In attendance: Teena Kasha, Alison Eshpeter, Wes Wilson (Principal), Jeanni Hoermann, Candice Guhle, Carrie Carriere, Kirby Schmidt-Teigen, Cristin Zimmer, and Jenni Thomas (Assistant Principal)
I. Kirby called to order the regular meeting of the Daysland School Council at 7:07 pm.
II. Open Floor Shout Out – Mrs Thomas for all the grad work.
III. Review of Agenda – Motion: Carrie moved agenda be accepted as circulated. Cristin seconded. All in favour. Motion carried.
IV. Approval of minutes from last meeting
Minutes from March 27, 2024 were circulated prior to meeting. Motion: Jeanni moved minutes be accepted as circulated. Carrie seconded. All in favour. Motion carried.
V. Correspondence – None: No response from Chair of Division Board sent March 28, 2024 on behalf of Daysland School Council regarding attendance boundaries.
VI. Reports
a) Administrator (Mr. Wilson)
1. Upcoming Events
a. Book Fair This Week
b. Swim Lessons
i. Gr. 1 & 3: April 22nd-26th
ii. Gr. 4-6: May 13th-17th
iii. Gr. 2: May 27th-31st
c. Steve Harmer - Magician Performance on April 24th
2. 2024-25 Staffing
a. We expect to get our staffing information at the end of April.
b. More complete update at our meeting in May.
3. Bench Install
a. The benches that we purchased last year with the slides will be installed this Spring.
b. We are working with the town to coordinate when they are doing sidewalk repair to get the sidewalks done. It sounds like it's most likely in June.
4. No PATs for Gr. 6
a. Due to the new curriculum and a changeover to a new online testing platform that will happen next year, Alberta Ed has announced that there will be no PATs written in Gr. 6 ELA and Math.
b. Our current Gr. 6 classes wrote Science and Social PATs last year in Gr. 5 because they were a part of a split class.
5. Fundraising Opportunity
a. Gloria Klein was approached about a possible fundraising opportunity. It is called Recipes in a Jar. The details here.
b. Thoughts:
i. Are we interested in doing this?
ii. If so, are there suggestions on the best time possible?
6. ACAA (Association of Communities Against Abuse) Presentation Possibilities
a. ACAA has replaced SACE presentations in our secondary classes on consent. They provided staff PD on how to handle an abuse disclosure.
b. Unlike SACE, ACAA offers in-person options. We are looking at offering, with parent consent forms, the following presentation for our elementary students in the future:
i. The INCREDIBLE You - This school-based Sexual Abuse Education program is for Kindergarten to Grade 6 to empower children and those in their lives to recognize their rights and ownership of their bodies, increase their understanding of empathy and consent, and to identify and enhance their support networks.
7. Real Time Reporting
a. Will continue next year in all schools.
8. Success Starts Early
a. April 26th in the Gym
b. 10:00 am - 2:00pm
9. Graduation Update
a. Grads will tour elementary classrooms on the afternoon of May 3rd
b. Banquet for grads and their parents will be held at the hall at 5:30pm
c. Ceremony will begin at 7:00pm
b) Room Reps:
Kindergarten (submitted by Chantelle Hayes): Mrs. Tanton - Everything is running tickity boo in Kindergarten. This coming Tuesday, the Kindergarten will be going on a filed trip to Killam. We will be touring the RCMP, Battle River Implements and finishing the afternoon off at the Indoor Playground. We will once again be hosting our Success Starts Early event on Friday, April 26th for the upcoming Kindergarten class. I’m excited to announce that we will be hatching chicks again this year, for sadly the final time. Incubation will begin on May 7 and we should have some bouncing babies for May 28th! The Kinder Kids have been very busy learning how to read and write sentences. They are little rockstars!
Grade 1 (submitted by Laura Zwack): Mrs Reber – All is well in Gr.1! We start our swimming lessons next week and are looking forward to that! We are also busy in the maker space room tackling our marble runs while we explore different pathways and movements. Over the last few weeks, we focused on opinion writing in ELA and had fun pairing up some would-you-rather games to get our reasons laid out for the writing process. We are learning all things patterns in math and using our new Mathology resource to do some fun pattern warm-ups on the smart board each day. Other than that, this year continues to fly by!
