DIXON PAC MEETING MINUTES 

Monday April 14, 2025

Present: Jenna Newman, Charissa Anderson, Teg Bains, Colleen Reid, Nadine Eade, Rainbow, Taylor, Salina, Chris, Percie Ly, Matthew Ellis, Lauren, Genevieve Valleau

Administration: Colleen Orzen, Mike Murrary

Regrets:

Welcome

Call to Order:

• 6:25 pm called to order 
• Review and approval of minutes from last meeting
  • Nadine moves, Taylor seconds
• Approval of agenda
  • Nadine moves and Jenna seconds

Treasurer’s Report & Budget

• Jenna provides an update to the budgets
• Gaming account balance remains unchanged at $9296
• General account bank balance is just over $57,000
• We’ve spent about $7700 of our budgeted planned expenses so far
• The original budget was $23,600 however there will be a few items that we will be removing from this
  • Arts Start grant will not be moving forward
  • The Winter Wonderland event did not take place
  • An extra $1500 was budgeted for beach day buses
  • We will be spending closer to $19,000 in budgeted planned expenses
• Not much in terms of fundraising income
  • Recent spring cleaning vacuum fundraiser only raised $22.50
  • Hot lunch fall session brought in around $3000 in profit
    • Received a few requests from teachers regarding field trip and classroom funds that aren’t reflected in the above numbers; about $900 in field trip funds that are known so far
    • Will be reaching out to Hugh Boyd and McMath regarding scholarships; this will come from our general bank account and is roughly around $300
    • CRA has acknowledged and received our charity return
    • Gaming grant application has just opened, and the deadline is from April 1^st to June 30^th; Jenna to be submitting this month
    • Will need to apply for the BCEid as it will allow the ministry to identify ourselves as an entity
    • Grade 7 grad is a remaining item from the gaming budget to be spent; this will be roughly around $1000 and majority of the spending is for the yearbook
    • Other grade 7 grad items are fundraised by a parent group, and it does not go through the PAC account
    • Colleen asks about increases to the renewal of the movie licence
      • Jenna mentions that we’ve been paying $77.75 the last 2-3 years, and this is less than the rate they have posted
    • Colleen asks if there are places where additional funding is needed, especially for Admin
    • Mike says they’ve reached out to staff regarding their needs and have received some feedback; if we want to purchase laptops, the company that we leased from provided reduced costs for schools says it will be another year from now

Administrator’s Report

• Colleen O mentions that parents of grade 4 to 7 students have received a notice and those in grade 3 have received an email regarding the track and field meet, there are some changes to track this year
  • There will be one round of track attack stations instead of three to decrease time spent on these activities
  • Every child will get to try every event, and they get to decide if they get to be competitive or just to try and they will rotate around as a grade group
  • Each group will have two teachers and the group will be split in half
  • Rather than having only the top four children participate, everyone will get to join in
  • There will be additional activities
  • Tuesdays and Thursdays there will be an additional after school extracurricular track with Kjax
  • We will have some Olympians joining throughout the day
  • There will be teachers hosting the stations that are knowledgeable about the activity to ensure safety
• Chris asks who made the decision for this change?
• Colleen O mentions that she asked other students who had already been at the track meets previously and staff from multiple schools, however no parent input was included
  • • • Students did not like the starting gun and will be using a whistle instead
      • School district policy 106 G is all about inclusivity which means to maximize participation and allow everyone who wants to play to have fun
      • Four schools have decided to use this format
      • No child should have to gender identify in order to participate which means that children of both genders will be competing at the same time with each other
• Colleen asks if this is what the district will be moving forward with and having more schools participate in
• Colleen O says no final decisions have been made, but this will help to have more children participating
• Colleen O says May 6^th is the track and field date
• Mike brings up that the district has informed them that going forward, regarding the movie nights, the PAC is going to be required to rent the school gym.  This is so the PAC will be covered by insurance to be in the school after hours and to provide funding for custodial work as this adds on an additional part of their evening workload
• Jenna asks if the PAC will receive a below market special rental rate
• Mike mentions he will find out
• Teg says that this is insulting to the PAC to host an event, and the district has already stood us up twice now, the PAC has been doing a lot of support the funding where the district does not. Teg mentions that there’s areas where the district could save money such as reducing superintendent pay and buy the insurance themselves.  He also mentions that the school district does not put any effort for example they didn’t conduct depreciation reports to get the ventilation done until parents went to the media during the global pandemic, and the PAC was more than willing to put money in to have better air for students/teacher and the district insulted us by saying it’s an electrical problem.
• Mike mentions that as a parent and having both hats on, he knows that public education has been underfunded since he’s started, for 35 years now and he understands the frustration behind this
• Charissa asks how sports teams get to use the gyms for free
• Mike says that the City of Richmond and Richmond School Board have an arrangement as of 15-20 years now. The City of Richmond cuts the grass for all the schools and this may in return provide them the gym rental for free
• Mike mentions that the best move for parents is to go through their MLA to make education a priority in terms of funding
• Colleen O brings up the Welcome to kindergarten event that will be taking place May 7th at 1:30pm and we’re all welcome to attend.  Furthermore, this Thursday is photo day for class photos and panorama
• Mike discusses grade 7 grads and has reached out to grade 7 parents and received a handful of moms (8) that are interested
• Colleen says that admin will typically gather the committee and select a chair for that committee
• Mike asks who does the yearbook and what do they require from the admin
• Colleen says the committee member will help work with the yearbook website provider and staff is involved in the collection of the student and baby photos and makes sure there is representation of each of the grade seven students
• Mike asks if there is a provider that we’ve used in the past
• Jenna mentions that last year we used edge imaging and she has their contact info
• Nadine mentions that there was a events subcommittee and yearbook subcommittee within the larger grade 7 committee
• Colleen says the yearbook takes a significant time in printing
• Colleen O says that last year the parents submitted around May 20^th
• Matthew asks if the PAC does a teacher appreciation event
• Jenna says we do; it’s in our budget but we haven’t picked a date yet
• Nadine says there is a massive spread with some decorations and thank yous in the staff room and we take lots of pictures

