Sperling PAC
Annual General Meeting Minutes for May 17, 2023
Meeting called to order at on or around 7:10 pm. Meeting was held electronically (via Zoom).
Attendance: Kelly, Sheeba, Jessica, Livia, Jason, William, Cliff, Irina, Jevy, Principal Andrew Lee and Head Teacher Rosemary Venos, and various parents
Absent: Kristin, Head Teacher Rosemary Venos
Adopt Minutes from last General meeting February 15, 2023
The Minutes from the last General meeting were reviewed and a motion was made to adopt them; a motion to pass was made and seconded. Minutes adopted.
Old Business From Last General Meeting
PAC Table. Lots of nice feedback from parents on this. It hasn’t been done in a while and It’s been working out really well; sounds like something we would like to continue and keep going during the school year. It’s also a way to get to talk to staff from time to time. The PAC will switch up stations around different sections of the school.
On a related note, Cliff and Livia plan to attend the Welcome to Kindergarten session on May 24th. As PAC representatives, it is a great opportunity to talk to new parents and meet and greet. Also a great time to provide them with information on PAC sponsored events, activities, volunteering and executive and committee positions.
New Business
Updates
1. Grade 7 Graduation (Alessandra). Things are going pretty smoothly; raised close to $3,000, largely from the popcorn sales which were all sold out. The final cost will be about $23/student. The venue is booked (playcentre in Surrey); decorations and invitations have been dealt with.
2. Lost and Found (Alessandra). The Committee has been working with Ms. Venos on a project to get the grade 5 students involved with L&F. There seems to be a void and less opportunities for students to volunteer within the school and community stewardship. It would be a good legacy project to bring in the grade 5s and involve them with putting out the items during school community events. The plan is to put out the items this upcoming Sports Day. Posting online to Instagram is the easiest thing to do and would be more difficult to get images posted up on the PAC website. The L&F crew is always welcoming to more volunteers to come on board and help out! E‐mail the PAC Chair at chair@sperlingpac.com if interested.
Alessandra confirms she would like to continue to stay on the L&F Committee. Also, Kate Neale‐Hughes has joined the Committee.
3. Grade 7 Ottawa/Quebec trip (Joanne). The Krispy Kreme donuts fundraiser has been a great success – the Committee thanks the entire PAC for supporting them and helping them on the accounting side of things. The Committee is now on their 4th sales weekend (locations at Lynn Valley, Park & Tilford, and Safeway Willingdon. The Committee has currently raised abut $4,000 so far, and expect another $2,000 after their May 20th and May 28th sales. The fundraiser was labour intensive with onsite shifts running from 8:30 am until 6 pm and then counting money afterwards; however, it is a profitable one more than other types of fundraising. Generally the students are out there selling for about 4 hours (one day was about 6 hours before selling out). The trip dates are from June 5‐9th.
4. Hot Lunch (Livia). The Hot Lunch Program has been running smoothly and the Committee has been improving the system every next lunch event. The parent volunteers on the day of have been great and the general feedback has been very positive, and appreciative! The in‐house (hot dog) days have been great also and has become one of the highest generated profit days. It’s been great to have Mike Tse on board to organize it. The Committee hopes to have the Term 2 and Term 3 reports available in time for the Executive Budget meeting in June.
The Hot Lunch Committee is also organizing the Teacher & Staff Appreciation which will likely be around late May/early June. The catered and individually packaged lunches remain a hit and preference among the teachers and staff so we will likely continue with that route.
Livia confirms she will remain part of the Hot Lunch Committee and happy to take on the Committee Chair position.
5. PAC Sponsored Events:
‐ Stay Safe/Babysitting (Sheeba):
o 1st event was on April 24; 29 kids in attendance; good feedback from parents; had some parent volunteers who helped during recess and lunch; another event coming up is on June 2nd – 2 different workshops – the 2nd round of Stay Safe and also a Babysitting workshop; babysitting is full with 30 kids; Stay Safe still has a few more spots available to fill; will need parent volunteers again to help with recess and lunch supervision (Kelly offered to volunteer)
‐ Body Science/Sexual Health (Sheeba):
o Took place last week; consisted of a parent info session (Zoom) – facilitator provided the content of what would be for each cohort; gave parents the opportunity to ask questions; info session was well‐received; the workshops were over 3 days, varying ; there will be an opportunity for parents to share feedback via survey, which will come out by e‐mail in the next few days. Would like to consider and budget for future sessions
o School staff were very impressed with the content and presenters; presented information in a way that is very factual; teachers felt the sessions were well done;
o Ideal timing is to have these workshops every 2 years (based on the content per 2 year grade levels)
‐ Fun Fair 2025 (Kelly):
o PAC is hoping to send out something to parents asking for a committee to get setup –and help to delegate;
o The planning needs to start happening sooner than later;
o Fun Fair is a huge fundraiser to help raise large ticket items for the school; for instance, the previous Fun Fair helped to obtain ADST items (sewing machines, 3‐D printer);
o We do need to discuss and come up with a cause for the large fundraising; one possible theme is an external storage pod/emergency container; typically we ask the school/staff what they think might be beneficial for the school (like a staff ‘wish list’); lighting in the gym; new chairs (must consider storage space); speaker system in the school; request to plant some trees to beautify and enhance the grounds, also adds as extra shelter and offering some shade for natural way of cooling (tree planting would be a combined effort with the District)
6. PAC Website Update (Ian). The Sperling PAC Website has had some updates. Please check the site for posted Minutes and other additional information, such as calendar info, PAC member info, school events and more.
