School Advisory Council
SAC Meeting - PRMS March 25, 2024
In Attendance: Cathy Rafuse, Patricia Kasapowitsch, Olivia Fowler, Xander Green, Mindy Ogilvie, Nora Vance, Stacy and Glen Abriel, Patty MacDonald and Eliza Maynes
Absent: Cindy MacLennan, Nadine Landry-Hiltz. Paula Ferguson, Kaitlynne Mead, Frankie Bent, and Brenda Elford.
Meeting called to order at 4:45pm by Mindy.
Mindy motioned to pass the agenda and previous minutes. Patricia seconded the motion. Motion passed.
Financial Report:
Updated financial report provided from the school but there are a few discrepancies that Mindy will follow up on. We currently have $8522 in the account. Mindy motioned to approve the financial report. Eliza seconded the motion. Motion passed.
Principal Report:
Grade 6 Assessments: Self regulated strategy development in writing (SRSD)where the writing process is broken down and tools are given for success. Teachers attended two days of inservicing on this initiative and are now implementing the strategies in the classroom.
Math 6 classes have started a 30 minute fluency block each day.
Gr 8 Provincial Assessment is coming in May and classes have begun preparing. They have used the provincial rubric for writing to teach their students what needs to be included in their work for success on these assessments.
Equity and Wellness Team completed a presentation on discrimination, bullying, and physical violence. Each homeroom teacher used the presentation to inform their classes and work through the concerns that had been voiced in the wellness survey conducted at the beginning of the year.
Attendance/Incidents: Absenteeism and behavior incidents have increased over term two but we are recently observing less racial behavior and incidents are coming down. Discussion was around the high number of physical violence incidents (32 in term 2) and a request to see this broken down a little more between student to adult vs student to student. It is important to note that the 32 incidents mean that 32 students were logged for an incident but there may have only been 10 occurrences.
Invitation to West Kings SAC: West Kings has their first SAC meeting beginning of April.
SAC Meeting - PRMS October 30, 2023
In Attendance: Cathy Rafuse, Patricia Kasapowitsch, Olivia Fowler, Xander Green, Kaitlynne Mead, Mindy Ogilvie, Nora Vance, Patty MacDonald, Nadine Landry-Hiltz, Frankie Bent, Stacy and Glen Abriel
Absent: Cindy MacLennan, Eliza Maynes, Paula Ferguson, Brenda Elford.
Meeting called to order at 4:53pm by Mindy.
Mindy and Patricia agenda and minutes
Update to SAC Members:
Community Members: Glen Abriel, Stacy Abriel, Nadine Landry-Hiltz
Parent: Frankie Bent
Financial Report:
There is no official financial report since the school software does not update new input for a number of months. The SAC Funds tracking page that Candice created shows our approved projects and funds that need to be paid out. Currently we are approximately -$2700.
Principal Report:
Cathy presented the provincial testing results for reading, writing, and math. The focus is on level 2 students to get them to a 3 in their level of understanding. Our school was however above the regional average, which is a success to be celebrated. Classes at PRMS have 30 minutes of math fluency built into the schedule now to help improve results going forward.
Equity/Wellness Team Report:
Olivia, Xander, and Kaitlynne (members of the equity team) presented goals of the meeting that occurred two weeks ago. In small groups they looked at what needs to improve and what is being done well in the school according to the provincial survey results from last year.
Areas needing improvement include: knowing our students lives outside of school; students feeling they can be themselves at school; education around sexuality, race, and gender; eating lunch.
Next steps: focus group to learn why students feel they do not belong; school based survey to dig deeper into the data results and have a baseline prior to the provincial survey in the spring.
Cathy presented the results from the school based survey.
Financial Requests:
Holly Merret: Member of deep space sparkle club delivering high quality lessons and resources supporting the art curriculum at PRMS. Cost is approximately $40USD/mo or $400USD for a yearly membership. We discussed that she could look into regional PD and apply for conference days prior to January and when our budget is more clear, we can revisit the request and need before January, when the subscription becomes available. Nora will report back to Holly.
