Parents’ Association AGM 2010 DRAFT

The Annual General Meeting of the Parents’ Association took place on 23rd November 2010 starting at 7.00pm. 35 members participated.
Mrs Cindy van Velzen, President opened the meeting and welcomed everyone present.

The current committee members were introduced and thanked for their support and hard work given throughout the past year. It was announce that Mr Kevin Barber, Mrs Madeleine Kock, Mrs Barbara Weiner, Mrs Ann Sierig, Mr David Cegretin, and Mrs Christiane Sardin (who has left the school) will be stepping down from the Committee this year. Although the PA have all worked towards increase PA membership and participation in events, membership numbers have remained low. To encourage more parents to join the Association, it was felt that the work of the PA must be made more visible and new ideas are needed to further promote a good school community.

Annual Report 2010
Mrs van Velzen gave a short overview of the past year, mentioning key activities such as the committee meetings, school management and educational meetings, all the social events designed to encourage community involvement, funding support for many school activities, EuroBoutique, Interparents and the level of achievement of the 2009/2010 PA objectives.

annex 1 - Annual report 2009/2010

The Annual report 2009/2010 was approved by all present.

Reports
Mrs van Velzen then called on Mr Kevin Barber, Treasurer to present the annual financial report for the Parents’ Association.

annex 2 - Financial reports of the PA Accounts

Mr Bill Scott-Stewart, Auditor, was thanked for his work auditing the accounts of the PA for 2009/2010.
Mr Barber explained that the total sum in the account is larger than usual as there are still invoices outstanding from Summer activities and EuroBoutique that have not yet been received.

PA members were requested to approve the Accounts. The Accounts were approved.

Mrs van Velzen thanked Mr Kevin Barber for being Treasurer for the PA for the past six years; this was his last formal report as he is stepping down from the Committee. Mrs Van Velzen declared that this ended the statutory part of the PA reports for the AGM.

Mrs Jacqueline Ribeiro was invited to give an up-date for the Canteen.

annex 3 - canteen (Scolarest) report

The main observations from the report were:
the number of Oberschule students going to the canteen were lower than expected. This could have been due to the fact that the lunch period (period 6) is too short, and bread rolls are available in the lobby, but only a limited number so they quickly sell out. Concern was expressed that some OS students were often completely missing lunch and a proposal that a properly-stocked kiosk may be a solution. Mrs Ribeiro said that the school were still looking to see if timetable changes could provide an alternative solution.
when Kindergarten eat early in the canteen there is a very long gap until the end of school.
if students go to the canteen in periods 5 and 7, there is no supervision.
a questionnaire for the OS students and teachers will be sent out to get feedback about quality and quantity of canteen food.
a brain-storming meeting about the canteen will be arranged for parents in the new year.
there was a request that pictures of the dishes be put on the website for younger pupils.

Mrs van Velzen then asked Mrs Anja Bühner to present the After-school Activities report.

annex 4 - After-school Activities Report

Mrs Bühner was pleased to report that 204 students registered for AA in 2009/2010. There was a very wide range of courses on offer in the programme. Each pupil in the ESK is subsidised by Brussels for taking part in the AA. Languages such as Italian and Turkish are funded by their respective consulates. All the teachers and instructors taking part were totally committed to the programme.

Mrs van Velzen thanked Mrs Bühner for her tremendous work planning and organising the AA programme for all students.

Regretfully Mr Flemming Merrild, President of the Transport Committee was not able to attend the meeting. Mrs Ribeiro, ITU representative in the Transport Committee, answered a few questions from the floor.
it was anticipated that pupils without a “Skoolkard” can purchase a one-day ticket from Security to enable them to travel on the bus or tram if they have a “play-date” with a friend who normally travels home by bus or tram. This will come into force from January 2011 and details of the scheme will be sent to all parents in the near future.
it was requested that small children should not be made to stand up due to lack of seats on the buses and trams.

annex 5 - transport document

Mrs van Velzen asked Mrs Ana Gorey to speak on behalf Interparents. ESK is in a unique position as Mrs Gorey is also President of Interparents.

(Interparents website for latest reports)

Interparents is the “umbrella” organisation of all the European Schools’ Parents’ Associations. It meets five times a year and has representatives on all the working groups and committees in Brussels, thus has direct influence over important administrative and pedagogical decisions taken at this level.
More importantly, European School Karlsruhe is host for the Joint Education Committee meeting for all schools in 2011. Our PA will be responsible for representing Interparents at this meeting. ESK is part of a network of European Schools and they are all european institutions. Please take time to look at the ES (Schola Europæa) website for background information.

