Esew Productions

April 2009

Dundas Central School News 73 Melville Street Dundas, Ontario L9H 2A2 Phone (905) 627-3521

B. Morlog, Principal J. Manzin, Vice-Principal

Fax (905) 627-3522

Education is “Central” FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK

“Good things happening at Central!”

Staffing On Tuesday April 14th Mrs. Leslie Brown will return from her leave of absence to become the teacher of class 32. We welcome her back and she is looking forward to working with the grade three students, parents, our staff and the school community. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Miss Kelee Wright for her dedication, energy, efforts and contributions with this class and for our school. She has done a wonderful job and I know she has enjoyed working with her students, their parents and the teachers on our staff. We wish her all the best in what should be a very promising and rewarding teaching career. Filming Notification in Our Community On Monday March 30th residents in the area and our school were informed by correspondence that the filming of the movie “Everything She Ever Wanted” was occurring at 99 and 100 Melvin St. That day I met with Assistant Location Manager, Scott Alexander. The city has permitted ESEW Productions to park their trucks on the city property adjacent to our school and Albert St. from Wed.Apr.1st to Wed. Apr. 8th /09. Mr. Alexander has provided two crossing guards to assist students crossing the street safely prior to school, at the second nutrition break and dismissal at the end of the day. There will also be 24 hour security at the truck site. Report Cards As you know, report cards were sent home on Tues. March 31st. Please take the time to review your child’s progress with them. Set some goals for term three. If you require a personal or telephone interview with teachers, indicate that on page three or contact the teachers. Speaker Series On Wed. April 15th at 7 pm in our gym, we will be hosting the second presentation of our Speakers’ Series. That evening Mrs. Lesley Cunningham will speak on the topic “Bullying – It’s Everyone’s Responsibility”. Bullying is a community problem and it happens more frequently than we think. She will speak on what it looks like, short term and long term effects, myths about bullying and what parents and the school can do together to assist students. Mrs. Cunningham has a master’s degree in Social Work from Laurier University and has been practicing for over thirty years. She is presently responsible for violence prevention initiatives for the Board. She has been involved with design, implementation and evaluation of violence and bullying programs. She has presented numerous workshops on both of these topics in Canada and internationally. She has co-authored several book chapters and articles published in academic journals. Please plan to attend an informative presentation and spread the word about the evening. School Organization for Next Year We have held off distributing this newsletter in hopes that the Board would have provided our school organization for next year prior to this release. They are still “sorting out” Special Education and French allocations. We will provide next year’s organization plan later in the month. At that time we will outline the number of classes and any split classes we have been assigned in our school. No names of staff members and their assignments will be given at that time. In fact, we will not disclose who will teach your child next year until the end of August. I understand there has been a tradition of outlining who will be the teacher of your next year, to “ease anxiety” of children. However, there are far too many parameters to “promise this” and it creates a significant number of obstacles. Staffing of schools takes place at the end of May and June. There are two rounds of postings at the end of May and mid June where teachers are permitted to apply for positions throughout the Board. After these rounds of postings, interviews and placements, the Board’s Placement Committee then places teachers in schools to ensure that all permanent and probationary teachers are placed in a position. If your school has an opening following this process, we then are permitted to hire. Over the summer, a school can lose a teacher to retirement, leave of absence or physical move to another locale. I have hired as late as Labour Day Weekend to fill our staffing needs. Sometimes a loss or increase of students over the summer requires us to move students to balance class numbers. We do not wish to outline who your child’s teacher will be, only to alter this because of the options listed above. That would not “ease anxiety”. Lastly, over the summer some parents take the opportunity to “lobby” for a class or teacher change or express a need for their child to be with a friend. As you can well imagine, any changes bring questions about “Why was my child moved?” or “You permitted a change for that student….”. Thus, we will post class lists just prior to the Labour Day Weekend. Our staff spends a tremendous amount of time ad energy creating class lists. Staff teams get together to create these class lists. They consider the number of males and females, balancing academic performance and leadership skills, which students need to be together, who needs to be separated, who has been in a split class, which teacher fits the student’s profile and we even consider what instrument they play. Parental requests for classes or teachers must be of “substantive merit” to be considered and they will only be taken “under advisement”. No promises will be provided. We thank you for your patience and support as we work through this process.

Speaker Series

Dundas Central School Presents: 'Bullying - It's Everyone's Responsibility' By Lesley Cunningham Wednesday, April 15th, 7pm

Lesley Cunningham has a master’s degree in social work from Wilfrid Laurier University and has practiced in the field of social work for over 30 years. She is presently the social worker responsible for violence prevention initiatives within the HWDSB. Lesley has been involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of violence and bullying prevention programs and has co-authored several book chapters, and articles published in peer reviewed academic journals. She has given numerous workshops on these topics both in Canada and internationally. Her other interests include the prevention of childhood depression and anxiety and the promotion of evidence based interventions in the practice of social work. Dear Parents, It has come that time of year again where the Dundas Central staff will participate in the Hoops for Hope Charity Basketball Game against the director and superintendents. We as a staff are continuing to show our leadership to the community and the students by putting on a display of teamwork, organization and sportsmanship. The game is scheduled for April 17, 2009 at noon, here at Dundas Central. The ticket costs will be $2.00 each and all proceeds will go to children in poverty. It’s a Great cause, Great staff, Great day! Hope to see you all there!

