View from the Hill

Week of October 17, 2021 – Issue 8

In this issue:

1. Next Two Weeks at a Glance
2. Student Council – Congratulations to all our elected representatives!
3. Current Grades Shared with Students – October 18 to 21
4. Parent-Guardian-Teacher Interview: Tuesday, October 26 - 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
5. parentInterview Platform
6. Early Dismissal on October 26 & Late Start On October 27
7. Student Picture Packages and Student ID Cards Have Arrived!
8. EQAO – Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test – Grade 11s - Preliminary Information
9. Respecting School Property – The Courtyard & School Bathrooms
10. Messages from Guidance
11. Message from School Council – Chair Tracy Kowal
12. Trustee Laskin’s Weekly Updates
13. Worth Mentioning Again – Take Our Kids to Work Day – November 3

Next Two Weeks at a Glance

Please check the right sidebar on the landing page of this website for the must up-to-date calendar events.

Student Council – Congratulations to all our elected representatives!

Congratulations to all our elected Student Council representatives! Student Council plays an integral role in our school community to bring forward student concerns, promote school spirit and assist with running school events. We are very excited to have this new slate of students representing their classmates this school year: FHCI Student Council Elected Representatives 2021/2022.

Thank you to Mr. Ghassibe for supporting with the virtual election process and Ms. Pawlowski for her on-going staff advisory role. We look forward to working with all our elected representatives this school year.

Current Grades Shared with Students – October 18 to 21

All teachers will share an up-to-date electronic grade breakdown with all students in their Week 1 and 2 classes between October 18 to 21. This will be shared with students via their TDSB email. This will allow parents, guardians and students to prepare for our upcoming Parent-Guardian-Teacher Interviews.

Parent-Guardian-Teacher Interview: Tuesday, October 26 - 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Parent-Guardian-Teacher Interviews will take place on Tuesday, October 26. Two sessions will be held as follows:

• Afternoon Session: 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Evening Session: 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

All interviews will be 5-minutes and conducted remotely. Parents and guardians are welcome to join a virtual meeting or book a phone appointment. If you elect for a virtual meeting, Zoom will be the platform used. If you elect for a virtual meeting, please ensure that you have downloaded Zoom from either the Apple App or Google Play, are aware of how to use the platform and know how to connect your audio system.

The objective of this Parent-Guardian-Teacher Interview is to gain a better understanding of how students are progressing at this early stage in the year and to support students prior to the mid-November official report card distribution. Less emphasis should be placed on marks and instead the focus should be on student engagement and learning.

In the first weeks of this school year, teachers have been spending time building community and working to close the literacy and numeracy gaps that developed during the pandemic. The change to a weekly schedule has also posed challenges with regard to evaluation. There have been fewer opportunities for evaluations than in the past.

parentInterview Platform

As in previous years, we will be using the parentInterview platform to schedule our sessions. Parents and guardians will receive an email with instructions and passwords early this week. You will be required to enter your child’s TDSB student number to access and/or set up an account.

All interviews will be 5-minutes in length and will be available for booking starting Wednesday, October 20 at 9:00 a.m. and closing on Monday, October 25 at 2:00 p.m. All appointments will be booked on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Early Dismissal on October 26 & Late Start On October 27

To support with Parent-Guardian-Teacher Interview set up, there will be an early dismissal on Tuesday, October 26 with the day ending at 1:45 p.m. There will also be a late start on Wednesday, October 27 with classes beginning at 10:00 a.m.

Student Picture Packages and Student ID Cards Have Arrived!

Lifetouch packages and ID cards for students have arrived and will be distributed early this week. If you have ordered a package, please ask your child to share this with you.

EQAO – Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test – Grade 11s - Preliminary Information

All grade 11 and non-graduating grade 12 students will be required to write the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) this fall. All grade 12 graduating students will not be required to write the OSSLT this school year as this literacy requirement has been waived by the Ministry of Education for this group for this school year. As in any other school year prior to the pandemic, grade 10 students will write the test in the spring.

The test will be administered online and we are intending for the fall session to be written in early to mid-November; a specific date and more information will be provided in our next week’s newsletter. Stay tuned! To access practice tests and more information, link to: EQAO – OSSLT page.

Respecting School Property – The Courtyard & School Bathrooms

The courtyard is a beautiful space that is shared by all members of our student and staff community at our school. Students are welcome to eat their lunch in the courtyard, but students are also expected to dispose or recycle garbage in the bins provided. It is a lovely shared space and should be left ready for the next group to enjoy.

There has been very significant vandalism of our student bathrooms since school began. Unfortunately, the intentional destruction of our facilities – i.e. purposeful plugging of toilets, the ripping of soap dispensers of the walls and more – has led to an almost daily closure of at least one bathroom space. The bathrooms are communal spaces that are required for everyone’s daily use. We encourage all families to discuss this problem to ensure that all students understand that this is unacceptable behaviour and their support in keeping our bathrooms operational is much appreciated.

Messages from Guidance

TDSB Post-Secondary Information Session For Grade 12 Families - Webinar

If your child is in grade 12 or you want to learn more about post-secondary options and you missed the TDSB October 6^th session, you can still access this by linking to the recording: TDSB Post-Secondary Information Session for Families.

Upcoming University/College Virtual Visits for FHCI Students

Our Guidance Department is working hard to keep our potential graduates informed and aware of possible post-secondary options. Many virtual sessions have been booked for our students. Two upcoming sessions include:

• Tuesday, October 19th at 5:30pm – Waterloo University
• Wednesday, October 20th at 12:00pm – Carlton University

Please visit the FHCI Guidance Post-Secondary page for registration information, as well as a regularly updated schedule of other virtual opportunities.

Ontario University Fair – Virtual Event – Tuesday, October 26 @ 5:00 p.m.

Ontario's universities are excited to host the second Ontario Universities' Fair on:

• Tuesday, October 26 - beginning at 5:00 p.m. until 7 p.m.

All Ontario universities will participate in this free event and all students, parents and guardians are welcome. Pre-registration is not required. The event will be divided into four 30-minute sessions, where students can learn about universities of their choice and ask questions. This event is a great opportunity to get answers about programs, admission requirements, student life and much more. Link to Ontario Universities Fair 2021 for more details.

Message from School Council - Chair Tracy Kowal

Please mark your calendars and save the date of Monday, November 1st at 7:30 p.m. for our next School Council meeting. Any questions, reach out directly to Tracy Kowal at tracy.kowal@yahoo.ca.

Trustee Laskin’s Weekly Updates

Learn more about upcoming events and keep informed by linking to Trustee Laskins Weekly Newsletter.

Worth Mentioning Again…

Take Our Kids to Work Day - Wednesday November 3, 2021

As you know Take Our Kids to Work Day is an opportunity for grade 9 students to explore careers that may be of interest to them. This year’s grade 9 Take Our Kids to Work Day will be hosted within our grade 9 classes with live streamed opportunities for our students.

Download and print a copy:  View From the Hill - Issue 8 - Week of October 17 2021.