Transition Issues Meeting Wednesday Feb. 19, from 7-9pm

Transition Issues Meeting Wednesday Feb. 19, from 7-9pm Feb 18, 2014 10:54:26 GMT -5

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Post by markscrivens on Feb 18, 2014 10:54:26 GMT -5

Hi everyone,

Since there still seems to be a lot of interest in meeting to share views among affected families on the transition from Devonshire to Connaught, the Devonshire School Council has booked the teacher's lounge for us to meet Wed. Feb. 19, from 7-9pm. (Note: this is not a Devonshire School Council meeting, rather it is a meeting of Devonshire parents interested in transition issues).

In the meantime, Meg and Lianne met with Principal Michele Tatartcheff (Devonshire's Principal) today and have reported the following:

1) Michele , Amy Hannah (Connaught's principal) & Susan McDonald (Superintendent of Instruction) met and discussed preliminary issues with the transition. Their main concern is getting the numbers and then staffing. The way staffing works, they will not have seniority lists until end of February and not be ready to start staffing the positions until April. These details need to be done first before the next steps.

2) All transfer requests will go through Susan McDonald and bypass the principals.

3) Connaught will have an open house for new Devonshire families to go for a tour and see the school and meet Amy.

4) Connaught will have a welcome BBQ to welcome new families.

5) Michele and Amy will work closely to make sure everything is handled and information shared with parents.

6) Parents need to realize that for this stage, they have the support of the school principals. During the ARC, the principals were not allowed to be involved, which meant parents had to do more themselves. This will not be the case now. There will be information sent home regularly, the monthly school newsletters will have important updates, the school council meetings will have important updates from Michele. Everyone will have access to the information.

I realize that some parents do not visit either the Devonshire Forum or Facebook, and communicate only by email. If you are on one of those email lists, please recirculate this information so that we can get the word out.

Transition Issues Meeting Wednesday Feb. 19, from 7-9pm Feb 20, 2014 9:51:48 GMT -5

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Post by markscrivens on Feb 20, 2014 9:51:48 GMT -5

As promised, here is a summary of the discussion from last night's meeting to discuss Connaught transition issues (thanks to Nicolas for taking such good notes). People should feel free to reply with anything that was missed, or with their reaction to the meeting last night:

Transition Team Meeting - Feb. 19, 2014

Introductions of those in attendance. Approx 30 people in attendance.
- LOTS of split families: approx half of those in attendance.

- Mark making note that this is an informal meeting prior to start of formal transition process. We currently don't have any information on how this process is going to work.

- SC co-chairs met with principals earlier this week and noted that principals will be more involved with the transition process than the ARC process. There will also be an open house at Connaught to introduce parents to the school. (These messages were conveyed in an earlier email on FB and forums.)

- Most of the transition work will happen once staffing work is done in April sometime. We can still meet as required to discuss issues as a group of parents.

- Busing: There used to be a Devonshire to Connaught bus. Can this be put back on the table to try and address the Parkdale situation? M: Busing one of the primary issues and will have to be dealt with. Gowling is an example with busing of kids across Merivale.

- Budget: what is the $50k going to be spent on? As of now, we have no more information on what that's going to be going towards. M: It will likely depend on what sort of things happen once staffing is done. It would be nice of they asked the transition team. Is that going towards desks etc? M: unsure. There should be mothballed desks available.

- Timing. Do we have any idea when this might start? M: Again, it's going to happen once staffing is done which is April. We might be able to encourage a speedier timeline. Look into it? Not everything has to have staffing input.

- Q: Registration? What is required of parents? Will they have to register at Connaught? Will they get transferred?

- Q: Information on extended day program? This should be communicated to parents.

- Q: What are the school hours? A: 8:20-2:50. This should be communicated to parents.

- Criteria for transfers needs to be conveyed to parents. It's available on the OCDSB website but we need to convey.

- Q: Kids who use learning support services at Connaught. Will they have consistent services during the transfer?

- Q: Will Dev. teachers be moving? Unsure. This will depend on the CBA/competitions. Teacher familiarity will help during the transition.

- Q: What sort of program expectations will be there, and will the EFI culture be there and vibrant? We also need to ensure that the ENG stream has to be included re: Connaught activities. Requires a balancing act.
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- Can transition team be more active on outreach? There are students who found out they were moving before parents. Can students have an intro to the school soon or something of that nature. Can the students know who their teachers are before the end of the year THIS YEAR!

- What sort of information can the transition team provide for parents/students?

- Can there be an 'EFI information night' at Connaught? There should actually be 2. One for kids and one for parents. The kids would then be able to meet the principal, tour the school etc. Stone Soup night is in March and is a good opportunity for parents to introduce their kids to the school.

- What sort of information is going to come out re: extended care?

- Q: Can there be a staggered recess between junior and senior grades to help relieve some of the pressure of the population of the school?

- Q: What's Connaught's population's reaction to having all these kids come in? M: There might be a concern about all the kids coming in so we're going to have to be sensitive to blending with the populations as a whole.

- What sort of announcements will be happening in the mornings at Connaught? It's a dual stream school so should have dual stream announcements? Bilingual communication is a must.

- Can we borrow best practices from other dual track schools? Hopewell? Broadview? Elgin? N: Reach out to Elgin for some suggestions.

- Retrofit? What needs to be done and will it be done in time?

- The Parkdale issue needs to be address particularly. Getting kids past the Parkdale/417 section is coming up as an issue often. Transportation committee is going to be struck.

- Communication post meeting? Forums are being encouraged.

- Vicky will follow up with the registration information, and transfers of kids currently enrolled at Devonshire.