<p> St Michael’s High School Community Learning Centre PO Box 10, 26 Principal Low, Quebec J0X 2C0 Phone: 819 422-3584 Fax: 819 422-3752 [email protected]</p><p>Governing Board APPROVED MINUTES Wednesday, October 14th, 2015</p><p>Present: Principal, Debbie Picard, Peter Tremblay, Nadine Reason, Lynn Visentin, Sue Gagnon, Lynn Barwin, Donna Gleason, Christina Egan, Thia Mombourquette-Leveillee and Grace McQuirter-Kelly</p><p>Absent with regrets: Commissioner, Pierre Dionne</p><p>1. Adoption of the Agenda: 2015-10-04 It was moved by Nadine Reason and seconded by Thia Mombourquette- Leveillee THAT the agenda be approved with the addition of St. Michael’s school clothing. CARRIED</p><p>2. Approval of the Minutes of the September 24th, 2015 meeting: 2015-10-05 It was moved by Donna Gleason and seconded by Lynn Barwin THAT the minutes of the September 24th, 20915 meeting be approved.</p><p>3. Principal’s Report a. Grade 7 French – Since the principal received her allocation of funding, St. Michael’s has received 7 new students for a total this year of 85 students. This increased our allocation to .33 percent of a teacher. Our French teacher has 21 more students than last year and it is a very heavy workload. Ms. Picard had wanted to ask Katharine Martindale if she was interested in teaching this course as she is familiar with the Grade 7 class through Ethics and has developed a good working relationship with the class. Ms. Martindale will shadow Ms. Picher and work with her before taking over the course. They will work together on the Progress Report and on the first report card for the Grade 7 class. This will free up time for Mme. Picher which will be used for French resource for all grades. Kim Barton has 30 hours per week as an Aide and is doing a fantastic job. Joanne Ewing will take an additional 10 hours per week of Aide time to assist in the class room. Although these 10 Aide hours must be posted internally at the WQSB, Ms. Ewing has a lot of seniority and has a very good chance of getting the job. She will work primarily with the Grades 7 & 8 in the class. b. Late Progress Report – A note was sent home for the Teacher Strike to take place on Monday, October 26th, 2015. Schools are closed and busses will not run on a strike day although the principal and support staff will be at school as long as there is no picket line. The teachers union must give 7 days’ notice before a strike day is set. The union is using the Progress Report as a pressure tactic with the Quebec Government. Teachers will input the marks for the Progress Report by October 22nd which will give the principal a couple of days to review before sending home on Tuesday, October 27th, 2015. c. Fire Drill at St. Michael’s High School – The Low Fire Department along with the Inspector for our region conducted a Fire Drill at St. Michael’s on Friday, October 2nd, 2015. It was timed and the firemen watched carefully to see if the students had any trouble. They did very well and were calm and quiet throughout. The entire drill took 1 minute and 15 seconds to complete which was a very good number! Any time under 2 minutes is considered acceptable. We will be holding a Lock Down within the next 2 weeks. d. Thanksgiving Dinner – Joanne Ewing and Kim Barton took the lead and worked with the Work Oriented Training Pathway (WOTP) students to prepare an entire turkey dinner as part of their Home Economics course on Friday, October 9th. Each student was encouraged to invite a friend who might not have a Thanksgiving dinner at home. It was an amazing meal and many staff and students were thrilled! e. Canoe Clinics – All grades have completed canoe clinics on the Gatineau River during the week of Oct. 5-9, 2015. The Grades 7 & 8 were on the river for half a day while the senior grades each had one full day of training. The Grade 10’s had the coldest, wettest day but the principal was so proud of their smiling, happy faces that day! She took some awesome pictures that will be displayed on the large TV set in the main entry. f. Gatineau River Clean up – On Friday, October 16th, the Grade 11’s, the WOTP students along with local members with boats, Mr. Greig, Mr. Boudreau, Mr. McClatchy (who had no classes that day!) and Ms. Picard celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the river clean up. This is a remarkable event and t-shirts were made to mark this special day and the wonderful work we do in the community. Last year, we had 3 large boats full of garbage but we have noticed a slight decrease each year. Debbie Picard reports that it was a very upbeat and positive day and she is very proud to be a part of this event!</p><p>4. Teacher’s Report – a. Mr. Tremblay informs the board that he and Soren are changing the photo album pictures and they have added many new links to the St. Michael’s website. If any problems are discovered on the website, please notify Mr. Tremblay so they can be addressed. b. We had a new garbage bin brought to school but the teachers are objecting to having it placed in the middle of the school yard. Ms. Picard called the Buildings department and requested that it be moved to the edge of the yard by the Von Bayer property on Principal. c. Although the teachers did not want to go on strike this year, they are actually fighting for their students. They will be picketing at Wakefield Elementary on Monday, October 26th, 2015 and they feel they have to strike to make a positive change. d. Ms. Reason reports that the students have begun their St. Albert Cheese Fundraiser with these profits going toward the end of the year trip in June of 2016. There is an October 23rd deadline for orders but they will add a couple of days for students who bring the order in late. We are accepting cash only and we will send in a cheque requisition to the board to pay for the order. The cheese will be delivered before Christmas. It is very labour intensive to enter all of the orders in the computer but Ms. Reason feels that she and the senior students will be able to accomplish this task. </p><p>5. Parent Committee Report – Christina Thompson reports that the first Parent Committee Meeting will be on Monday, October 26th, 2015 and she will attend by video conference from St. Michael’s High school.