May 12, 2025

Date

Monday, May 12^th, 2025

Time Started

7:03 pm

Time Adjourned

8:23pm

Attendees

BHES Staff

Heather Schreider (Principal)

Ms. Georgia Petinarelis (Vice Principal)

Ms. Lisagurski (Teacher)

Mr. Mika Ilic (Teacher)

Ms. Lori Wilson (Teacher)

Ms. Leder (Teacher)

Ms. Sawchuk (Teacher)

BHES 2024 - 2025 School Council

Pegita Ghasemi (Co-Chair)

Devika Mathur (Co-Chair)

Anita Li (Treasurer)

Daphne Chen (Secretary)

Raymond Chong

Scarlett Choi

Parin

Bonnie Kwan

Maggie Lee

Parisa Bahrampour

Eileen Pan

Karen Li

Guests

Shelley Bhinder

Regrets

Mamak Fazel

Atty Mashatan

Rick Lew

Anabela Costa

Mona Moineddin

Next Meeting

Monday - June 2nd, 2025

1. Welcome and

Minutes Approval

Pegita/Devika

Devika welcomed everybody and asked for voting. Approved.

3. Treasurer Report

Anita

Not many new items. Pegita advised she is still receiving receipts. Also Anabela has not provided #s for Dance-A-Thon. We have currently 21000$ and that is not with music, instruments, carnival, etc.
Pegita suggested we earmark 3000$ for carnival
With carnival, we are looking at 17000$
Heather asked for skate night, dance a thon, carnival, grad fund, front garden, angel fund, Nawruz, lion dancers, movie night, arts night, EQAO.
Ms. Wilson said we will not be doing arts night per se. this year it is a student led initiative. Not what BHES is used to for Arts Night

3. Admin Report

-School update

Heather/Georgia

Lori sent a proposal to council to request addt’l funding for instrument repair. They reintroduced band and it’s a hit with kids. When instruments brought out a lot needed repair. Currently $4000 has been spent on repairs. 3 instruments that need repair and she is requesting addt’l funding for the rest of this year. Also to ask for the funding be a yearly thing. She has a lot of ideas for music (musical – approx. $500 for costumes, royalty $850 USD = 1700$ CND). We can ask for a 5$ entrance to help with cost but would like a buffer. We will come back to voting once more members arrive.
Heather spoke about a family in our community that lost their home by fire. She wanted to speak about if this has ever happened, is this something council would be interested in helping. Is there anybody that would like to reach out to our community to help them?
Pegita said she has never encountered this but mentioned Angel Fund.
Anita said she has a friend whose child school encountered this. She said they got family members sizes for gently used items.
Heather said at this point the kids are mom’s priority. She will communicate this to the school community.
Ms. Wilson said she liked this idea as it gives the community a sense of helping out.
Ms. Sawchuk mentioned another family that lost the upper level of their house and she worried that the student may question why that family gets help. Heather will talk to Ms. Sawchuk after regarding the 2^nd family.
Scarlett has taken the lead on reaching out to the community and our liaison for the family fire initiative.
Heather spoke about our Playscape – both short and long term.
Short-term – broken slide and very old Playscape.
The full cost of the Playscape is to be school funded.
The ministry does not give $$$ for a Playscape. There may or may not be grants available.
She did reach out for replacement cost - $65k to $90k
We would have to connect with vendors, and have at least 75% of the funds prior.
Board Is not willing to go forward without knowing that we are 100% serious about replacement.
Current Playscape was installed Aug 8, 2008.
The latest inspection was 2024. There was not a significant change in structure, just missing screws, etc.
Currently we have a broken slide. Reached out to repair vendor. Entire slide can be removed, plastic added and slide is no more. Slide can be removed and a variety of climbers can be added.
$900 we have nothing. Discussion about the pros and cons of just removing the slide (replacing the structure potentially anyway) vs. adding a new structure when in 2 years or so we replace the whole structure.
Ms. Leder suggested we try to raise funds as a community.
Daphne said the Playscape has been closed for weeks and today it was open and the kids did not care that the slide was not available.
Anita suggested we get feedback from the community and council can gently pressure for donation, funding’s.
Heather spoke about the impact of fundraising and tax receipts.
Is it too late to get people excited or should we wait until the fall.
If we collect cash from the community do we then get their input?
If we send about it in email, parents may be more inclined to give back as its end of school year and we are not asking for anything.
Ms. Wilson suggested a QR code at carnival for parent to donate.
Scarlet suggested that we let people know the Playscape is school but most of the community thinks it is a city property.
Anita asked if it has to go through school cash because the community would t have access to this.
Heather said regardless if school cash or money deposit were charged a 3% fee.
Heather will look into this.
Shelley suggested that we tell the community that “to start the campaign, council will kick start it with a 5000$(?) Donation.”
Ms. Leder asked if we can speak to our school vendors i.e: Dominos. Georgia said they can donate ut we cannot market them. There are rules around this.
Shelley asked how much we can carry over to next year. She said people will have to feel a sense of loss for the slide to be gone then see the campaign.
Devika said out of the 18000$ that we are carrying over, we have a lot of things earmarked for next year.
Pegita said we were considering using $5000 to kick start the Playscape campaign. Ms. Wilson asked if anyone on council that is has marketing background that would like to take the lead on this.
Heather said we definitely need help with raising money.
Anita said the earmarked for next year is 23000$ - in addition to library books, tech, etc.
Heather said we will need to show the community what we raised and how we’ve spent.
Devika said generally we carryover approx. 20000$.
Shelley mentioned that in the case that other school cannot raise funds, our carryover would be shared unless it is earmarked.
Heather said she would need to see a full cycle as she has not yet been here for a year.
Heather recapped that we will reach out and asked who would like to be on the subcommittee for Playscape – Karen / Devika / Eileen / Scarlett / Shelley / Maggie / Bonnie / Parin

