PA Committee Meeting 12 January 2011

Cindy opened the meeting and welcomed everyone to the first meeting of 2011. The meeting was in two parts - the first part would concern the Canteen Committee and a lawyer, Mr Huffer, a parent in the school was welcomed to the meeting to advise the Committee on legal points concerning liability and procedure issues for the Canteen committee and the PA. The second part would cover normal PA topics.

Canteen
Jacqueline Ribeiro gave a short summary of the current situation. The accounts for the past years have all been sorted, audited and accepted. Mr Nasyrov, the president of the Canteen Committee resigned in 2009, and Jacqueline has been acting-president since then.  There are currently 4 PA members and 3 School members on the committee. The tasks of the Canteen Committee are now very different from those of the Committee since Medirest (the parent company of Scolarest) provides hot meals for ESK. The points discussed were:
Should the Canteen Committee be dissolved and the PA Committee take over the administration tasks?
Should the Canteen Committee be retained and its tasks be redefined?

The steps forward include:
Examination of the current contact with Medirest and evaluation of all liabilities.
Re-define the working relationship between the Canteen committee and/or PA and ESK
Together with ESK, look at all possible working arrangements

Members of the PA Committee agreed to read the Medirest contract and to send their comments to Jacqueline by 26.1.11

As Mr Huffer had to leave, he was thanked for his contribution to this part of the meeting.

New Canteen Committee members representing the PA committee were proposed and elected: Jacqueline Ribeiro, Hamid Bateni, Thorsten Reineke, Ute Schmidt-Rohr.

Dinner Party 11.2.11
This party is an important event as it connects teachers, staff and parent class reps and encourages the breakdown of barriers.  Attendees are invited as guests of the PA Committee in appreciation of their work for ESK. Spouses and partners of the attendees will be asked for €10 towards the evening to contribute towards the food and drink.  A salsa teacher has been invited to start the party with a swing.
The RSVP is by 4th Feb and can be done on-line on the PA website. The theme of the evening is still to be decided.

PA Finances
Ute Schmidt-Rohr, Cindy van Velzen and Nathalie Beroard-Barth will be co-signatories for the PA accounts. The After-school account has been separated from the other normal PA account for the various budget lines, eg EuroBoutique, membership. This will make it clearer for parents when transferring money.  After taking over the responsibility of Treasurer, Ute recommended the following:
Parents must be persuaded not to pay cash but by means of a bank transfer
Deadlines for payments must be more strictly enforced
Membership payment procedures need to be made more simple and clearer
It is proposed that parents be responsible for cancelling their own membership payments when they leave the school
Petty cash in the office should be kept to a very low amount and all out of pocket expenses be done through the treasurer by bank “Überweisung” as much as possible

The new structures for the PA accounts are still being implemented and various financial procedures are still being sorted out, eg Interparents payments and expense claims from previous years, forms and contracts and funding application procedures.

The Committee voted and approved the contribution of €600 towards the funding of the Grundschule project “Kunst-Stücke”. The payment will be made over 2 years. (€300 in 2011 and €300 in 2012).

SAC
There was a SAC meeting arranged for the following day and Sarah Winthrop would be attending on behalf of the PA. Sarah, Cindy and Nathalie have already had a good productive meeting with the deputy-heads of the GS and OS to discuss the school’s proposal for the School Development Plan (SDP) that will be presented at the Admin. Board Meeting at the end of January. The SDP will influence the setting of the school budget. Some of the PA proposals have been included in the final SDP.
The school’s budget document is very difficult to understand and it was proposed that the management be requested to explain the document before the Admin Board meets as it has to be approved at the meeting.

The PA regrets that the admissions policy for new pupils is still very unclear and would like to request the school be more transparent in this regard. This is especially of interest as the number of pupils in the school directly affects the fees for category 2 families.

2012 anniversary
ESK has its 50th anniversary in 2012 - all ideas to mark the year and to contribute to the celebrations are welcome.

The next meeting  - 9 February at 7pm

Sarah Winthrop
PA
15.1.11

Present: Cindy van Vlezen, Nathalie Beroard-Barth, Ute Schmidt-Rohr, Sarah Winthrop, Ana Gorey, Michael Messmer, Flemming Merrild, Jacqueline Ribeiro, Anja Buhner, Letizia Dalle Donne, Hamid Betani, Fotini Morakis, Valerie Dujardin, Veronique Needham, Thorsten Reineke

Annex : PA SAC proposals

SAC proposals from the PA                        3rd December 2010

Establish the school as a modern 21st C. teaching establishment

Increase the use of computers as an interactive teaching and learning tool in the classroom.
Improve the Permanence so it offers an environment conducive to studying
Re design the libraries so that they are modern “resource centres” for all pupils
Set up and maintain an accurate data-base of all past pupils

Let the current parents of the school be the best marketing tool for promoting the school by addressing their concerns with concrete solutions.

Ensure that a pool of qualified replacement teachers is adequate to cover all planned absences.
Insist on adequate teacher training to give teachers the skills to provide effective differentiation teaching in classes with a wide range of abilities.
Insist that the school guarantees that all the main subjects will be taught in French, German and English for pupils throughout the school
Introduce a proper “cafe” area for students and visitors alike, offering drinks and healthy snacks throughout the day.  This can also be available for students who have missed the proper lunch hour due to lessons but who still want to eat something for lunch.
Facilitate more exchange student opportunities throughout the school year (with other ES as well as national schools) to underpin L2, L3 and L4 teaching, and introduce “language partners” between L1 students and L2 students to help promote language learning.

Build the school as a centre of citizenship excellence by ensuring the school addresses seriously a wider aspect of teaching through the valid educational goals found for example, in music, art, sport and theatre.

Insist that there be at least one OS play a year and one OS choir/musical performance a year that involves all the students in secondary in some way.
Support and encourage membership of an active school orchestra
Introduce more competitive sporting activities especially against outside clubs and schools.
Support and encourage a school newspaper, edited and produced by pupils
Use the links created through the work-experience weeks in a pro-active way.

Build a stronger identity and community spirit

Establish inter-language section project work so that teachers and pupils work together
Introduce at least one party for the OS students per year apart from the AbiBall
Insist on whole school participation in events such as EuroSport and project week.
Ensure that national events, or holidays are marked in some way by as many different EU nations as possible.