Minutes from PAC General Meeting – September 28, 2011

/ Ross Road PAC

Our first General Meeting/Coffee Evening of the year was held on September 28, 2011. The Ross Road parents in attendance met our administrators and members of this year’s PAC Executive, got acquainted with other parents and enjoyed a social evening, complete with coffee and treats! Our thanks to everyone who made the effort to come out!

Minutes from the September 28th General Meeting
Click the link below to view the Minutes in PDF form:
PAC General Meeting Minutes – September 28, 2011 (Unapproved)

PLEASE NOTE: These minutes are “Unapproved”
Here’s why:

  • As we move with technology and the new pace of life, we are making changes to how and when information is shared with our parent population.
  • Ross Road PAC now has fewer General Meetings per school year than we have had in the past, and we are communicating much more via internet and email.
  • Moving forward, we will post minutes from General Meetings on our website BEFORE THEY HAVE BEEN APPROVED AND ACCEPTED at a general meeting.
  • Therefore, these minutes are NOT the final version and some content may change during the next PAC General Meeting.

The next PAC General Meeting is Wednesday, February 1st, 2012.
Click here for more info.

Wanted: A new coordinator for the Ross Road Christmas event!

/ Ross Road PAC
Click to see more photos from the 2010 Christmas Craft Fair

Ross Road students checking out the ever-popular Class Raffle Baskets at the 2010 Christmas Craft Fair. Click on the image to view more photos.

Ross Road families have enjoyed a Christmas event at the school for many years now.  It serves as both a great social/community evening, and an important fundraiser for our kids.   Although the event has taken the form of a Craft Fair for some years, it can be anything we want it to be : )

Carolyn Sluis, our PAC co-chair since 2009, has very capably coordinated the Christmas Craft Fair for the past few years, but is stepping down from the position this year. We are all so grateful to her for all the energy and effort she and her team put into creating such memorable, festive evenings for Ross Road students and parents alike! Thank you, Carolyn!

Now we are looking for someone new to head up a simple, enjoyable evening for the Ross Road Community.  It could be as basic as a Sing-a-long.  Add in the famous Ross Road Class Raffle Baskets (last year we raised $3500 in raffle basket
tickets alone!), and maybe a concession with Christmas treats and you’d have a fun, easy-to-organize evening.  Some teachers have expressed an interest in having their classes make art/crafts and sell them at the fair—that could be a great fundraiser, too!

We have booked the school gym for Friday, December 2nd, in hopes that someone or some people would step forward to keep this popular annual event going!  You would have help from the Class Rep Coordinator to organize the Class Reps and the Raffle Baskets, and Carolyn is happy to help you get started.  Grab a few friends and make this event happen!

If you are interested in this position, please use this form to contact our PAC co-chairs, Carolyn Sluis and Lene Burgmann:

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Jesse Miller discusses internet safety and social media awareness with Ross Road Students and parents

/ Ross Road PAC

Last week, Jesse Miller of Mediated Reality came to speak to Ross Road parents and intermediate students about internet safety and social media awareness. He had two sessions with the students on Thurs, Oct. 8th: one with the Grade 4-5 students and one with the Grade 6-7s, and a presentation for parents the night before – thank you to those parents who joined us on Wednesday evening! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. In fact, we liked his presentation and main message so much that we would like to share a few details from the student meetings:

Among the Ross Road Grade 4s and 5s:

  • About 25 to 30 students are on Facebook, despite the fact that you have to be 13 years old to sign up. Several volunteered their ‘Facebook age’ to be 13 (most of them), but a couple of them are 15 or 19 on facebook. This means they will read ads appropriate for 18 and 19-year-olds on the sidebar of their Facebook wall.
  • About 10 of them had experience chatting live with strangers through their Xbox/Playstation headsets.
  • About 15 had experienced being woken up at night by the sound of an incoming text message – someone got woken up at 3 AM the other night!

Among the Ross Road Grade 6s and 7s:

  • About 50 are on Facebook. They are a bit closer to the ‘legal’ age, but about 10 of them are signed up as students at Argyle. Most of these students reported having between 100 and 300 ‘friends’ on Facebook.
  • About 15-20 of them declared that they post photos on Facebook or the internet.
  • 2 students had been on ‘Formspring,’ an online chat site where you can chat and ask questions anonymously.
  • About 10 students said they had written ‘inappropriate’ text messages that they would instantly delete, if they thought their parents would see them. These students didn’t know that these texts are saved for 90 days by law and that their parents could, in fact, ask the provider for a print-out of these same text messages for any given period. There were some pretty shocked faces in the crowd when Jesse Miller told them this!

Jesse Miller also shared with the Grades 6s and 7s, how easy it is for a stranger to simply look up someone’s name on Facebook, then Google the name to find personal information about them such as phone numbers and photos.

Jesse’s general message was to encourage the students to always think about safety and privacy when going online on whatever social media they choose. “If something would feel weird, bad or inappropriate if it happened in real life, then it’s weird, bad or inappropriate on the internet as well” was his key message. He thereby emphasized the importance of applying the same rules for social interaction in real life and on the internet. Stop and think before posting or texting anything! Pretty simple, really!

