School Advisory Council - Meeting Minutes - October 4/16

Minutes of a Meeting of

IRHS School Advisory Council

Held October 4, 2016 at 6 PM

In the School Library

Darlene White, Principal of the School, acted as chair.

Darlene indicated other meetings of the Council for this year are scheduled to occur before the monthly PEP Tuesdays at 7 meetings, on the following dates: 6 Dec., 7 Feb., 4 April.

Darlene introduced the new Chair of the School Advisory Council (Mark Yukich; Sue Kronenfeld has since volunteered to act as Secretary), and indicated we may also require a Treasurer, unless the Council is firmly deciding for this year not to raise and spend funds.

In the recent past, Council has only applied for PIC (Parent Involvement Committee) and PRO (Parents Reaching Out) grants, which are spent immediately on initiatives to promote parent involvement in the school community.  Our PIC representative has been Heather Clark Smith.  Our PRO grant money is being used to engage a speaker (Dr. Karyn Gordon) on a topic related to parenting teens (topic still TBD).

What’s going on at The Ridge:

We’re very busy!  Link Crew is working with gr. 9 students.  We had a locker shortage problem, solved by several students either opting out of a locker or offering to share.

We deliberately placed all the gr. 9 students’ lockers in the desirable 2nd floor location, and placed their Link Crew leaders near them, to help them feel connected.  Their feedback at the gr. 9 dance was that they love this.  The other lockers were deliberately randomized, to encourage established students to mingle.

Parent question: Why were gr. 9 students not asked to share, instead of older students?

Darlene indicated this was because the youngest, most vulnerable students should be made to feel special.  The administration team does not believe in hierarchy, and this solution encourages the culture of sharing that we are building at The Ridge.

Our new “Ridge United” program (similar to Link Crew, but for transfer students in older grades), or the “RU Crew” is going well.  They also (mostly) got their lockers together, with their Crew leaders.

We just had Program Night/Club day in “the Street” (i.e. main corridor on the ground floor).  There is a complete list of clubs under the “Students” tab, including where and when they meet, and who the staff advisers are.  This can be a resource for helping your students to connect.  There are *lots* of clubs and teams, each of which sends a rep to the Ridge Council.  Ridge Council members work together on plans, sometimes with different groups collaborating on a project, such as a food drive.

Thurs. 6 Oct. is Pink Day.  Synermail came home about this today with the modified class schedule.  The academic day stops at noon, and the students and staff run organized activities, and a BBQ is hosted by the PEP team.  The Family Studies classes bake cupcakes, and parents and the community are invited to participate.  Gr. 8 classes from catchment schools were invited (3 schools are participating this year).

5th week reports are coming out 14 Oct.  All gr. 9s receive them and gr. 10-12 students with a grade of 60 or lower, or another cause for concern.

Thurs. 20 Oct. will be Interview Night.  Parents can arrange a formal appointment with teachers (10 mins.), and there is an informal meet-up in “the Street”, with teachers arranged in alphabetical order, prior to the interview times.  If you can’t make this evening, or can’t get an interview time, you can also contact your child’s teacher at any time to arrange another meeting time (e-mail is preferred).

Fri. 7 Oct. is a PA day.  The teachers are leaving the school building in the morning to go out and familiarize themselves with the community on a scavenger hunt created by the staff learning team.  They will return in the afternoon for more traditional continued learning.

Thurs. 20 Oct. will be a Collaborative Morning and all gr. 10 students will be taking the online EQAO literacy test.  Ontario is trying the online version as a pilot (plans unknown for next year); all of Halton is participating and 60% of the whole province.  A message from the school board will be coming home about the exam.

This is how the day will change: Subject clinics will only operate for Math, Science, English.  Many normal Internet services will be blocked that day to decrease the bandwidth use (e.g., Netflix, Facebook, YouTube).  Seniors: no regular classes. Gr. 9 students will have Link Crew in the morning, and regular classes in the afternoon.  Half the test-takers will be starting in the afternoon.  IEP and ELL students will start in the morning, and receive any accommodations they would usually have.  The test results will be available before the traditional literacy test in March, and students who pass in October won’t have to retake it.

There is an app available to practice taking the literacy test.  Go to www.eqao.com and look for the Sample Online OSSLT.  You can try the practice tests (there are 2) and get immediate feedback, and learn to use all the helpful tools (assistive tech, word count, highlight, flag questions to go back to, etc.)

The test will be administered using  school-provided tech devices, as opposed to student devices.  They will be loaded with the EQAO app; staff is now learning how to use it.  The students are being trained to use the app in their last-period classes from 12-14 Oct.

Increased internet traffic demand will be managed by terminating wifi access to high demand social media sites such as Facebook for that day.  If unsuccessful, we will simply rely exclusively on the March tests as we have in the past.

The Halton District School Board (HDSB) has just published their multi-year plan for the next 3-5 years.  To see it, go to www.hdsb.ca, and click the link “Mission Vision and Values”.

IRHS is also refreshing its school vision (last major revision was 23 years ago).  We started last year, surveying parents, students and staff about ideas, visions.  Now we’re in the middle of revising the vision (a team is working on it).  We’re not looking for it to be the exact same as HDSB’s, but aligned with it; eventually ours will be published as well, and we’ll be looking for student art to set forth our vision.

Parent question: Why are students allowed to use cell phones and access social media sites in class?  

Andrew Bigham, Vice Principal, indicated that teachers have autonomy in allowing this.  We’re trying to teach “digital responsibility”: how to use technology for the right purpose, at the right place and time.  This technology offers many invaluable teaching and learning tools; we can often accomplish much more and faster with a small, handheld device than we could on a school computer.  From gr. 6 down, there is some filtering but HDSB has chosen not to filter high schools, and students are allowed to view these media on their breaks.  If you ever feel there is an issue, please come speak with us, and we can have a conversation.

Darlene White added we’re teaching the right/wrong use of these items; we’re not texting friends in class, but using educational apps, camera for a slideshow as part of a project, etc.  There is a lot of teaching power available in a phone.

Andrew: We are trying to provide equal access for everyone; Chromebooks are available for sign-out from the library.

Parent question: Is there any prospect of making MS Office 365, etc. available to students?

Andrew indicated, No, we’re a Google shop.  Some time ago, a decision had to be made as to which provider/software to use, and Halton opted to go with Google.  (Google programs are available, but not Microsoft.)

Parent question: There are some concerns around changes to the gr. 12 prom.

Darlene: We already have the date on the calendar: 12 May.  IRHS is unique, which is great, but we have also been the only school with prom squeezed in between the last exam and graduation.  Moving up the date of prom should decrease the time pressure.  Three staff members are working on the prom; the venue is booked, and the student prom committee is meeting.

There being no further business, the meeting was terminated at 7:00 PM.

______________________________________________

Sue Kronenfeld, Secretary

Next School Advisory Council meeting: Tue. 6 Dec. @ 6PM