Next Meeting: Meeting dates for the following school year are as follows at 4:45pm
January 29, 2024
March 25, 2024
May 27, 2024
Adjournment: Mindy motioned to adjourn at 5:40 pm. Patricia seconded the motion. Motion passed.
SAC Meeting - PRMS September 25, 2023
In Attendance: Cathy Rafuse, Patricia Kasapowitsch, Cindy MacLennan, Olivia Fowler, Xander Green, Kaitlynne Mead, Mindy Ogilvie, Nora Vance, Chantel Arsenault, Patty MacDonald, and Brenda Elford.
Absent: Eliza Maynes and Paula Ferguson.
Meeting called to order at 4:49pm by Mindy.
Patricia moved to accept the agenda. Cindy seconded the motion. Motion carried.
Mindy moved to accept the minutes from June as reviewed by Candice. Patricia seconded the motion. Motion carried.
Election of SAC for 2023/2024:
Chair: Mindy agreed to continue.
Vice Chair: Mindy nominated Patty. Cindy seconded the motion. Motion carried. Patty accepted.
Teachers: Cindy and Patricia agreed to continue
Secretary: Candice agreed to continue
Students: Kaitlynne, Olivia, Xander
Parents: Eliza Maynes and Paula Ferguson?
Community: We will contact Stacy Abriel to see if she is interested.
Financial Report:
Balance as of September 25 is $4150.41
Principal Report:
Staffing: We are continuing to look for a grade eight french immersion teacher. In the meanwhile, Nora is covering the FLA and a substitute has been hired for the other subjects. Brenda Elford is hired to pick up some of the teacher support responsibilities that Nora would normally fill. We have one student supervisor position that still needs to be filled.
Grade eight English is being covered by Sean Bustin as a long term sub. We will be looking for a grade six math teacher shortly when Sara Jones goes on maternity leave.
Candice gave a garden club update. The new group of approximately 12 members met last Thursday and cleaned up the garden. It was well maintained over the summer by the students and members were able to take home beans, lettuce, zucchini, and kale. Facilities still needs to come to install two benches, a mushroom stool, a fountain, and an archway. The camera also still needs to be installed. The club will meet every other week until winter and will install a grass mat for wheelchair access, build an accessible garden box, plant garlic, put the beds to rest, and look at other projects they want to complete this year.
Cathy gave an equity team update: We selected the book, “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain”. It is appropriate for all students, not just those of minority groups, and will help prepare all for rigor and becoming independent learners. The book study will be starting this coming Friday. Nora and Cathy are meeting with the equity advisor from the regional centre to look at the vision for PRMS to ensure all groups have a voice in the building.
It was expressed that there is a need for level appropriate reading materials in all the classrooms. Brenda spoke about high engagement, low vocabulary and also decoding books. She will look into what is available and examples. Xander and Kaitlynne mentioned that graphic novels and magazines are really useful for lower levels and for french as a second language so that there is a visual to support the content. We will discuss books and other equitable initiatives that the SAC can support in the future.
Financial Requests:
Cathy is asking for three substitutes to cover the release of three of our teachers to meet with the Equity lead and start building our school vision. This would cost approximately $600.
Chantel Arsenault is requesting money for an annual subscription to Symbol Stix Prime, a program that creates visuals for students. Non verbal students can use it to communicate and create presentations through the symbols as well. Chantel has used this for a number of years and supported other teachers with their students through the program resources as well. The total cost is $154.99.
Candice is requesting an annual subscription for ten of her students to caribou math. This provides access to ten contests throughout the year in various domains of math application and analysis. Students may also access online games that require problem solving strategies, number and operation sense and rational thinking skills. The cost for ten students with tax is $172.50. A school wide account would be $368.
Mindy motioned that we support the funding for all three proposals, including the school wide caribou math account. Cindy seconded the motion. Motion carried.
Next Meeting: Meeting dates for the following school year are as follows at 4:45pm
October 30, 2023
January 29, 2024
March 25, 2024
May 27, 2024
Adjournment: Mindy motioned to adjourn at 6:00 pm. Cindy seconded the motion. Motion passed.