Ian spoke about a past project he had created and been working on a few years back (pre‐Covid) – CommunyHub. It is slightly outside the school’s purvue; when he was a Kindergarten parent Ian had found parents were looking to come together as a community and build a cohort of kids; during Covid and then post Covid there was a missing piece of getting together and finding that community building, so he thought it would be helpful to create an online community to augment this connection; something to allow us as parents to connect, share and collaborate together; a place where information can be shared and posted; a forum for parents to meet and provide information; encouraging parent community and engagement. If there is enough interest, Ian is happy to bring this back to life ‐ every single classroom would have their own blog; the setup would be a website and also as an app (for phones). Ian would set this up based on divisions as well as an overall Sperling tab (public for everyone). CommunyHub would be a great vehicle for the engagement by parents.
The Principal provided a teacher/staff perspective – parents may be interested but they may just gravitate to their own means and what they’re used to. He also wants parents to be reminded to not use images of children outside their own personal use. The principal cautions about the rules and violations regarding posting social media items (ie pictures and images of other children) on a public forum; need to still make aware that there are still limitations on certain postings. Some things to consider.
Ian confirms he is happy to continue on as the website coordinator, alongside Estralita if she wishes to assist as well.
7. CPF Update (Jason/William).
‐ BBQ scheduled for June 17th – more details to come;
‐ CPF is also promoting a new program for new teachers: anyone that is a French teacher, CPF has a fantastic program to build relationship and promote integration and support infrastructure
‐ Currently waiting on the minutes to be received from CPF
‐ French Summer Camps – has rolled out but still looking for more information via the CPF Minutes
8. DPAC Update. Monday was the AGM; elected DPAC reps; looking for one more DPAC Rep within our District (Brentwood). They are also looking for a minute taker ($50 renumeration/per meeting). Prior to this meeting, there was a presentation on Emergency Preparedness; from that information, our PAC felt it would be good to have an Emergency Preparedness coordinator implemented.
School Visits ‐ our PAC team chose Capitol Hill school for an organized visit with other school PAC members, which will be attended by Cliff on May 18th. The choice for this school was based on:
‐ critical mass similar to our school;
‐ has a multi‐track with FRIMM and MACC programs;
‐ Capitol Hill is centred around 2 goals – reading and social and emotional learning (part of the curriculum for all schools)
Cliff is looking forward to gathering information and bringing it back to Sperling. Another possible School Visit the PAC is looking to attend may be Parkcrest.
PAC is also looking to re‐visit and update our school’s Constitution and Bylaws. Cliff has reached out to BCCPAC for a workshop to be slated for sometime in June or September.
9. Budget Update.
Fundraising account:
a. Incoming funds received:
i. Hot Lunch orders and payments (via Munchalunch Stripe deposits)
b. Expenses disbursed:
i. Hot Lunch expenses (vendor invoices; in-house food and supply items; general operating expense items)
Gaming account:
a. Incoming funds received: Nil
b. Expenses disbursed:
i. Body Science Workshop invoice
Grade 7 account:
a. Incoming funds received:
Cash Flow – $30,900; Gr 7 outgoing will be $5,700 and $4,173 (
Square Chip Reader – $157.89; PAC is proposing to adopt an amendment to the budget to include an expense for the Chip
(Kelly – proposing); (Jessica – second the proposal); 12 in favour; 0 opposed. Amendment approved (Jessica will update budget)
Motion for the current budget as provided was proposed for adoption. Motion was seconded and approved by a majority show of (online) hands. The budget was approved. Adopted.
10. PAC Executive Positions – Nominations and Elections:
Chairperson*: Nomination made for Clifton Lo (previously the Co‐DPAC rep). No other nominations were brought forward. All were in favour and Clifton (Cliff) was voted in. Adopted.