4. School Council Update

Devika/Pegita

Pegita said MC Night was a big hit. The feedback was great. Thank you to the teachers who were on board this year.
Devika said we had approx. 300 people attend.
Pegita said the school volunteers were great – on time, attentive. They will be helping out at carnival.
Pegita reiterated that Amazon cannot be used for purchases as they are not an approved vendor.
Pegita mentioned that dance-a-thon was a huge hit.
Scarlett said it was a great outlet for the kids to have fun, dance, scream. They got freezies and had a lot of fun.
Devika said next thing on the schedule is the Carnival – June 12^th.
We are now starting preparations - BBQ, Snacks, Games, Ice-cream has already been booked.
Pegita mentioned that we have asked community (firefighters, library, etc.) come out.
Pegita said this year we are selling the Autism totes through School cash.
Shelley said her school does cash – they have purchased 2 deposit bags but it makes it harder because 2 adults have to be tied to the cash.
Ms. Wilson asked if we can use a tap machine. Shelley said school board does not allow that. We can use QR code that takes parents to school cash.
Georgia said we did do cash for book fair but after speaking with Lisa, there is a process for depositing money. A truck has to be brought in to pick up money and Lisa said there are a lot of steps and a lot of work for her. Plus the expense of having the money counted, transported, etc. and we still have to pay the 3% on top of all these fees. It’s not suggested that we deal in cash.
Devika said that once we get a subcommittee, we can figure out a way to raise money outside of school cash.
Devika mentioned the meeting with city council, we have asked for a 2^nd meeting. Castro suggested a date but it was too close and we were unable to attend.
Georgia spoke about Thursday night meeting with Jennifer but Honk Fuk can only drop off flyers. The public library also brought materials.
Pegita will be available and it will run from 6-7.
Anita asked if it is classroom presentation for FDK on Thursday.
Georgia said it is a very casual night – touring the classrooms, meet and greet.
Heather mentioned that our class is declining enrolment. Graduation class of 103, only 23 new FDK registrations. Because of this, we will have to say goodbye to some of our staff.
Heather mentioned that lots of young families are moving out of York region. We are generally down 50-60 kids. Current we have 660, about 630 next year. She recommended we tell our friends to register if needed.
Pegita asked Ms. Wilson about repairs.
Ms. Wilson said she has budgeted 2500$ per year. This year she spent 4000$.
Heather said the board does not cost share because it’s a privilege to have music, not a need.
Ms. Wilson said she can take donations of musical instruments.
Anita questioned what we can take as a donation? Is there a list?
Heather said it is a case by case, no list.
Pegita asked for voting on 4000$ for repairs, 500$ so we can secure the costumes for the musical.
Devika asked if there was cost sharing and heather said she already gave 4000$.
Ms. Wilson said she is not asking for the 1500$ arts night money. Technically she is asking for 3000$
Devika asked who does the repairs and rentals.
Ms. Wilson said Cosmo used to but it been taken over by Long and McQuaid. Maybe next year she will not rent as it is costly. She said she does believe she will have fewer repairs next year. Approved by council- 4500$ for instrument repair and musical costumes.

5. New Topics/

Misc.

All

There is one more meeting on June 2^nd. Good Night!!!