École John English SAC

Thursday, April 21, 2022, 7 – 8:30 pm

Welcome                                                                                                                          7:06 – 7:08     

• Introduction and welcome to meeting
• Land Acknowledgement
• Agenda and budget documents shared in the zoom chat

Principal/Vice Principal’s Report                                                                                     7:08 – 7:20

• Short report including staffing projections for next year
• We continue to go through unprecedented times as staff, students and families
• Impact of Covid on staffing and student absences continues to be a daily issue at the school.
• We are thankful for the willingness of the regular supply teachers and great, creative scheduling by our VPs, the school is able to run fairly smoothly.
• Based on this, we also want to extend a thanks for the community for their support and patience. We are not the only school experiencing this—it is a board and province-wide issue.

PLAYGROUND UPDATE:

• The project is back in full swing with construction.
• The metal structure is being installed now, and the 3 TDSB-built pieces are already completed. No additional issues have been identified and the project is moving along nicely.
• We are now thinking ahead to an ‘grand opening’ ceremony to welcome students to the new playground.

STAFFING:

• Every year schools get projected numbers of students that are supplied by the board. Based on these projections, each school is allocated a number of teaching staff.
• Overall board enrolment is in decline with a loss of about 14 000 students over the last 3 years.
• Fewer students means fewer teachers. TDSB anticipates a decrease of about 700 teachers board-wide.
• Note that TDSB is also offering virtual next year. This time this will only be offered as a whole year selection with no opportunity for students to ‘flip back’ to in person learning.
• Remembering that Covid had brought extra funding to school boards for teachers, and that funding is not continuing.
• Next year TDSB will also have a double entry cohort of JK/SK students in French Immersion.

• What this means for JEJMS:
  • This year we have 43 teachers, next year we will have an allocation of 40.5
  • Once we have this allocation we build class models for our school to ensure classes are balanced as best possible.
  • The models for this year (2021/2022):
    • 14 teachers in EN and 17 in FR
    • 9.5 resource/prep teachers who help deliver the programs
  • Models for 2022/2023 have been approved.
  • This means our school is in a surplus situation, so we will have to say goodbye to some teachers, but we may see some back in recall if our numbers change from projections.

• Parent question: Does it look like the JK FI program bringing more kids or is it about the same as a usual JK/SK cohort?
  • Seems like more but it is perhaps due to the double cohort. In the projections we have gained numbers on French and lost on the English side.

Chair:         Agenda and budget documents links shared on the zoom chat. Request for additional agenda items. None at this time.

Teacher’s Report                                                                                                  7:20 – 7:24

• We have had some extra curricular activities for the students.
  • Grade 8 girls/boys and co-ed volleyball team.
  • Mr Poyser has been mentoring some grade 8 boys with the basketball again.
  • Mr Nunes and Mme Da Silva will be starting doing badminton with grades 5-6 Tues/Wed after school.
  • Mr Tang/Mr Stam have been opening the gym for grade 7s for volleyball and basketball.
• Earth day is tomorrow. Mr Tang and the Eco School group have been organizing a community clean-up, and many classes have signed up for a zone of the neighbourhood.
• Pizza day is coming back and students are looking forward to it!
• Also tomorrow some grade 5 and 6 students will be writing a math contest. Pythagoras and Fibonacci will be written tomorrow.
• Classes are gearing up for EQAO for the grade 3 and 6s at the end of May.

• QUESTION: Is there going to be chess club?
  No word from anyone on it at this point, but will ask and see if there is anyone interested.

VP Report                                                                                                             7:24 –  7:27

• One student at the grade 6 level has advocated to start a black student union at the school.
  • She is starting the committee to those students who identify as black to get it going and then open it to others in the school community who are interested in learning to be allies.

• A group of grade 8s are initiating a student council and prepared a proposal that they shared with the administration and will go forward to build a group to organize activities through the rest of the year.

• Staff development: we spoke at the last meeting about our work in anti black racism and anti oppression at our school and we have had the chance to continue our school-wide learning and development.

• Still in the process of trying to connect with an Elder to come and speak with the staff to connect learning to the land acknowledgement we hear each day. We know that families have expressed interest in having access to this as well. Once there is confirmation on this we will to communicate with you about it.

Board Business                                                                                                             7:27 – 8:11

• The SAC would like to extend a sincere thank you for the staff taking on so much to help our kids ‘bounce back’. Please know that all the effort is much appreciated by the families of the school.
• A big thank you to those who make Forest of Reading program happen as well.

• Programs
  • No active programs at this time.

