PAC Meeting MinutesJune 16, 2017, Rm# 101, University Hill Elementary School

1. Meeting called to order at 8:40am.

2. Attendance:

Chair: Amal El-Naggar Secretary: Lingyun Zhang Treasurer: Jenny Chen Principal: Val Coopersmith In-coming Principal: Carrie Froese Communications coordinator: Liron Amitzi and Aaron Kanter Event coordinator: Kathleen Delorme Parents: Eric, Gary, Alicia, HsingChi, Lisa, Alison, janet, Jenny etc.

3. Motion to adopt Minutes of April 28th, 2017 meeting. Moved by Amal and seconded by Jenny.

4. Principal’s Report (Val) It has been a great experience to be the principal of Uhill Elementary in the

past 4 years. Thank you to all parents and families for their involvement in the school community.

Melody has a legacy project to ask PAC for funding (Carving project). The Buddy Bench has been installed and further education on the Buddy

Bench is to follow to nurture friendship among students who feel lonely and are looking for friends to play with.

Jorden’s update on Technology:o Thanks to the funding from PAC, there is technology available for each

classroom.o The computer room will be refurbished to generate 15 desktop

computers. 15 laptops have been purchased and can be mobile to classrooms. 2 desktops are also available for classroom use as well.

o The grade 3/4/5 camping trip went successfully.o All clubs are running well and are wrapping up as school year comes to

the end.o The Osborne book fair raised $400 worth of books for the school

library.o Thanks to all parents who donated electronic parts and the students had

a great time deconstructing and constructing items with their imagination.

The school staff will be set by the end of next week for next school year and the result will be published in Mrs. Coopersmith's last newsletter before she retires.

Div 11 had a wonderful play. Thanks to the parent volunteer who put all this together.

5. Treasurer’s report from Jenny: both the gaming account and the general account are in good standing and the annual financial report will be published separately.

6. Call for DPAC representative. We are seeking a parent volunteer to represent us at the DPAC. If you are interested, please email us at uhillpac@gmail.com.

7. Teachers’ appreciation lunch went very successfully. A huge effort has been put together by Alicia and Nancy, who were leading the team of volunteers and work well done. Thank you to all the parent volunteers for their time and contribution. Your tremendous contributions are highly appreciated.

8. The Anxiety workshop went successfully. Thanks to Bethany, the speaker and Alison and Aaron for volunteering. Bethany is planning to give a series of talks in the next school year.

9. The Spud Gift Boxes Fundraising gives 30% to the school and the gift card fundraising gives 10% to the school. Right now we have the Gift box program. Parents’ feedback is needed to decide whether we will switch to the gift card program.

10. This meeting is our annual AGM meeting. We received the following nominations (interested candidates) for the executive positions:Chair/Vice Chair.......Eric Douglas & Gary Leitch (It was Gary's proposal to serve as a Vice Chair rather than a Co-Chair to provide a backup when the Chair is absent).Secretary/Co-..........Lingyun Zhang & Kathleen DelormeTreasurer.................Jenny Chen

11. Interested candidates were given chances to introduce themselves and explain their goals. Parents asked candidates questions.

12. The voting process went unanimously, by raising hands, as agreed by everyone at the meeting.

13. The voting results are as follows:- Eric Douglas & Gary Leitch: 20/21 votes (95%).- Lingyun Zhang & Kathleen Delorme: 21/21 votes (100%)- Jenny Chen: 21/21 votes (100%)

14. Based on the election process, the new PAC executives for school year 2017-2018 was announced as follows:

Chair: Eric Douglas Vice Chair: Gary Leitch Treasurer: Jenny Chen Co-Secretaries: Lingyun Zhang and Kathleen Delorme

15. Additional volunteering positions were offered and interested candidates were approved by everyone at the meeting to serve in these positions. The available volunteering positions and the parents that were elected is as follows:

Volunteer coordinator: Alicia Tkachuk Communications coordinator: Aaron Kanter and Liron Amitzi Event coordinator: Kathleen Delorme

16. A huge thank you goes to Amal who has served as Co-Chair during 2015-2016 and Chair during 2016-2017. Her efforts and contributions are very valuable to the community.

17. The Uhill PAC bylaws need to be established. Amal talked about the importance of bylaws and the community vision for it.

18. The beginning of the year traffic has always been an issue at Uhill. The school staff and PAC appeal to all parents to abide by the parking rules to ensure safety for our children. There are limited designated parking spots and if you enter the loop, please stay on the car. Ways to make the traffic smoother have been discussed. One of them being each class is responsible for one week.19. Melody, teacher of Div. 2 put in a request for PAC to cover part of the cost of a spindle whirl carved by local aboriginal artist Richard Campell for display at the entrance of the school to show our respect to the Musqueam people since we are learning on the unceded territory of the Musqueam people. The total cost is $1500. A grant of $500 has been approved. The school covers $500 and PAC will cover $500. It was unanimously agreed that PAC would provide $500.20. It has been decided that Aaron Kanter and Kathleen Delorme will be in charge of the September Welcome Back BBQ.21. Kathleen & Amal suggested to promote awareness of the multicultural event calendar located outside the school office. It was suggested that we would use the rolling board more often. The board will be rolled out to inform parents of the upcoming events.22. Amal will focused her efforts to increase awareness of the of the multicultural event calendar to motivate more understanding and appreciation of our diversity.23. Lyme disease: A parent contacted Amal to explain that her sister was diagnosed with Lyme disease. It is a very rare infectious disease caused by tick bite and the parent raised concern about the possibility of getting the tick bite from the forest. Amal contacted Mrs. Coopersmith and Mrs. Coopersmith and Corinna contacted the public nurse who provided useful links -will be posted on PAC blog. There is nothing to worry about as there is no additional cases diagnosed. It is always good to know !24. Congratulations to U-Hill Elementary Kinderclub: They made it to Vancouver Courier Readers Choice award. Star of Vancouver! The best Daycare/Preschool Category! Congratulations to Natalia, Jamie and their fantastic team! You deserve it. Very well-done!25. PAC will consider hosting special evening meetings -might be a couple of meetings- for parents who cannot make it to the morning PAC meetings. Some parents contacted Amal raising this wish. It is important to get those parents engaged as well.26. To encourage more parents to come to PAC meetings, notices will be posted to the three entrances of the school building from one week prior to the meeting.27. This is the last PAC meeting of the school year. Thank you to all parents to have been

working hard to engage in our school community. See you in September 2017!