MEMORANDUM-School-council-procedure-changesDownload
| MEMORANDUM To: All Principals, Vice Principals From: Michele Giroux, Executive Officer (Corporate Services) Date: 28 September 2020 Re: Update on School Councils _________________________________________________________________________ Here is a link to the newly revised school council election procedure PR.509.SCO School Council Elections, Constitution and By-laws. The procedure has been amended by adding a section with provisions for school councils for the 2020 school year. The amendments to the procedure are based on the following motion passed by the Board this week: Notwithstanding Policy P.014.SCO School Councils, that staff be directed to amend Procedure so that for the 2020-2021 school year OCV parents be allowed to be non-voting members, or where insufficient in-school parent candidates have put themselves forward for established school council positions continue to be allowed to be Voting or Executive member of the school council at their children’s home school. The key changes include that parents of students enrolled in a virtual school can do the following: – Seek election to the school council of the virtual school;Be non-voting members of their child’s home school council; – Seek election to the school council of the home school if there are insufficient numbers of parents of in person students who have put their names forward for election; – Be eligible for appointment to any position on the executive if they have been elected to the home school council; In addition, the procedure provides the following changes: – all elections to school council shall be held electronically, following the process outlined in the procedure, with necessary modifications to allow for and support electronic voting. – elections shall be held by October 14th (within 30 days of the first day of school which is deemed to be September 14th, 2020).where a school is unable to hold the election by October 14th, every effort shall be made to hold the election as soon thereafter as practically possible; – Meetings shall be held using Google Meet; The following information may help to clarify how to administer elections relating to OCV parents. – For most school councils, all parents in the school are considered non-voting members of the council. OCV parents will be considered like all other parents in this regard.If your school council constitution has specific non-voting parent member positions, then an OCV parent would be entitled to seek election to the non-voting position(s). – If an OCV parent wants to seek election to the home school council, he or she can file their nomination paper in accordance with the established process for all nominations. At the close of nominations and prior to the election, if there are more nominations than eligible positions, the OCV parents would be considered ineligible for election and their names would be removed from the ballot. – If, at the close of nominations, there are some OCV parents seeking election and some in person parents seeking election to a council, and the total number of candidates is the same as the total number of positions, all parents can be acclaimed and will be voting members of the council. – If an OCV parent has been elected/acclaimed as a member of the council, they are eligible to put their name forward for election to any executive position. Such an election can include both in person and OCV parents for consideration. We have compiled a resource guide for the use of Google Meets for school council meetings. We are working on resources to assist you with the running of election. This week, we will share a Google Form that is set up for managing electronic elections to council. We will send that with the memo outlining the rules for running a school council election (an important reminder – people seek election to the council, not to specific positions on the council, that happens after the election). I know that some schools have scheduled dates for meetings and elections, while others have been awaiting information. I hope this helps you to move forward. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. cc: Director’s Executive Council Administrative AssistantsPolicy Analyst Corporate Records |