Plan now for your school council election next fall

School council elections for parent positions must take place within the first 30 days of the school year. Council positions are one-year terms—which means elections happen annually. Parents must make up the majority of council members. Here’s what a functioning council should look like:

Elementary/middle (no student member)	Secondary (with a student member)
Five parent members One teacher rep One non-teaching staff rep Community member Principal (no vote)	Six parent members One teacher rep One non-teaching staff rep Community member Student Principal (no vote)

Some schools choose to have additional parent reps on the council—this should be outlined in the school’s School Council Bylaws. The elected members listed above have decision-making roles—this means they can vote if a vote is ever necessary (with the exception of the principal, who does not have a vote). Other parents of the school are encouraged to attend meetings, participate in dialogue and join sub-committees.

School Council election timelines

When	What
May/June	Establish an election committee  to deal with the school council election of parent members. The committee should include current parent members of the school council.
Early to mid-June	A plan is put in place to deal with how the school council election will occur. By the last council meeting of the school year, the date,  time, and location of the election are determined, as well as how the election will be advertised in the fall. A nomination form is also developed (see template).
Mid-August	In welcome-back-to-school information, the principal includes parent-candidate nomination forms and information about the date by which nominations must be received at the school, who is eligible to stand for election, the date of the election, and other information about the election. This package must be in parents’ hands at least fourteen days prior to the election.
Early September	The principal posts school council election information in an area of the school that is easily accessible to parents. Good venues would be the bulletin board and the school website. Parents return nomination forms to the school.
Early to mid-September	A list of parent nominees with brief biographies is sent home or mailed out, with a reminder of the election date and information on the election process. If the school doesn’t receive enough nominations to warrant an election, then the nominated parents can be appointed to council.
Mid- to end September	The ballot box is prepared for the election of parent representatives, and arrangements are made for volunteers to help voters at the voting areas. Ballots are made available (see template) The election of the teacher, non-teacher, and student representatives may take place at the same time or shortly after the election of parent representatives. Staff reps are elected by their staff group, the student rep is appointed by the student council. The community member is appointed by the school council once it is formed.
Late September to early October	First meeting of the new school council takes place, and meeting dates, times, and locations for the upcoming year are determined. (The first meeting of the new school council must take place within thirty-five days of the start of school.) The names of the new school council members are publicized to the school community within thirty days of the election, as are the dates, times, and locations of future meetings. This could be done on a bulletin board at the school, through the newsletter and on the school website.

Parent Literacy Conference and April 2 PIC meeting

Our 11th annual Parent Literacy Conference took place this past Saturday at Rick Hansen Secondary School, and was, once again, a success. The student and staff volunteers from the school were absolutely fantastic. All the food was completely student made and served. We were really grateful to Whole Foods Square One for providing us with coffee to brew, and for Harris Teas for being there to serve tea. You'll be happy to know the students helped me find a youth shelter where we could drop off the left over sandwiches and snacks, so nothing went to waste.

Again, we had more than 50 of our own experts (our staff) on hand to present workshops to provide the parents who attended with tips to help support their children's success at home. We know parent involvement is the number one indicator of student success, so it's great to see so many parents wanting to know more about how to help their children. The workshop tip sheets will be posted online soon.

A big thank you to the local organizations that had booths at the event, and to all our sponsors, especially MDG, the conference co-presenter, CIBC our conference partner and ETFO-Peel our sponsor. It's because of the hard work of everyone and the generous contributions of our sponsors that we're able to offer this amazing event for free to our parents, and we're so grateful for it. Having been involved with the planning and execution of the conference since I started working for the board seven years ago, I can say, without a doubt, it's one of the most rewarding aspects of my job. I love seeing how everyone pulls together and hearing the comments from parents who are genuinely grateful... and, it's all in the name of student success. It doesn't get much better than that!

I also had a nice chat with a school council chair who thanked me for setting up this blog. I was quite happy to hear it's being read!

On another note, our April 2 Parent Involvement Committee agenda is posted for those who are interested. You'll find it and other PIC materials on our website.

Were any of you at the conference? Any thoughts?

Be social, share!

You need bylaws for your school council

The Ministry of Education requires every school council has bylaws that cover the following topics:

• Election procedures
• Filling of vacancies
• Conflict of interest
• Conflict resolution

You may also decide to create other bylaws to guide your council operations. Here are some ideas:

• Code of ethics or code of conduct
• Expectations for meetings
• Membership of council
• Executive duties
• Council committees

You are not required to have a constitution for your council. In place of a constitution, you follow Ontario Regulation 612, which governs school councils. If you do have a constitution, you need to make sure it aligns with the regulation.

Use templates

Councils shouldn’t spend a lot of time creating bylaws. Start with the templates and revise them to suit the needs of your council, and then file them away. The council can review them once a year just to make sure they’re still relevant. Both the Peel board and the Ministry provide templates.

Peel board templates are in our resource guide (section 4): http://www.peelschools.org/councils/SCGuide.htm

  

Ministry templates are in the bylaw section of their school council guide: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/council/council02.pdf

You can also look at the Parent Involvement Committee bylaws:

http://www.peelschools.org/parents/involved/parent.htm

If you have questions about bylaws, or anything else to do with councils, please call me (Alison) at 905-890-1010 ext. 2626.

Highlights from the Feb. 27 Parent Involvement Committee meeting

All meeting agendas and highlights are available here: http://www.peelschools.org/parents/involved/parent.htm

Decision from the Feb. 7 budget meeting of the PIC

The Parent Involvement Committee met on Feb. 7 to discuss how to use their remaining budget. Barb brought some suggestions, including the idea to create a handbook for parents who have children entering high school. The committee liked this suggestion and will implement it. The handbook will be provided to every parent in their child’s grade 8 report card. It provides an overview of secondary school, including course selection, assessment and evaluation, student wellbeing information, how to access support and ask questions, how to be involved and more.  The information will also be made available on school websites.

Use of $5000 for speakers

The committee discussed two potential projects to support with the $5000 set aside to pay for speakers in the community. The first is a parent summit proposed by the Congress of Black Women, Brampton Chapter. The group would like to host a one-day event and offer a series of workshops related to parent involvement, including how to help with homework and how to advocate for your child. Kathy will speak to the group again to get more details and find out how funding they would need to run the event.

The second project idea is to provide sessions for women who are part of a few Muslim organizations in Peel. Salha has met with the groups and shared with the committee that there is a need for more support around understanding the school system and the role parents can play. Salha shared that some of the organizations’ members, despite being very involved with their children at home, are intimidated or don’t realize they can visit the school and ask questions of the staff. There is also an interest in knowing more about the international language programs offered through the board. Salha will explore this further . The committee plans to make decisions at the next meeting.

Parent Literacy Conference

The committee plans to have a booth at the Parent Literacy Conference, but has decided not to purchase items to give away.

Other business

·         Suggestion was made to add “This folder was produced with the support of the Parent Involvement Committee. For more information about the committee, visit the “Parents” section of www.peelschools.org”

·         Carla shared the board’s draft revised Mission, Vision and Values with the committee and invited committee members to complete the online survey, which will be available and distributed widely soon.

Next Meeting

The next committee meeting is Monday, April 2 at 4:30 p.m. in the Cooksville Room at the HJA Brown Education Centre.