Past‐Chairperson*: As Cliff has become the new Chairperson, the previous Chairperson, Kelly Zecca, has officially moved into the position of Past‐Chairperson for the upcoming school year.
Vice‐Chair: Nomination made for Sheeba Faqih. No other nominations were brought forward. All were in favour and Sheeba was voted in. Adopted.
*Note a Co‐Vice‐Chair position is open and vacant.
Treasurer*: Nomination made for Jessica Liu and Jevy Wu. No other nominations were brought forward. All were in favour and both Jessica and Jevy, as Co‐reps, were voted in. Adopted.
DPAC: Nomination made for Irina Robertson. No other nominations were brought forward. All
were in favour a both were voted in and Irina was voted in. Adopted.
*Note a Co‐DPAC Position is open and vacant.
Secretary: No nominations were brought forward. It was noted that both the current Secretaries, Livia Hong and Kristin Wessel, expressed their decision to step down from this role due to capacity and scheduling conflicts. *Note the Constitution allows that in the absence of a nomination for any Executive position, the Executive Officer(s) shall continue in that position until a nomination is received and the nominee is elected to the position at a General
Meeting
*Note there are 2 Co‐Secretary positions open and vacant.
CPF member: Nominations made for Jason House and William Au. No other nominations were brought forward. All were in favour and both Jason and William, as Co‐reps, were voted in Adopted.
*Per Section 12.4 of the Constitution:
‐ Clifton Lo, as newly elected Chairperson, will now be added as a Signing Officer for execution of banking and legal documents for the Council;
‐ Kelly Zecca, who has become the Past‐Chairperson, will now be removed as a Signing Officer for execution of banking and legal documents for the Council;
‐ Jessica Liu, as current and re‐elected Treasurer, will remain as a Signing Officer for execution of banking and legal documents for the Council;
‐ Jevy Wu, as newly elected Treasurer, will be added as a Signing Officer for execution of banking and legal documents for the Council
PAC Committees and Coordinators (note the following committees are non‐Executive positions)
Lost and Found Committee: PAC appoints Alessandra Pagliardi as Committee’s Chair
Hot Lunch Committee: PAC appoints Livia Hong as Committee’s Chair
Fruits and Veggies Committee: PAC appoints Eva McQueen as this Committee’s Chair
Website Designer/Coordinator (King of the Web): PAC appoints Ian Chan as Coordinator
Emergency Preparedness Coordinator (new): PAC appoints Phil Sutherland as Coordinator
Volunteer Coordinator (new): No appointment made at the meeting
11. Principal’s Report.
Staffing. Staff will be changing for the fall, with postings for a number of different positions at the school – maternity leaves (Cirka and Shroeder‐LSS); Head Teacher Venos will be moving to a different school next year (Marlborough); new Head Teacher Armstrong coming from Capitol Hill. Principal Lee will aim to keep us in the loop on the changing staff as it progress, but still many moving parts actively trying to fill these positions; potential for shifting around. Sperling is embarking on a couple things (and with new adminstrators coming in) and considering school goals. Our school goal revolves around reading (foundational stones that we build upon for all subjects) ‐ do we need to change our focus? There has been a push to tweak that and consider how we are creating opportunities for readers in our school, for advancement. Teachers are also seeing the need for social emotional regulation; motivation and resiliency to make the most of our opportunities – this has been seen throughout all the schools, not just Sperling ‐ are students ready to learn? Are they willing to learn? What is it to be ready for learning? Our teachers want to be exploring that goal and will be a discussion during the pro‐d day session at Sperling on June 2nd.
Emergency preparedness. Many schools really need to put a push on it and our school has not had a drill in a long while.
Grade 6 camp. Teachers have had an interest to move the schedule back to the beginning of the year rather than towards the end of the year; extra benefit of starting at the beginning to help bringing community together
Grade 7 Quebec/Ottawa trip. A parent information meeting was held; the school and District are looking to create more going forward.
Track season. The students just coming out of the season; the track meet ended up being a miserable day with terrible inclement weather.
Seasonal temperatures. We should be hitting more warmer days; the school discussed plans on how to deal with that. The school spoke with the District about buying more air moving fans; the school has a budget to get it, but are looking for sources and connection. Discussion also raised on other alternative plans – plans to use evaporative cooling, spray water down onto the portables. AC units are not conducive – not big enough for our buildings/portables, and those portable units require closure of windows which is not good.
Meeting adjourned at 9:12 pm.
The next General meeting will be held sometime in September (date to be confirmed).