School Council

School Advisory Council

2023-2024 SAC

SAC Executive

Co-Chairs - Aimee Aspery & Patricia Cunha

Vice Chair - Sarah Pratt

Secretary - Alex Snelgrove

Treasurer - Zaina Balbisi

Parent Representatives (voting Members):

Shakila Ahmady

Yasmin Gacal

Laura Kupcis

Sarah Milligan

Torshie Sai

Rihab Shaat

Shirin Shaikh

Alexandra Snelgrove

Fera Yaghoubi-Nejad-Soloo

Nutrition Program Sub-Committee Lead: TBD

Caring, Safe and Accepting Schools Sub-Committee Lead: TBD

Staff Members - Melina Ciaccia & Julie Galloway

SAC 2023-2024 Meeting Dates - Tuesdays at 6pm

September 13, 2023

October 11, 2023

October 24, 2023

November 21, 2023

January 16, 2024

February 27, 2024

April 16, 2024

May 28, 2024

Meeting Agendas and Minutes (2023-2024)

Agenda & Meeting Minutes - November 21, 2023

Agenda & Meeting Minutes - October 24, 2023

Agenda & Meeting Minutes - October 11, 2023

Meeting Agendas and Minutes (2022-2023)

Agenda & Notes - Jan 17, 2023

Westmount JS School Council By-laws, 2022-2023

Fundraising Update (2021-2022)

November 29, 2021

Hello Westmount Families!

Hard to believe we are already nearly halfway through the year. We’re so grateful to have our kids in school this year, learning and playing together.

As co-chairs of school council, we felt it was important to share with you our approach to fundraising this year. We recognize that traditional school fundraising is a burden for many families, and can contribute to inequality among students. This year, we have moved away from fundraisers that create competition between students or produce large amounts of plastic waste. Guided by Westmount’s Ecoschool mandate, we have worked to find alternative models for raising funds to support some important activities.

Funds raised from the Scholastic Book Fair go directly to the school library, in the form of new books for the collection. School libraries are a crucial element to support literacy and we are so happy to have the library reopened this year! Thanks to prior years’ fairs, we were able to purchase nearly $1000 worth of new books for our students to read. Thank you to Teacher Librarian Ms. Ciaccia for selecting so many wonderful new books.

The Westmount Nutrition Program is another very important aspect of our students’ learning, ensuring students have healthy foods to eat every school day. This program comes with significant cost. In addition to family contributions and various community grants, the School Council is working to raise money to support the program via various fundraising initiatives.

In addition, in hopes that there will be class trips this spring (to be confirmed based on public health and board guidelines), Council is also hoping to raise money to pay for transportation (buses) and entry fees.

In addition to the book fairs, this year’s fundraising activities include:

Value Village FUNDrive (December – January): Donate clean and saleable unwanted clothing and small household items! Drop off days will happen in December and January. This event promotes the circular economy, saves items from the landfill, frees up space in your home and doesn’t cost you anything! We hope to raise $2000 through this program. Click here for link to flyer.

Candy-grams (December and February): Students can purchase mini candy canes (Dec) or chocolates (February) for a small price to send to their friends at school with a note. This is a socializing activity to learn about and develop friendships and practice giving. In past years candygrams have been an effective fundraiser with a low cost to participate ($0.50/candygram)

Plantables plant sale (Feb to May): Purchase herb and vegetable seedlings from a local Ontario farm. This activity is low cost and helps students learn about where food comes from. Plus, there is a delicious reward! This is our first year trying this fundraiser, which we hope will be popular with the gardeners in our community, and will also inspire others to test out their green thumbs. Suitable for balcony as well as backyard gardens.

Please note: Fresh from the Farm vegetable and apple sales were not available this year. This activity was hugely popular last year and we hope to continue with this fundraiser next year.

Thank you for your ongoing support. We are happy to hear from you at SAC council meetings, or via the Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/westmountjs.

Your 2021-22 SAC Co-Chairs,

Carey Toane and Kerry Adams