PAC Meeting tomorrow – Playing Field Update! Can you attend?

Dear parents,
Today there was a meeting regarding the drainage issue on the playing field with the PAC Chair, the VSB Trustee liaison, Mr. Cannon and other members of the VSB.
There is a chance we can move things forward with some drainage repair, but we need to vote on a resolution at a general meeting – which is tomorrow!
This important resolution vote will be the first agenda item at the start of tomorrow’s PAC meeting at 6:30pm in the library. All parents with children at Hudson are invited/welcome to attend and are eligible to vote.
For everyone who attends, the PAC Chair has a special seasonal surprise! (Limited to the first 35 parents as the PAC Chair is kind of cheap;)
We hope to see you there!!
Questions? Please email hudsonpac@gmail.com.

Hudson PAC: Weekly Reminders Dec 4-8, 2017

December PAC Meeting

The next PAC meeting is Wednesday, December 6 at 6:30pm in the library, all parents are invited and encouraged to attend. Really good cookies and babysitting are supplied.

Spirit Day

Friday, December 8 is Spirit Day. All students, teachers and staff are encouraged to wear red to show their Hudson spirit!

Activities

The December calendar is now live on our website.
Download your copy.
Wednesday, December 6: Final choir practices.
Friday, December 8: Final dance classes.

Choir Performances

Senior Choir Performance
The Hudson Senior Choir will be performing in the lobby of 1111 West Georgia on Friday, December 8 from 9:30am to 10:30am. If you are in the vicinity, please drop by to cheer them on!
Holiday Concert
All families are invited to the Deck the Holly and Ivy concert on Wednesday, December 13 at 6pm in the gym. More information.

Direct Donation Campaign Update

As mentioned in yesterday’s email we are writing the cheque from the money raised to the school on Tuesday morning and will accept donations up until afterschool on Monday. More information and the donation form can be found here.

Winter Fair

Tickets will be going home in backpacks during the first week of December. They are enfolded in the same ticket order form that you submitted. Please keep a look out for the tickets and keep them safe. Please also remember to bring your tickets on the day of the Winter Fair, Friday, December 15 from 3:00pm to 5:30pm.
Tickets will also be available for sale at the ticket desk at the Winter Fair.
If you have any questions regarding tickets please contact Stella at hudsonclassrep@outlook.com.
It is the Hudson PAC’s policy that no child be denied permission to participate in a PAC activity due to financial reasons. If the cost of this activity would otherwise make it impossible for your child to participate then please see Mr. Cannon to arrange complementary tickets to the Fair.
We can’t do it without you…
Volunteer
Please come and join our team of volunteers to help run the Winter Fair. If you would like to volunteer or need more information please contact Carly at carlykrug24@gmail.com. There is also a signup sheet on the office door.
Donate
We need donations for the Kids’ only market, cake walk and the raffle. Read on for more information.
The kids-only-market is where kids can shop in secret for their loved ones. We are accepting donations of new and like-new gift items for adults as well as children. All items are donated so de-clutter your cupboards for items to re-gift or hit the dollar store. Please no used clothing or used stuffies. We also need gift bags, gift wrap, tissue paper and ribbon. Please drop off your donation in the “kids-only-market” box in the office. If you need more information contact Carly at carlykrug@gmail.com.
The cakewalk: If you can donate a cake, either homemade or store bought, or need more information please contact Stella at hudsonclassrep@outlook.com. All cakes should be nut free and include a list of ingredients. Cakes should be brought to the gym kitchen on the day of the Fair.
The Raffle: Are you or your company able to donate a prize or experience? We are looking for prizes such as gift cards, hampers, merchandise, tickets to events etc… Please bring donations to the “raffle” collection box in the office. Donations should be labeled with your name or company name and the value of the prize. If you can donate a prize or need more information please contact Nina at njanepatel@gmail.com.

Community Christmas Market

On Saturday, December 9 come and celebrate Christmas within the heart of the Francophone community. Includes crafts, activities for children and a visit from Santa. More information.

Advocacy

Our advocacy updates are for information only, to encourage informed parent participation in issues affecting public education, and do not represent specific positions of the Hudson PAC executive.
Seismic Upgrade petition update
The petition now has some momentum among a number of other PACs and parent groups – as of this writing we are only 8 signatures shy of 1,000! Thanks to all who have supported it so far; if you haven’t yet signed or shared among your networks, please do.
Together we can send a strong message to the new Provincial Government that parents are expecting them to back up their expressed intention to accelerate the remaining seismic upgrades with funding and action.

School Newsletter

The November school newsletter was emailed to parents today.