Grade 2 (submitted by Kristie Nahajowich): Mrs Schlaut - The Groovy Grade Twos have been working really hard to complete their Subtraction and Fraction units this month. We have had a lot of discussions about pizza and chocolate bars to enrich our understanding of fractions. We are currently working on our Personal Narrative stories about a special place in our life. I can't wait to read them all! We have also been learning about the long e and a sounds and the many combinations that can make these sounds. We have been practicing reading and writing words that use these combinations. In Science, we are finishing up our Light and Sounds unit. We have been having fun making shadows with flashlights in the classroom and learning how our eyes see colour. The Grade Twos have been enjoying the book battles that Mrs. Zimmel has been reading during their Learning Commons class and are eager to hear which one has won the battle! They are looking forward to learning which book will be the champion!
Grade 3 (submitted by Alison Eshpeter): Mrs Schmidt-Tiegen – In ELA this week we are focusing on alternate spellings for long u, including eu (eucalyptus), ew (chew), ou (group), and ui (fruit). We have also begun a unit on Biographies. We have read several biographies in class that Mrs. Zimmel has recently purchased to help support this unit, (thank you Mrs. Zimmel!), and have really enjoyed reading about history makers and change makers such as Neil Armstrong, Eugenie Clark, and Mae Jemison. Students have each chosen a figure to research and create a presentation on. We plan to dress as our figure and set up a Living Wax Museum for parents and other classes to come and view, once we are ready. I will send out details soon! In Math we have begun a short unit on Patterns and Sequences. Key terms within this unit include ordinal numbers, term, finite, and infinite. This will be a quick unit. A reminder to everyone that we are swimming all next week in the afternoons. Please make sure you sign the online waiver and pay the fee by this Thursday, so your child is able to participate. The office needs to pass on swimming level information to the pool ASAP. Thank you to those who have already signed and paid. Mr Wilson – In Science the Gr.3s are learning about Energy. Our first two lessons have been about the types of energy that we commonly use such as push, pull and contact forces. In Social, we have been learning about the different types of government in the four countries we are studying. This includes how their governments work to provide services to their people and what their leaders are called.
Grade 4 (submitted by Kirby Schmidt-Tiegen): Miss Halback - In science, we have been exploring light. Last week students got to make human sundials and this week we are learning about reflection and refraction. In social, we have started to talk about the fur trade and the arrival of the French and British. In math we are working on factors. The students are learning how to identify prime and composite numbers. In ELA, the kids have just finished creating a presentation on a topic they love. They will start presenting to their classmates today. Mrs. Thomas - The upstairs Grade 4s are nearly finished reading their book for their novel study and will be moving into poetry next. In Math, they are working on understanding equivalent fractions. Things are going well!
Grade 5 (submitted by Laura Zwack): Mrs. Tucker - LA - We are halfway done with our poetry unit. Students have been reading and analyzing poems, looking at how metaphors, can create interesting pictures in our minds, and that a poem is really telling a story. We have also been writing poems focusing on painting a picture with metaphors. This week students will be doing an oral presentation of a poem of their choice, and we will be learning the poem Jabberwocky as a class to do a group presentation. Math - We will be having a test on Tuesday on multiplying and dividing large numbers. They need to know how to multiply 3 digit numbers by 1 and 2 digit numbers, as well as how to divide 3 digit numbers by a 1 digit number. Practising their multiplication and division facts at home will help them do well on this. Science - We have finished the Electricity unit and have started Classroom Chemistry. We are focusing on mixtures and solutions at the moment, and how they can be separated. We attempted to make sugar crystal candy, but have found out that it is very difficult to get the correct amount of sugar dissolved in the water. A second attempt will be made later this week. Social - The kids did a great job on their presentations about the first groups of people in Canada. We are now learning about the fur trade and how it started, and the difference between how the British and French worked with the Indigenous people in the Fur Trade.