If parents or students have any further questions they would like to ask Jesse Miller, please contact him directly:
www.mediatedreality.com/
and mention that you are contacting him in connection with his visit to Ross Road. The PAC will also be happy to forward questions to him, if this works better for you.
Email us at: rossroadpacweb@gmail.com

CPF (Canadian Parents for French): October update

/ Ross Road PAC

CPF (Canadian Parents for French) is running its annual Membership Drive until October 31st 2011.
You can join anytime, but if you join before October 31st you will be eligible to win one of many fantastic prizes – click here to read the complete list.

  • How to join the CPF? Click here to find out
  • Why do we need the CPF? Click here to read about the importance of the CPF and its members
  • CPF events at Ross Road. Click here to read about CPF events that Ross Road students participated in during the 2010-11 school year

Upcoming CPF Meetings:

  • October 12th: JJ Bean, Park and Tilford – 7:00pm
  • November 9th: JJ Bean, Park and Tilford
  • December 7th: Windsor Secondary School – Christmas Party, bring a friend!

Click here to visit the CPF North Van chapter’s website where you will find more info and updates.

Thank you!
– Annette Arndt
CPF representative, École Ross Road

Class Rep / Class List update

/ Ross Road PAC

We just wanted to give Ross Road parents an update on the Class Rep/Class List situation as we know you are anxious to get your class lists so that you can start connecting and communicating!

Due to privacy issues, we are required to obtain consent from all parents for permission to use their email addresses in PAC communications. This was part of the PAC Contact Permission Form that most of you have filled out and returned (thank you!).

Before we can provide class reps with parent contact information, we need to review these forms and ensure that each parent has given the “OK” for email distribution and of course privacy protection. This process takes quite a bit of time to organize and we apologize for the delay. We are working on a better system for next year!

The good news is that we have Class Reps in place for nearly all of our classes! They are looking forward to communicating with their respective parent groups!

Click here to view the list of Class Reps for 2011-12.

Thank you so much for your patience!
– PAC Executive

Reminder: Jesse Miller Internet Safety Presentation, Wed. Oct 5th

/ Ross Road PAC

We are very privileged to have Jesse Miller from Mediated Reality come to our school this Thursday, October 6th, to give our students from Grades 4 thru 7 a presentation on internet awareness and responsibility.   

Jesse will be presenting to parents the evening before – on Wednesday October 5th from 7-9pm in our school library.  We encourage all parents with students in these grades to attend as it will be an eye-opening evening.  Please feel free to bring a friend or two!  It is suggested that this is a “PARENT ONLY” evening.

Click here for more information about Jesse Miller and the presentation.

Early dismissal Tuesday Oct 4th + Calendar page update

/ Ross Road PAC

Just a reminder that all students will be dismissed from school at 1:45 p.m. on October 4, 2011. (District-wide training on Child Abuse Protocols is scheduled for all staff on Tuesday, October 4, 2011)

Also, we’ve added a Google Calendar to our Calendar page!
Check it out:
rossroadpac.wordpress.com/rossroad-calendar/

A few upcoming dates to remember:

Jesse Miller Internet Safety Presentation – Wed. Oct. 5th

/ Ross Road PAC

JESSE MILLER
Internet Safety/Social Media Awareness Presentation
Wednesday October 5th
7:00- 9:00pm in the School Library (parents only)

Join us on Wednesday, October 5th for this FREE, PAC-sponsored presentation with Jesse Miller of Mediated Reality. Jesse Miller is a national speaker who has addressed thousands of participants over the past three years.  Presenting and consulting to schools and companies across British Columbia since 2007, Jesse is in high demand as a keynote speaker on the topics of social media awareness, social networking behaviour and online content evaluation.

Jesse’s presentations have received rave reviews from the many parents who have seen his presentations at other schools. The presentation is geared towards parents of Intermediate students but parents of children in younger grades are encouraged to attend. Parents from other schools are also welcome to come to the presentation.

Wednesday evening’s talk will give parents background information on the presentation that Jesse will be sharing with Intermediate students (Grades 4-7) on Thursday, October 6th at school.

MORE ABOUT THE FOUNDER OF MEDIATED REALITY
Using behaviour-changing presentation techniques, Jesse has an un-matched ability to motivate his audience to evaluate their online profiles and how to assess privacy and connectivity issues. As a public safety innovator, Jesse combines a diverse background in community policing, volunteer management, behaviour analysis and social media connectivity to develop unique presentations and awareness based solutions for his clients.

The approach designed through multimedia based awareness campaigns delivers a measured response to an audience who previously had no idea of their vulnerabilities when participating in online environments. Jesse is a trusted resource to numerous school districts in British Columbia who use his expertise to address issues that occur in school hallways and through social media requiring online evaluation and investigation. Jesse uses this skill set to benefit companies that need evaluation of their social media footprint and current connectivity to clients. He has been featured in numerous publications and articles as an authority on the topics of Internet safety, social media, and mobile-application based technology.

– Excerpted from Jesse Miller’s website at: www.mediatedreality.com