JO PAC Minutes – May 18, 2022 (last session this school year!)
Date: May 18th, 2022
Location: Zoom
Attendance: Shannon Kaplun – PAC Chair, Samantha Anderson – DPAC Rep, Sue Bains – Treasurer, Lihn Lam – Fundraising, Corina Tataru – Communications, Brent Schieman – JO Principal, +3 others
Meeting called to order – Shannon Kaplun, Chair
Round of introductions
Motion to Adopt Agenda- moved Sue/seconded Sam
Motion to approve April 20 minutes- moved Sue/seconded Corina
Item 1 PAC election for 2022-2023.
- Lihn, Sue, Darnelle & Sam acclaimed as PAC. Still seeking new members and a PAC Chair. Please email pac_jo@vsb.bc.ca if you are interested.
Item 2 Principal Brent Schieman update
- JO Fine Arts & Music Festival held on May 12th. About 350 people attended. Put on by student teachers.
- Literacy 12 exams/assessment make-up to be held June 17. Grade 12s need it to graduate.
- Grade 10 numeracy and literacy assessment will take place the week of June 13. Final planning and announcements to be done after Grad on June 7.
- Student Council elections to be held on May 19
- A new speaker for the PA system is going in, so there will be no PA system next week.
- JO is going to be painted this summer.
- Students still need to pick up tickets for Grad, especially the kids in the Trades programme as many are not on campus. Reminders are being sent out.
- Rehearsal for the Grad ceremony is taking place June 3.
- Because of decreasing enrollment, currently going through the process of taking 20 blocks out of the timetable and addressing staffing needs. Fortunately, because of staff attrition, no-one is being let go. Some services will be less available and some courses are closing.
Questions:
How long will the Grad ceremony at the Chan Centre take? About 2.5 hours
Why is Math Foundations 12 being cut? It was one of the courses with low enrollment so was part of the 20 courses being cut. Most schools do not offer Foundations 12 as most universities require pre-calculus.
Item 3: Financial Update Sue Bains
Account Balances
- Gaming Account Balance – $3,522.17
- Legacy Account $1082.14
- Consultative Account $5673.97
- Gaming grant application has been done, so it should arrive sometime in October.
- The Legacy account covers a $1000 scholarship in honour of Thomas Harapnuick – this will be the last year for this scholarship.
- The Gaming account is allocated for 4 scholarships. A list of names is being provided and Sue will write and deliver the cheques.
- $500 has been approved for the Girls’ Basketball team’s transportation to Provincials- PAC approve this being withdrawn from the general account. Sue will write and deliver the cheque.
- 1 other cheque for DPAC fees.
Item 4: Mountain bike championships
- Johnathan Warnell requested $1000 towards funds for students to attend the Provincial Mountain Bike Championships on Vancouver Island.
- Vote: 4 in favour, none opposed
- Funds to be withdrawn from the Consultative Account.
Item 5: DPAC update (Samantha Anderson)
- Next General Meeting May 26 on Inclusive education. Register here: http://vancouverdpac.org/2021-2022-school-year
- Ongoing discussions about the contradiction between VSB planning for decline, while the City of Vancouver is planning for growth and every time a school is renovated/rebuilt it is immediately oversubscribed. DPAC Facilities Committee has been looking at examples from Toronto, which has going through a similar process to Vancouver- closing schools and then finding themselves without enough space as the school population increases. They have been doing some innovative developments- school, community centre, retail & housing on one site, so the Board can benefit from income as well as have space to expand and contract as necessary. DPAC looking at inviting speakers involved in these projects to come to speak here. John Oliver was identified as one of the sites with large amounts of land that this approach would be appropriate for.
Item 6: Bleachers Issue
- Patrick Lee presented on the on-going difficulties JO Athletics has had in trying to get VSB to fix/replace the bleachers. They are over 30 years old, have been repairs with incorrect parts, are unstable and inaccessible. Only two schools (King George and JO) have this type of mechanical, impermanent bleachers. The gym was recently resanded and painted as part of a 25-year maintenance upgrade, but did not deal with the bleachers. In April, 4 sections have been closed indefinitely due to lack of parts.
- The VSB Director of Maintenance has suggested that the bleachers be replaced through combined PAC fundraising and VSB funding and that JO get quotes for replacement from the vendor that replaced Byng’s bleachers.
- Pat shared documentation of the bleacher repair situation, communication with VSB and previous quotes for replacement.
- For PAC September agenda:
- PAC writes a letter to VSB advocating for replacement
- Research Capital Funding rules for allocation (can we save up?)
- Brent will get an updated quote
- PAC will develop a fundraising plan including outreach to alumni.
Item 6: Direct Appeal Campaign
- Corina presented a concept for fundraising that also includes a consolidation of information on school activities into a central page on the JO website. Currently, activities are largely presented through individual Instagram/ facebook accounts which makes it difficult for parents to know what is going on or for students/families who are new or not directly involved to get access to information.
- Corina will draft a plan and present a draft page for the website.
Next school year (2022-2023) – tentative 1st PAC meeting: September 21, 2022 (tbc)
