January 12, 2026

BHES Staff

Heather Schreider (Principal)

Ms. Georgia Petinarelis (Vice-Principal) Ms. Leder (Teacher)

Ms. Lisogurski (Teacher) Ms. Wilson (Teacher) Ms. Myers (Teacher)

Ms. Sawchuk (Teacher)

BHES 2024- 2025 School Council

Pegita Ghasemi (Co-Chair) Devika Mathur (Co-Chair) Anita Li (Treasurer)

Atty Mashatan Rick Lew Raymond Chong Shelly Bhinder Scarlett Choi

Guests

Tasneem Kanchwala

Regrets

Daphne Chen(Secretary) Anabela Costa

Parisa Bahrampour Karen Li

Zehra Haider Mona Moineddin

Devika/Pegita

• Devika welcomed everyone and said we will wait until more members show to vote on the Minutes
• Minutes were vote don and passed when we had quorum

• Anita had sent out a memo to Council stating no new items have been added and so there is no new votes for today

3. Admin Report

-School update

Heather/Georgia

PRO GRANT

• Georgia discussed that the idea they have about what to use the PRO Grant for is a Wellness Night - Georgia has reached out to some groups to see if we can have a Wellness Night at BHES
• Heather said we can have a Wellness Week and then we can have an evening with the families and students can also attend then too. It's finally coming together for something that will excite the kids and it can be invitational for families
• Georgia said she had the opportunity to work with an Art Therapist in New Market - it could be like a small little workshop or it can be whole group
• She wants the reflection and focus to come through - the therapist will draft a model for Georgia and email her
• Anita said she saw a wellness program at other schools and it worked well
• Georgia said the one she saw, the parents attended a session on youth while the students went through other sessions. They had a raffle - silent auction throughout the night
• At one school the Pro-grant money went to YouthSpeak
• At the other school the grant money went to the art therapist
• Georgia said she will send an email to the Art therapist since Raymond asked how many families can the therapist accommodate
• Devika said that co-chairs can meet to do the PRO Grant applications together to make sure we can get community involvement and attendance

EQAO - Results

• Heather and Georgia shared certain sections of the EQAO results and if anyone wants to see more then we can always look at it at a later date
• Georgia went on the EQAO website and shared the BHES results, anyone can do this, you do not need a special login
• The tiny tabs have you dig deeper into the material, please visit EQAO website for detailed look and numbers:
  • 50 students wrote it last year out of 55
  • 88% of our students at provincial level or higher grade 3 reading the board level is 73%
  • Writing 82.7% - grade 3
  • Grade 3 math- 82.6%
  • Grade 6 results- reading 95% met the standard in reading
  • Grade 6 - across the board 90%
  • Grade 6 - writing 90.4%in writing and across the board 84%
  • Grade 6 math - 75% at the school and across the board 60%
• Mrs. Leder said the student population is transient and it has changed
• Shelly said the numbers are very different at her school. We are doing less on application of a problem and more on thinking. They have 87% MLL so once we remove the language barrier they actually know the math. Everybody writes the test and moving on line has made it easier for the MLL student Shelly also said the transient piece Ms. Leder mentioned has an impact. Her community is very transient
• Mrs. Leder said that as students become more comfortable they are able to do better and if students are not used to doing multiple choice questions, then it is important to get students used to completing those type

Hot Lunch Programs

• Shelly asked what happens to the lunch program on inclement weather days - does our school give refund or reschedule?
• Devika said that historically on inclement weather days by policy you are suppose to cancel the hot lunch and there has been no make up days nor refund
• At the beginning of the year we say there will be no refunds, its all volunteer run, all funds will go in and be used for school items

• Heather said we can now change the wording on the hot lunch program to reflect that no refund or rescheduled lunch programs will be made
• Anita said there is not enough volunteer help to reschedule the lunch program for another day and moving forward for next year it will state clearly that the lunch program will not be refunded nor rescheduled if there are inclement weather days.

Pegita/Devika

SISP (Special Interest Service Providers)

• Pegita shared information that Parisa, the co-ordinator for the SISP, has passed on to share with Council. First class of robotics took place and Parisa volunteered her time to be there to meet with John who is from Envision Robotic. He was there with another helper. Everything was set up and organized. Georgia was there as well.
• Thursday will be the first drama session which will be taking place
• Parisa asked if Georgia could email staff and ask to see if someone would like to help with the chess program so that it would be able to run, because without a staff member present it wouldn’t be possible. Parisa asked if Georgia could send another email to staff regarding the Chess program - Georgia said yes
• Overall with the SISP Parisa said the process of getting the initiative set up was not easy but it has taken off
• Robotics ran today but for the Arts - unfortunately there was only person who signed up so it had to be postponed for February, maybe after Robotics has ended
• A question for the admin is do we need volunteers for the days that these programs run? Heather said no parent teacher volunteers are needed to run these programs as the programs have their own staff
• The feedback was that students were engaged and involved. Some students didn’t remember to attend - even though announcements were made

Playground

• Karen has set up some fundraising initiatives to start a kick off with the funding of the Playground
• Rick asked if we really need a playground as the cost seems to be so high, instead we can have programs in the school for students since the commitment involves a 

tremendous amount of money donated and raised

• Georgia said we are open to discuss other options, but we have to keep in mind that at some point the playground will not be usable any longer
• Heather said the playground is not a necessity or a need and it is not a one person decision, it is a conversation to take place for parents who are interested to provide feedback
• Georgia said that if we are moving away from the playground funding, then we have to use all the money that Council raises for the current year because if there is no plan for playground then the funds can’t be transferred to the following year
• There is a flyer that Georgia created with an external link that was shared with the Playground subcommittee
• The commitment would be close to $40,000 per school year until the full amount is reached
• Georgia said the Playground Subcommittee looked at fundraising plans for the playground. A Spring Fair would generate funds for the playground. We can do a direct donation drive at the school, money that goes directly to the school and there are no fees
• We can circulate the external flyers to the community
• In the weekly we could circulate the Mable Label fundraising as well that Karen has arranged
• It is important now to decide whether we want to go ahead with the Playground. The subcommittee will meet again to discuss how we can decide whether the playground is a go or not.

Movie Night - Jan. 29th

• Pegita updated Council on the Movie Night since Daphne was absent. We currently have Movie licence which was paid for by Council last year so we will be using it for this Movie Night
• The Movie Night subcommittee will meet to organize and plan this annual event for our students

• Heather said they are now close to 700 students at the school. Students moving into the new little area - Leslie and Major Mack. Students are also coming from other schools to register as well
• Heather will be sending an email about showing proof of residency to the community because sometimes when addresses are searched it shows up as another family.

• There has been a concern from some parents that school grounds are very icy, and it is dangerous walking in the school to go pick up their children
• Some kids are slipping and falling on the ice. The school yard is very icy, especially the areas that are not part of the school
• Parking lots and pathways are salted. Devika asked if this could be put in the newsletter that would help the parents to know which parts of the school is salted

Meeting adjourned 8:31pm