</p><p>6. School Commissioner Report – Pierre Dionne is absent with regret and will have a report at the next meeting.</p><p>7. Community Learning Centre Report – Lynn Visentin, the CLC coordinator, reported that students are working on projects for the Remembrance Day ceremony and the choir is preparing three selections for that day as well. A tentative Christmas Basket list was sent to the Library Ladies in Wakefield who wanted an early start this year preparing the snow suits and boots for every child. Lynn and the principal hosted and attended a meeting organized by Bonnie Vanasse who created the KazMedia Arts group in which youth in the area, including students from St. Michael’s, created short videos about subjects they are passionate about and where this could lead to addiction. This group has recently been renamed, “Be and Become” or in French, “Etre et Devenir”. Many community people and youth attended the meeting to determine where we need to go and how we can get there. One of the main challenges in our area has identified as transportation as we are spread over a large territory and many of the youth do not have access to busses or cars. We were very proud of our students! When we did a round table discussion of what we dream could happen, there were many ideas such as art lessons, boat building and book clubs. Mackenzie Palmer informed the group that through this group, he is already living his dream of helping other youth. Many of us were brought to tears! Ms. Picard added that we would have a screening of the videos produced by Kaz Media about Passion/Addiction at the school and has offered our facilities if needed by the youth of our communities.</p><p>8.Student Council Report a. Thia Mombourquette-Leveillee informed the board that Intramurals have been set up at lunch on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays and include soccer, running and many other activities. b. Our annual Terry Fox run raised over $800.00 toward cancer research. c. Student Council will hold a Halloween Dance on Friday, October 30th, 2015 with many of the decorations being donated. Parents and Support Staff will be volunteering to supervise the dance from 6:30 to 9:00p.m. d. A Bake Sale, run by Student Council, will be held on Monday, October 19th to help pay for the dance. They will have a scary room in the Carpentry room, a photo booth, games, costumes and sound effects. There are many students signed up already and it should be a great turnout! e. Grace McQuirter-Kelly informs the board that there are two student representatives for each grade and they meet every two weeks. f. On Thursday, October 15th, 2015 students held a mock federal election but they are not allowed to read the results until after the official vote on Monday, October 19th. These are new rules from Election Canada which provided the ballots and boxes for this event. Students may affect how their parents vote! Lynn Barwin asked if anyone had chosen NOT to vote and Ms. Reason informed her that she had not had that scenario happen as yet.</p><p>9. Varia:</p><p>-As a minimum of 5 yearly Governing Board meetings are required, the Governing Board will revise the list of dates as follows: December 2nd, 2015, February 3rd, 2016, March 9th, 2016, April 6th, 2016 May 4th, 2016 and June 1st, 2016 if needed. Ms. Picard has requested more meetings after Christmas as there are more motions to consider in the spring. i.e. School fees and school budget. -Sue Gagnon asked if the bus situation had been resolved and if students were arriving in time for the beginning of class. Ms. Picard informed her that the busses were 100% better than the start of the year and most of the problems had been resolved. The advanced Learn classes had been re-scheduled to start at 9:05a.m. so that students had time to go to their lockers and to log into the class. -Sue Gagnon will formally invite Mr. Dionne to our meetings and Lynn will send a sample letter for her consideration. -By request, sweatpants, black and team shorts will be available with the school clothing order which must be in by October 30th, 2015. -Christina Thompson asked when hockey would start and the official first practice will be held on Monday, October 19th, 2015. Ms. Picard informs the board that the Arena Committee is very happy with the work done by our students before the arena opened. They washed windows, swept the entire surface of the rink, cleaned bathrooms and floors as well as any other chores assigned. The arena opened in time- due in part, to our wonderful students! Parent Volunteers are required for the arena and we will put that request into our next newsletter.</p><p>2015-10-06 It was moved by Peter Tremblay and seconded by Nadine Reason THAT this meeting be adjourned. CARRIED </p>