EAST Community Update
September 16, 2013
EAST PTA Meeting
Many issues were discussed including:
- Committees at EAST (See attachment)
- Student/teacher and parent roles and responsibilites at EAST (see attachment)
- Volunteer opportunities (more coming up).
- Time Management Sheets and Homework
- The volunteer database will be updated shortly and a link will be provided in a newsletter. This database is where parents can "officially" record their volunteer hours.
Please see the attached minutes of this meeting for full updates.
Upcoming Events
Ste Marie Among the Hurons - September 17th, 2013 - We are in the wonderful position of having too many parent volunteers for this field trip. If you have said that you would like to volunteer but would, perhaps, consider putting your time and skills to use on another EAST field trip, please let lynn.heath@tdsb.on.ca know as soon as possible.
Terry Fox Run - September 24th, 2013 - Please note that if you said that you would like to volunteer for this event, we would love to have you - consider yourself confirmed. Please come to EAST by 8:45 am on September 24th.
Enviro Day - September 27th, 2013 - note we need drivers and other parent volunteers on the day. We also need families to donate prizes to serve as an incentive to motivate our students.
Picture Day - October 16th with retakes on November 13th
Immunizations - November 7th - We would love to have 1-2 parent volunteers to ensure this day runs smoothly.
Make a Difference Day - More information about this soon. But what we do need right away is for all families to think about organizations that they know about who are making a difference on a local, community, national or global scale. If you think that someone from one of these organizations would be willing to come and talk to our students about their organization, please contact..
Montreal Trip - June 10-12, 2014 (see attachment) The trip is in June but the forms are out now. Please complete the forms and send them in with your student ASAP.
Google Calendar
The PTA has established an online calendar that will contain all of the relevant school events so that you can keep them all in one place. You can subscribe to the calendar on your smartphones or online calendar applications simply by clicking here:
https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/eastalternativeschool%40gmail.com/private-922c256f6b9e7e38988f94548ed364b4/basic.ics
If you have questions about configuring your device please first try searching for "Subscribe" in your calendar's help system. If you're stuck email Dan Desmarais at cantactix@gmail.com for some help (father of Pascale Gr8 and Claire Gr7).
General ICS calendar information, including a list of support applications can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_applications_with_iCalendar_support
Most smart phones and online calendars allow you to Show or Hide individual calendars. You can subscribe to this calendar and only show it when you need some EAST information, such as "What time does the PTA meeting start?".
We will still let you know about EAST events via the EAST newsletter but the google calendar is an option for those who want to keep all of the events sorted.
Grade 8 High School Information Nights
It’s time to think about Grade 9 already! Attached are some of the details needed to help you and your child decipher what the best high school would be for them.
The most important is the Grade 8 Information Nights. Attached is the sheet with all the dates for most of the high schools - note that for schools that don't have Grade 8 Information nights listed, it's because they do not offer grade 9/10 programming in their school.
There are also additional attachments for specialized programs. Please see the attachments (each page is hyperlinked for more details):
- TDSB Africentric Secondary School Program
- TDSB IB Diploma Programme;
- TDSB Specialized High Schools and Programs;
Contact List and Committees
We have also attached a spreadsheet with all committees, their members and their coordinators listed. Coordinators will use this list to connect with the committees to organize their work. If you would like to join a committee, please feel free to contact the coordinator directly.