Election of new candidates for 2010/2011
Mrs van Velzen asked Mr Franck Wastin to chair the next part of the meeting.

Mr Wastin accepted and called for the members present to vote to discharge the executive directors of the PA Committee (president, vice-president and treasurer) so that they can stand down from these positions.

The vote was yes.

PA Committee Members election
Three existing committee members were nominated to be re-voted for another 2 years: Mrs Cindy van Velzen, Mr Michel Messmer and Mrs Sarah Winthrop. One existing committee member was proposed to be re-voted for another 1 year: Mr Flemming Merrild.

Mrs Cindy van Velzen - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mrs van Velzen was duly re-elected.
Mr Michel Messmer - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mr Messmer was duly re-elected.
Mrs Sarah Winthrop - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mrs Winthrop was duly re-elected.
Mrs Flemming Merrild - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2 - Mr Merrild was duly re-elected.

Six new candidates were nominated and agreed to stand: Mrs Ute Schmidt-Rohr, Mrs Veronique Needham (French section), Mrs Debjani Basu (English section), Mrs Valerie Dujardin,(French Section) Mrs Fotini Morakis, Mr Thorsten Reineke.

Mrs Ute Schmidt-Rohr, - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mrs Schmidt-Rohr was duly re-elected.
Mrs Veronique Needham - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mrs Needham was duly re-elected.
Mrs Debjani Basu - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mrs Basu was duly re-elected.
Mrs Valerie Dujardin, - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mrs Dujardin was duly re-elected.
Mrs Fotini Morakis, - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mrs Morakis was duly re-elected.
Mr Thorsten Reineke - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mr Reineke was duly re-elected.

Financial Auditor
Mr Bill Scott-Stewart was nominated to act as Auditor for the PA accounts 2010/2011

Mr Bill Scott-Stewart - yes 33, no 0, abstention 2, - Mr Scott-Stewart was duly re-elected.

Aims and objectives for 2010/2011
Mrs van Velzen was invited to take the floor again to present the aims and objectives of the Parents’ Association.

The PA have continued to consolidate previous years’ objectives - 3Cs (community, communication, canteen) and 3Ls (ligne directifs, languages, lost hours) and propose that these objects remain the focus for the PA this year.

Community - The PA feel that parent participation in school events is still often poor and this is an area that the PA wish to continue to encourage parents to be more involved in school activities.
Communciation - The PA website has improved communication with parents and the PA will endeavour to present as much information in the 3 vehicular languages. This can only be achieved through the continuing goodwill of a few translators. However, good communication between school and parents is still missing in many areas, and parents still feel miss-informed about situations that happen in school that may directly impact their children.
Canteen - The canteen committee/team is still in a transitional phase and an analysis of Scolarest’s first year at ESK will be done and presented to parents at a later date.

Ligne Directifs - There seems to be still no formal ESK policies for parents to easily find and read on issues such as bullying, drugs, smoking, child protection, despite repeated requests by the PA for such information to be made available, and processes be made transparent for all.
Languages - teaching of L1, L2, L3 and L4 remain an issue with many dissatisfied parents. One of the difficulties presented is the wide expectations of parents and the difficulty of having effective differentiation teaching methods needed for a class of varying language competency. The PA have focused on Languages in the AA programme and the various clubs and activities are very popular.
Lost hours - This issue is raised at every possible meeting with the Management. Up to now there has seemed to have been little or no improvement. The PA feels that with a change of deputy director in the OS, the problem with lost teaching hours, suitable replacement teachers, and properly prepared work for the permanence, will now be a top priority for the management. Everyone was reminded that because of mother-tongue teaching and the European Baccalaureat curricula, a very complicated situation exists at the ESK (and at other European Schools) and this topic has been and continues to be a priority for Interparents.

It was suggested that the appointment of the new deputy director for the Oberschule has brought a new atmosphere to the school and the PA are very encouraged by the working relationship that has developed with him so far. It was also pointed out that there is a new Deputy Secretary General for the schools’ Board of Governors in Brussels, who also seems to be very receptive to the general needs of the ES in today’s educational and economic climate. The PA Committee’s impressions about working with the new management is very positive for the future. The SAC (School Advisory Council) is a new forum where school and parents can work effectively together in the interests of all pupils. The PA currently has representatives on all the working groups and in the main SAC meetings where the objective is to set priorities for the school’s development.

Cindy van Velzen thanked everyone for their participation in the 2010 AGM. The meeting was closed at 10pm.

Sarah Winthrop
25th November 2010