might be contentious and have some language ready to recognize the value of everyone’s input, and alternatives to try to bring your council to consensus.
  • Keep on hand a copy of your constitution and your agenda. This will help you enforce protocols and follow the agreed upon items and timelines.
  • Refer to the minutes and confirm that issues are closed when attempts are made to reopen an item.
  • Always defer to the rest of the council if someone is hijacking a discussion.
  • When a person is speaking negatively about an issue, ask for possible solutions (make it positive) and poll the rest of the group.

School Councils 101 – Taking Minutes
Here are some tips to help in taking minutes of your council meetings:
  • The minutes should have the names of the members who are present, the date and the time of the meeting, decisions taken, and the time the meeting was adjourned.
  • You don’t need to record verbatim every opinion communicated; just record the decisions or actions.
  • Minutes should include any advice provided to the District staff and the reply to such advice.
  • Feel free to interrupt if you need clarification on what was said.

After you finish transcribing your minutes, mark it as draft and share it with the Chair for approval and sharing with the rest of the members. Remember, your minutes should be retained on your website for the current school year, plus 5 years.

Further School Council information can be found on our website .

Other Resources:

Board and Committee of the Whole Meetings
The next public Board meeting will be held on November 26th, 2019, in the boardroom at 133 Greenbank Road at 7:00 p.m.

 Watch the meeting  live here .

Upcoming Committee Meetings: 

For a summary of our board meetings, read our Boardroom Newsbriefs here .
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