PA committee meeting report 09.09.09

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Cindy van Velzen welcomed everyone back after the summer holidays and hoped that everyone was ready for another very challenging year. The PA faced several challenges last year.One in particular was very successfully met and Cindy thanked Sarah Winthrop for all her hard work last school year and over the summer getting the New PA Website up and ready in three languages for the first day of school. Already has had lots of positive feedback on how attractive, user friendly and useful the new site is. Sarah announced that new services such as “post it” would be introduced soon making the site more interactive and even more useful to parents, now that the basic information including the Calendar was on the site.,. An illustration of the practical aspect of the website was its use for our first emergency message regarding the first few days of service in the New Canteen.

Cindy went on to explain that it had not been an easy first few days of the New Canteen. In addition to technical difficulties - last year’s class lists and glitches in the payment system - there was a mix up with a school message to students to get their new school cards, which resulted in between 160 and 400 unnecessary cards being issued (3€ each). This caused even further confusion because the newly issued cards were not registered for the canteen and the subsequent necessity to determine which was the redundant one so pupils could get their money back helped cause long queues. Long queues, insufficient supervision, and many more children than expected eating in the canteen (because word was getting around that the new Canteen’s food was good) all made for a difficult start. Scolarest has described the rollout of ESK as the worst they have ever experienced. Mr. Hoyem invited Cindy to a meeting as soon as possible to see what had gone wrong with the Canteen and apologised for having unwittingly added to the chaos with the erroneous announcement about new cards. The PA recognised the tremendous effort Scolarest has made and is confident that things will improve in the future.

Following the New Canteen debriefing was a serious discussion concerning the old Canteen Committee. There was astonishment that we had still not received the audit, which we had requested at the joint PA + Canteen Committee meeting last April. Everyone agreed that taking over 5 months to receive the audit was not normal. Exactly what the PA could do now was not clear. Under the circumstances, i.e. not being aware of the legal and financial situation of the Canteen Committee it was felt that it would be difficult to find anyone willing to step in to take over Canteen Committee responsibilities as it stands. Michael Dannenmaier had informed Cindy that the audit was almost ready, so the PA decided to wait to see what it revealed before taking any further steps. In the past, nominations by the PA to the Canteen Committee have traditionally taken place at the PA General Assembly (AGM) but there seems, however, to be no written procedure for this. The PA committee are disappointed that the current Canteen Committee has failed to produce written reports as repeatedly requested by the PA .

Finding dates for the General Assembly was not easy in view of the slew of school meetings – SAC, Joint Education Council, Admin Board, Interparents, BC – not to mention the parent-teacher evenings, etc.. Setting the late date of 18 November means that we will have more time to properly prepare for the General Assembly as well as encourage parents to get involved in the PA’s work. There are going to be several openings due to several of our members moving away (Blandine Aslanides, Daniela Rudel), or mandates ending, or resignations (Markus Gammelin, Ramil Nasyrow) or unable to continue. Cindy and Ana have started preparing a nomination procedure for Committee members that would be more transparent than in the past. Other documents such as the agenda and draft Annual Report for 2008/9 also have to be finalised. Those whose contributions were outstanding were asked to send them in as soon as possible – after-school activities, canteen, transport, and, of course, the financial report.

The PA underlined that the Financial Report was not just for the General Assembly but a necessary working tool. We need to know our running costs for statutory requirements such as General Assembly and Interparents, as well as other commitments such as the website, school cards, after-school activities, social fund, school funding such as class trips, and events including the “Welcome back Party”, Christmas drinks, Open Day, etc. We need a more forward-planning budget to see which further projects and events we can consider, such as project days, Valentine bookmarks.

The first event for this school year will be the Welcome Back Party, Saturday 3 October 2009 with Etoile Education running its annual Sponsored Bike Ride on the same day. This will be a fun opportunity for parents to get to know each other at the beginning of the year rather than at the end when we have our Summer Fete. There will be stands explaining the PA’s work, presenting after-school activities, and also for classes to raise money for their class funds, etc. This project is a continuation of the PA’s efforts last year to reconnect with parents and the school community.

Cindy reminded everyone that, in addition to continuing work on our goals from last year, the 3 Cs – Communication, Canteen and Community, we have three new PA objectives for 2009/10: the 3 Ls reflecting major issues we came across repeatedly last year. As was the case with the 3Cs, having identified these issues, time and reflection were needed to see how best to achieve the objectives in the medium and long term. The 3 Ls are:

1. Languages (mainly 2nd language)
2. Lost hours (teacher absences, days lost to Bac)
3. Ligne directifs (policy guidelines/procedures/FAQs on school issues like drugs, SEN, learning support, school rules, discipline)

Reforms are now being implemented and the creation of the School Advisory Committee (SAC) represents a major opportunity for the wider school community to contribute to the school development plan. The first meeting, 22 September, will be a brainstorming session to which the whole school has been invited. At the European level, Interparents follows many issues (such as 2nd language and absenteeism as well as others) raised by parents and it is important that parents have the opportunity to contribute through all the various working groups both at school and in Brussels.

Next meeting – 30 September 2009

Cindy van Velzen
President