Direct Donation Campaign Update

BIG NEWS – we have reached 80% of our fundraising goal raising $8,083 to date – that is 11 out of 13 laptops! Many, many thanks to the 98 families that have donated for your support, this is so great for the students!
We will be writing the cheque to the school of the total money raised on Tuesday and will now take any remaining donations up until afterschool on Monday. Cash or cheque can be dropped off, with the donation form, in the PAC mailbox in the office OR you can send an etransfer.
If making a donation by e-transfer, please:

When you add a recipient, make it “Hudson PAC” with the email HudsonPAC@gmail.com
Make sure to send transfers by email and not mobile phone
Set up the Security question as follows: What school does your child go to? Answer: Hudson
When you send the payment, please make sure to put “Direct Donation” your name, street address, city, province, postal code and phone number. E.g. “Direct Donation, John Smith, 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Vancouver BC V7Z 1Z7, 604-777-7777”
Providing this information will make it possible for the VSB to issue a tax receipt, and for Dana to contact you should any question arise. Questions? Please email pactreasurer.dana@gmail.com.

Be sure to read next week’s Weekly Reminders newsletter to see the final total of what was raised during the campaign.
Again, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Winter Fair – ticket sales extended!

Winter Fair advance ticket orders… it’s not too late!
If you missed last week’s deadline, don’t worry, ticket orders will still be filled as long as they are submitted by this Thursday, November 30.
Order forms are available outside the office or can be printed from here. Please drop off your completed order form, with the payment, to the PAC box in the office.
If you have any questions about tickets please contact Stella at hudsonclassrep@outlook.com.
Many thanks to all those who have already ordered tickets.

Weekly Reminders Nov 27-Dec 1, 2017

November 30 – Last day of PAC direct donation campaign.
December 1 – No school (Pro-D day).

Direct Donation Campaign Update

Last call for donations! Our campaign ends next Thursday, November 30. We have raised $5,967 of our $10,000 goal so far, which is equal to 8 out of 13 laptops. Thank you to the 78 families who have donated to date, and to Daniel who updated the do-nometer this week. Donation information can be found here.

Winter Fair

Tickets
Advanced ticket sales are underway. Please submit your completed ticket order form with the payment to the PAC box in the office by this Friday, November 24. There is a copy of the form here, or you can pick one up outside the office. You only need to submit one form per family. If you have any questions about tickets contact Stella at hudsonclassrep@outlook.com.
It is the Hudson PAC’s policy that no child be denied permission to participate in a PAC activity due to financial reasons. If the cost of this activity would otherwise make it impossible for your child to participate then please see Mr. Cannon to arrange complementary tickets to the Fair.
We can’t do it without you…
Volunteer
Please come and join our team of volunteers to help run the Winter Fair. We’ll need people to help set-up and decorate the gym, serve food, wrap gifts at the kids-only-market, sell raffle tickets, conduct the cake walk, and for the all important clean-up. You are welcome to come and help for as much or as little time as you have. Many hands make light work and it’s fun to get involved. If you would like to volunteer or need more information please contact Carly at carlykrug24@gmail.com.
Donate
We need donations for the Kid’s only market, cake walk and the raffle. Read on for more information.
The Kid’s Only Market is a special place where kids can shop “in secret” for parents, grandparents etc. All items are donated: so clean out your cupboards, re-gift, re- purpose and recycle by donating NEW or LIKE-NEW items for adults – men and women! Think soap/toiletry sets, mugs, frames, trinkets, costume jewelry, sports memorabilia, DVDs, CDs, books and more. The dollar store is also a good place to buy novelty items which kids love to give. The focus is on adult gifts however some kids may wish to buy for siblings so games/toys/books etc. are also accepted (all items should be in very good condition. No used stuffies or used clothing!). We also need gift bags, gift wrap, tissue, ribbon etc. Please drop all items off in the kid’s-only box in office. If you need more information contact Carly at carlykrug24@gmail.com.
The cakewalk is a game where players walk around a display of cakes. As they stop walking they each take a position on a number, if their number is called, they win a cake! All the remaining players are given a small consolation prize. As you can imagine this is a hugely popular event at the Fair. However to make it a success, we need donated cakes. We ask that all donated cakes be nut-free and include a list of ingredients. Cakes should be brought to the gym kitchen on the day of the Fair. If you can make or bring a store-bought cake please contact Stella at hudsonclassrep@outlook.com.
The raffle needs donations of prizes. Are you or your company able to donate a prize or experience? We are looking for prizes such as gift cards, hampers, merchandise, tickets to events, etc…. Please bring donations to the raffle collection box in the office. Donations should be labeled with your name or company name and the approximate value of the prize. If you can donate a prize or need more information, please contact Nina at njanepatel@gmail.com.

