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Our AGM will be held on June 20th We will be taking nominations until June 19th for parents who are interested in becoming part of our executive for next school year. Through committee delegations we have had some excellent examples of schools being redefined for district staff and trustees and I believe we need to have all schools accounted for in this higher narrative. I believe that school and parent communities have an opportunity right now to educate the school board on what actually transpires in your schools on a daily basis and to have that captured in the larger educational vision I alluded to above. My second suggestion, and last suggestion for now, is to invite the Superintendent and/or your school's trustee liaison to visit your school, or to invite the latter to attend one of your PAC meetings. Our meeting agendas usually touch on most district goings on, so being at our meetings is one way to find out and ask questions about what is happening in the district and find out how your school might be affected or become involved.
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We have been fortunate to have the support of Superintendent Suzanne Hoffman insofar as she has attended almost all of our executive meetings this year and has been willing to take questions on almost any district-related topic from parents in attendance. The first suggestion I'd make to PACs is to make sure you elect a DPAC rep and to have that person attend some DPAC executive meetings throughout the year and report back to you. This means that the Board and the admin and staff at your schools has to hear what you have to say, and you should avail yourself of this right when the need arises. I'd like to start by reminding PACs that the School Act gives you the right to advocate on behalf of your school communities. I'd like to use this opportunity to start some conversations about what PACs can do to create more parent engagement with the school district and vice versa. We hope the Board recognizes and seizes this opportunity to challenge the status quo and to be bold in their thinking. This letter was a much-transformed version of the post I had originally hoped to do earlier last month, but DPAC believes that the District now has an opportunity to set its own path in terms of educational vision and to transform the way schools are encompassed within that vision. DPAC has written a letter to the Board outlining some of our recommendations on this matter. Minister of Education Rob Fleming announced changes to Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP) guidelines on April 12th which we believe has the potential for the District to refocus its LRFP. I'd also like to acknowledge DPAC's trustee liaison Carmen Cho who has been very supportive in this role and who has made a great effort to engage with parents at our meetings and with our executive. Thank you to parents who attended our session with VSB staff to hear about and discuss the VSB's 2019/20 operating budget, and to Shehzad Somji, William Hsu, and Pedro da Silva for making the presentation and answering questions. May 2019 Message from Vancouver DPAC Chair