CPAC MEETING MINUTES
Tuesday, Oct 25th, 2016 7:00 pm
CALL TO ORDER – 7:04 pmAndrea Benton, PAC Chair
Meeting called to order in the Maker Space Room at Caulfeild School by Andrea Benton, PAC Chair.
PRESENT:
Craig Cantlie, PrincipalSara Bell, Vice Principal
Andrea Benton, PAC Chair
Kate Bailey, PAC Vice-Chair
Tammy Hester, Past PAC Co-Chair
Sonia Hoole, Treasurer
Nina Cheema, Co-DPAC Representative
Megan Horte, Co-Secretary
Lisa Mingo, Co-Secretary
Derek Gehl
Tessa LeGuilloux / Siobhan Nixon
Rhiannon Fitzpatrick
Brandi Kleaman
Karen Szeto
Kristin Awde
Sylvia Sun
Amy Reed
Coralynn Gehl
Amy Dunbar
Claudine Gayton
WELCOME & ADOPTION OF AGENDA/MINUTES – 7:04 pmAndrea Benton, PAC Chair
Andrea then called to review and adopt the agenda for this October meeting and the Sept 27th, 2016 meeting minutes. A motion was made by Megan Horte and seconded by Nina Cheema. All in favour, motion carried at 7:05 pm.
CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT – 7:05 pmAndrea Benton, PAC Chair
Many thanks are owed to various individuals for their work this month:
-To Rhiannon and the other ladies for getting the Hot Lunch Program off the ground
-To Tessa for getting things kicked off with the Room Parents
-To Nina for doing callback
-To Coralynn for organizing the primary pumpkin patch, and to Woodrose Homes for their sponsorship of this event
-To the PAC Exec for attending extra meetings this month and for their insights
-To Sonja and Nina for attending the DPAC lunch, and
-To Paula Stephens for recruiting 4 (out of 12 who offered) babysitting volunteers for child minding during the PAC meeting.
It was also a busy month for Andrea, who attended the first DPAC meeting, spoke at the inaugural ELL café meeting, created a new CPAC eLetter, and was very proud to represent Caulfeild in her role as CPAC Chair by speaking at the September Board meeting. Today Andrea had the opportunity to meet with the Chinese school community who were very enthusiastic and provided a lot of useful insights. Sonia and Andrea will be attending a mandatory Treasurers’ meeting later this week.
PRINCIPAL’s REPORT – 7:08 PM Craig Cantlie, Principal
●School board meeting - Showed iDEC promotional video to showcase that Caulfeild is an excellent school; 3 teachers, Craig and Andrea Benton were in attendance
●Innovation grants – are generally $2,000 to $3,000 per grant, the Maker Space was the major one from prior year, current grant was awarded to review how you integrate music into Inquiry, school will also be looking at the new applied design skill curriculum and how we can apply this learning in the Maker Space Room
●Registrations – opened last week, already have 10 kindergarten registrations for next year (however Cedardale received 75), lots of school visits including 3 families from Collingwood, exploration day coming up next Thursday for new parents and/or existing parents who want a tour of school
●New trees – around the time that Craig started at Caulfeild, a tree fell down at Eagle Harbour Montessori School which prompted an assessment to be done and some trees were cut down, lost a couple trees in the recent wind storm and had to close the forest for a couple days, have also planted 4 new trees around the property
●Website – refreshed the school website, however if you google Caulfeild elementary our old website comes up, trying to sort this out and now should only have one website, over the last week Craig has been reviewing and cleaning up existing content and will soon start to add new content
●eBulletin – looks a bit different now, doing it in ‘mail chimp’, can track usage stats using this tool, note that if you have a gmail account it may be filing these emails in the ‘promotion’ folder but can easily move these emails back to your primary account, also putting up the eBulletin on Twitter
●Bear Wear – going over well, the new branding is very easy to spot!