Advocacy

Our advocacy updates are for information only, to encourage informed parent participation in issues affecting public education, and do not represent specific positions of the Hudson PAC executive.
Playing Field update
Our PAC chair has been communicating with the Vancouver School Board regarding fixing the drainage problem on our playing field. You can find the letters written from both sides here.

Weekly Reminders Nov 20-24, 2017

Direct Donation Campaign Update

We are now in the final stretch on our one and only annual fundraiser. 100% of the money raised will go directly to supporting our kid’s education. So far we’ve raised $5,692, which equals almost 8 new laptops for the school out of our goal of 13! Thank you to Sierra who helped update the do-nometer this week.

Kids use the laptops to write blogs, create projects, learn prototyping (with the 3D printer), and all sorts of other educational purposes. The school currently has 25 working laptops. This means that only one class can be using technology at a time. With 18 divisions in the school, each class can only reasonably expect to have laptop access once a week. The laptops are in constant use, as they travel from class, to class, to class, to class, all while being carried up and down all those stairs Hudson is famous for.
Mr. Cannon’s idea for the new laptops is to create a bank of laptops on each floor, so our children have more access to twenty first century learning, and the laptops have less opportunity for calamity on the stairs.
The donation deadline is November 30, so if you haven’t got around to making a donation yet please send in your cheque or e-transfer ASAP. We will be issuing tax receipts, for donations over $10. Donation information can be found here.

Winter Fair

The Winter Fair will take place in the gym on Friday, December 15 for 3:00pm-5:30pm and will feature bouncy games, glitter tattoos, festive crafts, cake-walk, raffle, kids-only market, food and more!
Please support us by purchasing tickets in advance for this event. This helps our team of parent volunteers plan more efficiently. This way we can gauge attendance and budget for the right amount of food and entertainment. It will also mean shorter lineups – and more fun – on the day.
We will be sending out paper copies of the ticket order form in backpacks. Please lookout for the form and place it, with payment, in the PAC box in the office by Friday, November 24.

Activities

The deadline for new activity submissions for Term 2 has now passed, and we have mostly planned the Term 2 program. All new submissions received will be considered for Term 3.
Last week for:
Ocean Explorers – Nov 22
Guitar – Nov 23

Grounds Committee

We are looking for an adult volunteer to join our current student volunteer on the Grounds Committee. The role is to advocate for improvements to the school grounds (i.e. the playing field). If you are interested in helping out please email hudsonpac@gmail.com.

Advocacy

Our advocacy updates are for information only, to encourage informed parent participation in issues affecting public education, and do not represent specific positions of the Hudson PAC executive.
Please see our website for the latest updates on VSB, DPAC and BCCPAC news, including word of next week’s DPAC workshop on the new student reporting model which moves away from letter grades.
Seismic Upgrade Committee
You can find out about the Seismic Upgrade Committee’s current activity here.

Like Hudson PAC on Facebook

November Advocacy update

DPAC News

The latest DPAC newsletter, which includes a calendar of November events at the VSB and some recent education news, is available here.
The newly elected VSB board of trustees is chaired by Janet Fraser of the Green Party. The trustee liaison to DPAC is Lisa Dominato of the NPA. The trustee liaison to Hudson is Judy Zaichkowsky, who is the liaison to both Kitsilano and Killarney Secondary schools and all their feeder elementary schools (13 schools in all).
The current VSB French Immersion program review committee, on which two DPAC parent representatives are serving, will report and make recommendations on December 6 to VSB’s Committee III (Educational and Student Services Committee). This review is not focused on either restoring the 20% of French Immersion (FI) kindergarten spaces cut at the beginning of this school year or on building capacity for FI in the long term. Instead it is looking at ways to increase the equity of access to FI across the city – in some geographical areas an application to FI is much more likely to be accepted than in others – and considering either altering catchment boundaries or removing catchment boundaries altogether. A second, future part of the FI program review will focus on curriculum. Canadian Parents for French has already begun advocacy work directed at the new board of trustees pointing out the campaign promises of all candidates to work to restore the cut spaces for September 2018, which are not addressed in this current work.
The next DPAC general meeting on Thursday, November 23 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, will include a workshop open to all parents and guardians on the new reporting model for students currently being used from K to grade 9. The panel will consist of representatives from the VSB, the provincial Ministry of Education, both the elementary teachers’ and secondary teachers’ unions, and the admissions department of UBC. Registration is requested to help DPAC plan for space and childcare

Items of interest

The provincial all-party committee, which collected public input on priorities for the next provincial budget, has released its report. As in the past few years, the public put a significant priority on reform of the funding model for K-12 public education and providing adequate funding for a quality system. You can see the committee’s recommendations here.
The Vancouver School Board’s latest proposed capital plan includes a potential timetable for completion of the remaining 58 seismic upgrades in the city over the next nine years. Hudson is #11 on this list, with study of options for mitigation proposed to begin the second year of the plan. We can expect a provincial announcement on a funding decision about this plan on March 2018, once the next budget is in place.
BCCPAC’s latest “Our Voice” newsletter, including an interview with the new Minister of Education, information about gaming grants and the provincial Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity policy, is available here.
BCCPAC has also released the results of their recent province-wide survey of parents of special needs children who are not receiving a full day of education. Check it out here.