• Fundraising
  • Pizza Day begins this week
  • SAC has scheduled 4 pizza days for this year – please let us know if you can volunteer, email us @ sacinfo@johnenglish.ca
  • Will look different this year because of lunch scheduling and in-classroom eating.
  • Thank you to all the volunteers who are taking time to help.
  • This is projected to be a successful fundraiser for the school
  • There are 3 more to pizza days come after this week, so if you can’t come tomorrow, please consider volunteering when you can!
• Music ‘N Movies – Trivia Night March 8, 2022

• Thank you to our attendees & special thanks to the Fudge family for organizing an amazing event!
• Great event and gave prizes to Funny Bones (a local business)
• We look forward to future Kahoots!
• Dance-a-thon – Friday June 17, 2022 in the afternoon (outdoor event)

• This is a fun event that does not bring a lot of revenue—it is an ask for donations & freezies are sold to students
• Happy to be able to bring it back this year.
• This will run on the same day as our last pizza day, so if you can volunteer for that, you can stay on and help out with this event as well!
• We still have ongoing Indigo Flipgive and Mabels Labels fundraising options for families to take advantage of.

• Treasurer’s Report
  • Because of Kahoot! And Pizza days we are actually making some money this year!
• No active spend requests at this time.  Updated budget is available as a link in the chat.
• One change coming forward is that Google will start charging for Gmail on custom domains (like our johnenglish.ca) as of June 2022, so we will be revisiting our email & web hosting arrangements.  This will have a higher cost, but will be paid by TDSB funds that are allocated to running SACs.

Other Business 

• School Council By-Laws
  • we need to review the board’s By-Laws’ template to solicit feedback and input.
  • Update: This process has been delayed, there is a revised due date of June 17, 2022.  If you would like to participate in this process, please email sacinfo@johnenglish.ca.
  • If you want to help please put your email in the chat so we can have multiple eyes review it before it is submitted.
  • Parent question: What kind of help is requested from parents?
    • Full transparency we have not gone through this process yet, but more than anything we want to be in agreement that the bylaws we submit are reviewed and agreed upon by our council members to accurately represent our school and SAC.

• Healthy Bites
• There is a request for help with picking up bread donation from Cobs at Humbertown.  If you are available, please contact healthybites@johnenglish.ca
• This is a large pickup on Sundays and is delivered to the school on Monday mornings. It requires a big vehicle to accommodate the volume!

• Plans for 2022/2023 School Year
• USchool moving forward: Grade 3 offering?  Lunch time programming?
  • USchool has been offering Grade 3 Uke program to the entire grade level and a lunchtime program for payment for older students
  • The support has been $7500 yearly and we probably cannot carry the full bill moving forward
  • It is a very successful program and captures all students at that grade level. We would like to vote about this moving into next year and what the SAC support might look like.
• Parent question: Can it be offered to those who missed out over the last while because of covid?
  • Would likely cost more, but we can look into options.
• Note the school library of ukes would need some repair to get them ready for the program moving forward. The cost associated with this would likely come from the SAC, with school support if budget exists.
• Perhaps we can do some targeted fundraising moving ahead to cover the costs of this program specifically.

• Principal comment: On the school side, we invested $12 000 on strings this year. We committed to doing the same for the wind instruments next year as well. Not sure that we can cover the uke repairs next year, but can consider that when allocating budget.

• Chair comment (DF): what USchool needs is to have a commitment to run the program at our school. This is because they need to know what school commitments look like as they plan to submit their paperwork to become a TDSB partner. How we decide to divide costs could be determined later, but they are asking for a commitment from us.

• Parent question: Why the focus on USchool and no other extra-curricular programs?
  • It was something that was very well enjoyed by students, and was historically covered by SAC. One teacher shared a comment was that it was a very good age and program for that grade level: their interest in music is higher in grade 3 than at older grades and they are generally big enough to properly hold the instrument.
  • It is offered to both the English and French streams of students, during class time. It is worth noting that typically outside organizations that come in to offer extra-curricular programs often see higher uptake in the French Immersion side. This program has been offered to everyone.  
• Discussion tabled for now.
  • We will put together a backgrounder document and have a meeting to vote on the expenditure, similar to what was done for the playground project.
  • There is also low attendance at this meeting and we will hopefully have higher attendance at the next.
  • Noting that there is no need for people to vote in support of the motion—we can also look at the program and suggest that it is offered in a new way.

• Parent question: when the playground will be completed?
  • Will ask and hope to have an answer soon.

Next Meetings for 2022: final meeting June 2, 2022

Meeting Ends                                                                                                       8:11

Ward 3 School Trustee: Patrick Nunziata can be reached at Patrick.Nunziata@tdsb.on.ca or 416 996 5572, sign up for e-newsletter at www.tdsb.on.ca/ward3/Ward3.aspx or follow him on Twitter @NunziataPatrick