Grade 6 (submitted by Cristin Zimmer): Mrs McKay - We have had a guest student teacher in grade 6 for the past six weeks. Mrs. Helena Brusse, from the U of C, was shadowing Mrs. McKay, and she taught ELAL and Science for the past few weeks. In her time here, she taught grammar and some writing in ELAL and finished up our Science unit on the Solar System. Students created dioramas as a final project for Science. It was a lot of fun. Mrs. Brusse's last day is tomorrow, April 18. In case any parents haven't heard the news, the government announced last month, that Provincial Achievement Tests for ELAL and Math will be not be administered this year. Also, as our current grade 6's wrote the PATs for Science and Social Studies last year, they will not have any PATs this year. We have two field trips booked for grade 6. Our first one was supposed to happen today, but we have postponed it due to the weather. We will be going to Big Knife Provincial Park to do a habitat tour of five different micro-ecosystems. This field trip is facilitated by the Battle River Watershed Alliance and lines up with our new Science curriculum. As for our end of the year field trip, we will be going to Drumheller on June 20 with the grade 5 class. We will be visiting the Royal Tyrrell Museum, the hoodoos, and the Atlas Coal Mine. It will be a fantastic trip!
Grade 7/8 (submitted by Alison Eshpeter): Mrs McKay - In Math 7, we are wrapping up our unit on Circles and Area. We will be having a unit test on Friday, April 19. After that, we will move into the circle graphs part of the unit. In Math 8, we are right in the middle of our geometry unit. We've been learning all about prisms and pyramids: their nets, as well as how to find surface area, and volume. We even got to play with some Magformers to help us visualize all of the different nets we could make from one prism or pyramid. We will continue on with the unit, incorporating our knowledge about circles, when we learn about cylinders next. Mr Pastachak – no update. Mrs V Zimmer - In Social 7/8, we are wrapping up the first two units of study surrounding the Aztecs and the European cultures, and the conflicts that arose from the differences between these peoples. The students work hard on showing off their understanding, as you'll be able to see in a couple of weeks on bulletin boards around the hallways! Mr Kerslake - The Grade 7/8s in Shop are finishing up their note holder. They will next be moving on to creating charcuterie boards of their own design that will have an epoxy inlay.
Grade 9 (submitted by Carrie Carrier): Mrs Tobler - In Social, the Gr 9s will be starting to investigate the history and present influence of immigration within Canada. Friday, we will be delivering our donations to the Flagstaff Foodbank! Mr Kerlake – No update. Mx Jones - In math we are working on algebra right now: primarily manipulating and solving equations.
Grade 10 (submitted by Teena Kasha): Mx Jones - No update. Mrs. Zimmer - In ELA 10, we are wrapping up the basic theme of "Injustices" where we studied Shakespear's "Merchant of Venice" among other literature, and are moving on to "Coming of Age" where we will focus on Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". It's great to hear the students' voices more strongly as they mature and get comfortable with the content. This is a wonderful class to teach!
Grade 11 (submitted by Jeanni Hoermann): Mx. Jones: Math 20 - In math we are working on radicals--square and cube roots--and in chemistry we are just wrapping up our electrochemistry unit and will be moving on to organic chemistry! Mrs. Tobler - In English we are just wrapping up Macbeth and will be starting our novel study next.
Grade 12 (submitted by Candice Guhle): All is well.
VII. Business arising from minutes:
a) Success Starts Early – April 26 10am-2pm for children starting KG in Sept 2024. Will have School Council banner, pamphlets and stickers. Will have pinko game and prizes. Kirby, Alison, Jeanni, Cristin, and Teena are available to man booth; will discuss schedule among themselves.
b) Grant from School Councils Association – School Council banner and promotional stickers ordered. Motion: Candice moved $500 grant money be spent on School Council stand up banner and promotional stickers. Cristin seconded. All in favour. Motion carried.
VIII. New business:
a) None
IX. Adjournment
Kirby adjourned the meeting at 8:00.
Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 7:00pm at Daysland School.