November Seismic Committee update

November 15, 2017 – Over the past few weeks the Seismic Upgrade Committee has worked to distribute our petition more widely. If you haven’t already signed, please do, and please consider sharing the link among your own networks. We have gathered contact information for the other 154 high risk schools in BC that have not yet been upgraded and invited the PACs (or principals where no current PAC contact information is available) to distribute the petition link among their communities. In order to reach schools which are not high-risk, a similar invitation will be included in the “PAC to PAC” section of DPAC’s December newsletter, and BCCPAC has been approached for help in reaching non high-risk schools throughout the province. We thank the PACs at Bayview and General Gordon Elementary for already spreading word throughout their communities.
The current thinking of the committee is to balance maximum participation with maximum impact by keeping the petition active until the end of this term – if we were to collect 100 signatures from each of the schools that have already been sent the link, we would have over 10,000 signatures! – and forwarding the completed petition to the province before the work on the next budget (February 2018) is substantially completed.
We have also connected through social media with two other parent advocacy groups focused on seismic upgrades – Richmond Schools Stand United, and Seismic Safety for BC Schools, based in the tri-cities (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody) – and hope to learn from their experiences as well as gain their help in distributing the petition.
The committee will meet shortly to consider other possible initiatives for education and advocacy. Your input is welcome! If you are interested in taking part please contact committee chair Laura MacDougall at laura_macdougall@hotmail.com.

Weekly Reminders Nov 13-17, 2017

November 13 – No school (Remembrance Day stat).
November 15 – PAC meeting at 6:30pm in the library.
November 17 – HOOSC Family Fun Night (see information below).

Direct Donation Campaign Update

Woot! Woot! As you can see from the picture, volunteer Alex is showing us that we’re up to 6.5 computers and $4,592 – HALFWAY to our goal! 67 families so far have generously donated, if you’re one of them – thank you!
If you haven’t donated yet, there is still time. Please send an e-transfer to HudsonPAC@gmail.com (with your name and mailing address in the message box) or drop your donation off in the PAC box in the school office.
ALL donations help our goal of upgrading the school tech resources, supporting the kids to do research and many other projects. More information can be found here.

Activities

Next week is the final week for Mad Science, and Chi Kids. If you liked these programs or have any feedback on them, please send it to Nicola, the activities coordinator, at hudsonactivities@gmail.com.
Rugby has now finished, we’re hoping to bring it back in the Spring when the field dries out again.

HOOSC Family Fun Night

Next Friday, November 17th, Hudson Out of School Care (HOOSC) will host a Family Fun Night in the gym with pizza and a movie. Full details can be found here. Please RSVP to Kelly at ed@hoosc.ca, so they can order enough pizza!

Grades 4 & 5 SnowPass Program

The Grade 4 & 5 SnowPass provides your 9 or 10-year old with 3 lift passes at EACH of the 156 ski areas participating across Canada, including 31 in British Columbia for only $29.95! More information can be found here.

PAC Meetings

Please note our December meeting date has changed from December 13 to December 6. All meetings take place in the library at 6:30pm unless otherwise noted. All parents are invited! Child-minding and refreshments are provided. Minutes from previous meetings can be found here.

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Weekly Reminders Nov 6-10, 2017

November 6 – Photo retakes.
November 9 – Remembrance Day assembly.
November 10 – No school (PRO-D day).

Direct Donation Campaign

We have now raised $3,405 in our direct donation campaign, where every dollar donated goes directly towards the kid’s education. With the help of Christopher a.k.a Mr. TNT, we updated the do-nometer. We are really close to having the funds for 5 new laptops! Thank you to all who have donated! If you haven’t donated yet, consider that with just a $50 donation from every family in the school we could blow our $10,000 goal out of the water. Donation information can be found here.

Activities

Rugby: Last after school session – Tuesday, November 7.
Lego Lunch: Last lunchtime session – Thursday, November 8.
The deadline for term 2 activity proposals to the Activity Coordinator is Friday, November 10.
The kids had a blast playing rugby with members of the Canadian National Rubgy Team this past Tuesday. Thanks to all who joined us!

Advocacy

Seismic Upgrade Committee
We have added a page to our website where you can find information on what the Seismic Upgrade Committee has been working on.

Like Hudson PAC on Facebook