As the school year ends, families might be looking for ways to thank the educators who work with their children during the year but beyond the classroom is another group of volunteers that contribute to the entire school family behind the scenes: members of the School Council.
All public schools have school councils which act as an advisory bodies to the schools and school board.
Members are parents and other interested members of the public who work to improve student achievement and increase accountability of the education system to parents. Council’s mandate includes providing advice and support for school communications strategies, extra-curricular activities, and community partnerships related to social, health, recreational and nutritional programs among other things.
Their members are elected at the beginning of the school year through in person, electronic or telephone votes, and consist of a Chair, Secretary, Treasurer and other positions as the members see fit. There is also a member from the school administration, the Principal or Vice Principal as well as a teacher. The group usually meets once a month during the school year when they discuss concerns raised by parents, communication strategies to improve parent engagement in the school and develop events and activities for students to improve their educational experience at school.
School Council operate some ongoing programs to support students including daily breakfast programs and weekly lunch programs and reading buddy programs. They engage special guests such as Nature Nancy, representatives of the Terry Fox organization, break dancing and yoga instructors and host graduation ceremonies and help with extracurricular activities.
The Ministry of Education does not provide funding to schools for outdoor equipment, so any playground equipment, basketball hoops or outdoor play structures on school property has been funded by parents, usually through their school councils. Often this group also purchases educational equipment such as i-pads and Chromebooks to supplement board-supplied technology. This year for example, the North Cavan School Council purchased enough Chromebooks to supply an entire class to supplement the existing supply, allowing two classes access to this technology at the same time.
To fund these activities and purchases, School Councils host a variety of fundraising events throughout the year. These include hot lunch programs, book fairs, and bottle drives, and special events such as North Cavan’s annual Dancethon.
Each school council establishes the priorities for their own school expenditures. Both Millbrook and North Cavan Public schools have lost an annual $10,000 donation from the PC Charity Funding Grant that helps pay for the food supplies used in the daily breakfast program. For MSC, this represents almost two-thirds of their annual breakfast budget, which costs approximately $1,000 per week in food costs and is delivered completely through volunteer efforts. Local breakfast programs will continue to receive support from Kawartha Food Share and they hope to receive a federal funding boost but in the meantime, this gap will be their first spending priority in the next school year.
School Councils are always looking for volunteers to help them deliver their programs and activities. Volunteers prepare food for the breakfast program, order and deliver hot lunches, support students in extracurricular activities and help with fundraising activities. Every contribution helps.
Whether you have time every week, once a month or just on occasion, there are many different ways for volunteers to help students at the local school. The only requirement is a bit of extra time, a desire to help and a valid Vulnerable Sector Police Check on file with the school, which can be completed on line with the Peterborough Police Services.
Anyone interested in volunteering can contact to the School Administration or to MSC School Council Chair Kari Power at karipower249@gmail.com or NC’s Chair Natasha Parker. KG