●Halloween assembly – on Monday the 31st of October in the morning, parents are invited (format will be slightly different than prior year), grade 6/7 Thriller dance
●Whole school inquiry exercise on Oct 24th– inquiry was related to culture, started with the school administration saying that everyone had to wear black and white, interesting to see the reaction from the students, there was a protest out on the Spider, the students demonstrated very good critical thinking and the event fostered creativity because the students didn’t want to be all the same, teachers had a script to follow to ensure messaging was consistent and dialogue was respectful, there will be follow-up this week and questions sent home in the students’ planners around ‘mono cultures’ and how it makes you feel to be the same
●Nov 10th Remembrance Day assembly – parents can plan to arrive about 10:45 am and ceremony starts at 11 am, not the same format as last year with photos of relatives
TREASURER’S REPORT – 7:24 pm Sonia Hoole, Treasurer/ Tammy Hester, Past PAC Co-Chair/ Andrea Benton, PAC Chair
During the week following the last PAC meeting, Tammy Hester and Andrea Benton met with Barb Lang and Lin Gilbert of BC Partners in Planning accounting firm to discuss getting a quote for a full audit of the CPAC’s books, in order to ensure that the parent community receives concrete answers on the 2015/16 shortfall identified in recent weeks. Cost of an audit is estimated at $2,500 for one year, and $1,500 per subsequent years (but actual cost would be dependent on actual hours spent). Barb and Lin spent an additional 1.5 hours providing Tammy and Andrea with their time and expertise. They revealed that a former Caulfeild PAC Treasurer (Wendy Winkler) had produced a manual in 2008 on how to be a PAC Treasurer, but unfortunately this book had been lost until now. They provided the original soft copy of this Manual (to be known as the ‘CPAC Financial Guide’ from this point forward), which Sonia Hoole, PAC Treasurer, is in the process of reviewing and updating. We really value the time they provided to us and would like to extend our thanks to Barb and Lin on behalf of the Caulfeild PAC.
Recommended Changes
On the basis of discussions with the accounting firm, the CPAC recommends the following changes:
-The Treasurer will be provided with a school laptop that will have Quick Books accounting software installed on it. This software will be used to provide a monthly summary of results at each PAC meeting.
-The Treasurer role will run from September to September to ensure adequate handover to the new Treasurer.
-The PAC Executive will vote on and endorse only ONE major initiative per year.
-Each project sub-committee will be provided with a form that includes both estimated income and expense for that particular project, and it must be approved by the Chair and Treasurer.
-All fundraising should happen as close as possible to the beginning of the year (note that the Spring Fling used to happen in the fall which is better timing in terms of income generation).
Work Completed & Findings
Following discussions with BC Partners in Planning, Tammy Hester prepared a detailed statement of income and expense, which accounted for every revenue and expense item, and was also reconciled to the Operating Bank Account. This reconciliation went to end of September 2016 in order to account for a large cheque that cleared in September. [NB. If anyone is interested in reviewing these statements, Tammy has asked them to put their name on the sign-up sheet and she will send out the relevant spreadsheets. ]
The decision to purchase the remaining playground and learning spaces equipment was made in April 2016 on the information that was on hand at the time, which showed that not only did the PAC have adequate funds available, there was also a cushion of just over $5,000. See below.
Bank balance at April 6, 2016 $102, 683
Less approved Learning Spaces #2 $42,000
Less Playground reserve$22,500
Less approved Playground$19,831
Less expected remaining Hot Lunch expenses $10,000
Less remaining PAC Budget expenses $2,900
Expected buffer$5,452
However this was not actually the case, largely on the basis of two key items – the Spring Fling which brought in approximately $10,000 less than anticipated, and Hot Lunch expenses of which there were about $27,000 in additional bills that had not yet been paid by end of June.
So at end of the 2015/16 school year, CPAC was in a deficit position and still owed the following debts: $20,346 to the District for payment of Playground Equipment, and $18,000 in additional Learning Spaces commitment which was promised to the school.
Summary
In short, we overspent. All deposits and cheques for the 13-month period under review have been reconciled. Over 75 hours has been spent by the PAC Executive, with everything accounted for and no evidence of any fraud or misuse of funds. We have consulted with professionals, will be implementing a new accounting tool to account for all transactions, and will be abiding by the newly-updated CPAC Financial Guide. We therefore do not recommend spending hard-earned funds (between $2,500 and $5,500) on an audit to confirm what we already know.
The remaining expenditure on the Learning Spaces and Playground Equipment will need to be paid for via additional fundraising. The School Board has paid the debts on our behalf, will not be charging us interest, and has not yet communicated any sort of repayment plan. It should be noted that PAC overspending is not unique to Caulfeild, and the recommended changes will help to ensure that this does not happen again.
We ask you to support our new PAC Executive in bringing this year’s Caulfeild school activities to fruition.
Other discussion related to Financials:
-Margin on hot lunch was about 27% in previous years but this is not consistent, and will depend on the vendors involved.
-The updated CPAC Financial Guide should be posted on the website.
-Also important that the PAC meeting minutes capture all discussion and decisions, and that the minutes are made available to the parent community.