Home & School News Home & School News Hope everyone had a great March Break, refreshed and energized! Our 5th annual Book Swap was an overwhelming success. It was great to see the students excited about reading! Thank you to everyone for participating. Based on the requests received from our staff this year, we have decided to purchase two computer projectors that will be used to implement Smart Board technology in our primary and Grade 6-8 science classes. Our last Travelogue is on Tuesday, April 21st. We would greatly appreciate a baked good donation that day from the following classes: Mrs. Ashcroft-Shupe, Mr. Jamie Bennett, Mr. Carpino. The Rotary Club will be providing their own refreshments next year. Thanks to all of our families for their very generous and delicious baked goods donated over the years, and to our volunteers Patricia McCaffery and family and Helen Bartley for their dedicated service this year. Our annual Staff Appreciation Lunch will be held on Wednesday April 22nd. This is a lovely way to say thank you to our dedicated staff. Families are asked to bring in a dish that day to be shared by the staff. A detailed flyer will be sent home as the time approaches. Our Family Dance will take place on the evening of Thursday April 30th. Music, fun and laughter - let's celebrate our school community! Our 2nd Annual Plant Sale is tentatively scheduled for Thursday May 7th - just in time for Mother's Day! As last year, we are pleased to offer high quality and long lasting plants from a professional local nursery in Vineland Station. We plan to sell flowering baskets, annuals, perennials and vegetable plants. We are hoping it will be even more successful than last year, so spread the word to your friends and neighbours. Order forms will be sent home this month. Reminders for each event will go home as their dates approach. If you can help out with any of these events, please contact me. Even a few hours are very much appreciated. Michelle Chin Dundas Central Home & School http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/centraldundas/

A reminder that if you get Easter plants and gardening fever before May 6th, you can still support the school this holiday season if you shop at the Holland Park Garden Gallery. We are a Grow for Green member (Dundas Central member # 905.627.3521) and 3% of your purchases at any location throughout the entire year are given back to the school. This is a year round perpetual program, and last summer alone, school families bought over $3600 worth of plants there - it all adds up!

2009 DCPS Book Swap

Many, many thanks to everyone for their generous donations of beautiful books, comics and magazines to help make this years Book Swap a 'Record'Record-Breaking', 'Unbelievable', 'Totally Awesome' Event!! At over 1700 books - it was a huge success !! Thank you also to all the student and parent volunteers for their time and efforts and congratulations to Mr. Varady's Grade 4 class for winning a $100 gift certificate to Bryan Prince Booksellers for guessing the closest number of total items donated. Science News On April 30th and May 11th, randomly chosen students from grades 6,7 and 8 will be attending Science Olympics and ECO Challenge. Six of our grade 6 students will be participating in the HWDSB Science Olympics at Ancaster Meadow. 12 of our grade 7 and 8 students will participate in the HWDSB Eco Challenge at Maple Lane Learning Centre on May 11th. These events will allow students to complete challenges in a noncompetitive environment related to general science principles and the sustainability of the environment. Congratulations to those students who have won the opportunity to participate. Gauss Math Each year, the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing, Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo sponsors the Gauss Math Contest for grade 7 and 8 students. Wednesday May 13th is the day that selected students will compete at Dundas Central. Student will have 1 hour to complete 25 questions, individually. Mrs. Costa-Popovich will supervise this event and organize practice sessions to assist students. This is an excellent enrichment opportunity for our students in order to challenge their math skills. Good Shepherd Easter Food Drive April 5th - April 8th Please donate a non perishable food item. There will be a box in each class room and one near the office. Let’s help struggling families this Easter and throughout the spring season.

The band will be participating in a Band Fest: a non-competitive competition on April 15th at Sir John A. MacDonald.

School Play This year's school play "Nice Guys Finish First" will be performed the first week in May. It is loosely based on the movie Ten Things I Hate About You. We will have two evening performances. Wednesday, May 6 and May 7th at 7:00pm. A great big Thank You to Mr. and Mrs. Birby for donating a chair and sofa for our play. Mrs. Shupe would also like to thank the boys who found and brought in another sofa. We still need some white or neutral coloured paint for our scenery. Any parents who would like to help with makeup for the play

CALLING ALL 4 YEAR OLDS If you have a child that will be 4 years old by Dec. 31, 2009 please come to the office and register them for September. We will be putting classes together soon and need to know how many Kindergarten classes we will need. Please register ASAP. If you have a neighbour that doesn’t receive a newsletter, please share this information with them as well.