-In the past, the PAC secretary has been responsible for maintaining binders of minutes in the PAC room; this year Megan Horte, PAC co-secretary, will be posting the minutes on the Caulfeild website.
-Question around how we prevent this situation from happening again; Quick Books will help, also improvements in communication, attending Treasurers’ meeting to find out what questions should be asked by the PAC Chair in regards to cash flow, more clarity around expenses and what money is coming in.
-The CPAC also needs to do a better job of communicating with the Hot Lunch Coordinator over outstanding invoices
-Quick Books is not a magic bullet, things could still go awry, but we do need a consistent tool to help us manage the books and at the same time it will also be helpful to ensure appropriate standards, controls and training are implemented.
-No standard policy/process in terms of what other schools within the District do as far as maintaining their financial records, difficult to mandate a volunteer position .
-PAC has three bank accounts – gaming account, the Operating bank account, and SD45 trust account. In future, money that needs to be reserved for future purchases will be removed from our Operating bank account and deposited into the SD45 trust account.
-Other suggestions:
oCPAC should pay for a trained accountant to set up the Quick Books properly the first time.
oPresent new financial process at a future PAC meeting.
oCheck in at each PAC meeting to confirm any significant outstanding (unpaid) Hot Lunch expenses.
oAdd column in financials related to reconciliation of the SD45 Trust Account.
-All issues and resolutions will be documented in the minutes of this meeting, therefore no need to disseminate anything to parents via email.
A motion was made by Tammy Hester re. funding the purchase of Quick Books for $250. Kate Bailey seconded. All in favour (19 people), motion passed.
2016/17 Budget
The revised 2016/17 budget was submitted for discussion and review.
-Budget - Discussion of whether there was ‘wiggle room’ in the budget, what expenses could be cut if we do not meet income targets. Income estimates are very conservative. Mr. Cantlie is also willing to negotiate on spending for teacher targeted funds (what is ‘mandatory’ vs nice to have), and has already paid for site licenses budgeted at $5,000 (for which he does not expect reimbursement).
-Mother’s Day Brunch - Scheduled for May but this is a new event and we are not certain how much money it will raise. Question whether effort should happen at the beginning of year & whether dangerous to cancel Spring Fling. Spring Fling attendance, fundraising dollars, volunteerism are significantly down from prior years, but do need to find events that build community. Someone put forward a Pub Night. Great to have ideas, important to discuss, still need to ensure we have enough volunteers to make these things happen.
-Silent Auction for Mother’s Day – Clarification that this silent auction will not involve kids’ auction items (this will happen at Christmas like last year – money raised was about $4k which was similar level to what was raised at Spring Fling in prior years).
-Caulfeild PAC Fundraising Campaign - Scheduled for Nov 7-21. Hopeful that this will have a broader reach than Spring Fling which doesn’t necessarily capture the whole school’s target market.
-Targeting multi ethnic communities – Important that everything is translated, also need to communicate upcoming events at ELL café.
-Budget vs forecast – Important to ensure original approved budget amounts are transparent and reported as a reference point vs projected revenue/expense amounts.
A request was made by Tammy Hester for a volunteer to assemble a Fundraising Committee to assist with raising money and building community via fundraisers. Claudine Gayton, Rhiannon Fitzpatrick, and Brandi Kleaman all volunteered (thank you). Will be important to get multi-ethnic parent group involved in the committee and events to ensure we get their input and buy-in.
DPAC REPORT – 8:50 pm Nina Cheema, DPAC Rep
Nina attended the DPAC meeting on Oct 5th, key points from this meeting were:
-DPAC meetings open to everyone.
-Upcoming events: Board of Education meeting (Oct 18 at 7 pm), DPAC Treasurer’s meeting (Oct 27 at 6:30 pm), DPAC meeting (Nov 2 at 9:15 am).
-West Van School District (17 schools) is one of highest achieving districts in BC.
-Parent education – save the date (Tuesday, May 2) for session at Kay Meek.
-Report from Chris Kennedy – 7th year in his tenure, enrollment up 42 students, down in international students due to lack of homestays, if anyone interested in becoming a homestay family please contact the District (families get $950 per month to support a student)
-Other stats: 1026 enrolled in Frenc. immersion, 70 aboriginal students, 840 ELL students
-Chris Kennedy will be sending survey to parents re. what info you seek about your child and how do you want to receive this information
ADJOURNMENT – 8:54 pm Andrea Benton, PAC Chair
The meeting adjourned at 8:55 pm.
NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, Nov 29th at 8:50 am - room location to be determined.