Chair Report

• Colleen wants to thank everyone for happy positive drama-free vibes with the PAC, committees and volunteers
• AGM will be happening May 12^th which is our next meeting, we will be sending out a massive email as we need to give 14 days notice to everyone about the event/time; This is when we elect any executives and committees
• Will be doing a callout for volunteers/executives
• Current executive team will remain the same from this year to next year
• If anyone wants to join, please let us know
• There may be additional executive roles add, such as the Richmond DPAC lead and a social media role
• Matthew is interested in the DPAC position; he will represent Dixon on May 6^th at the District PAC AGM
  • Jenna makes motion that Matthew will represent Dixon at the Richmond PAC AGM, Colleen seconds, all in favour
  • Hot lunch team will remain the same
  • Will be calling for volunteers for the fundraising committee chair
  • Colleen asks if we will be having a craft fair next year as we will need a committee for that
  • Mike says that if PAC wants to have a craft fair, he supports the idea, however there will be a rental required
  • Colleen asks if the space will be available for use and not under renovation
  • Mike says that it will be useable by the time the craft fair takes place
  • Jenna mentions that we pay around $150 in custodial staff time fee for the craft fair
  • Mike mentions that the district mentions that the rental fee will not generate any revenue for the district, the cost to PAC will be the custodial for weekend/evening events, the PAC must book their own event to be insured and covered by the SPP (student protection plan), this means that admin will not assume any liability and will not be required on site

Fundraising Update

• Charissa mentions next movie night is May 2^nd, and she will be updating the volunteer lists and posters, hoping to play Dogman
• She mentions that for the Wild Robot movie, they had a Wild Robot book to raffle off, so maybe we can raffle a Dogman book for this movie night
• For next movie night, Charissa would like assistance with the food aspect of the movie night
• Spirit wear closed today on the 14^th (today) and the spirit wear orders will be received in about two weeks and Colleen/Beatrice will distribute those
• Kindergarten t-shirts have been ordered for the new kindergarten students in September

Lunch Days Update

• Colleen mentions that they are unsure if it would have been gym or bin delivery this Thursday due to constructions and photos been taken in the space
• A callout will be sent for more volunteers

Questions & Discussions

• Matthew mentions that Richmond DPAC is hosting open houses for parents
• Jenna mentions that the Ministry of Education is hosting a webinar about substance use prevention plans – events end of April and first week of May
• Nadine asks if we can add some of these webinar links to the week at a glance and get it out more to the public
• Gormond parking lot has dividers to create a safer spot for people walking
• Colleen mentions that people have been parking in the circle drop off area and it’s frustrating to deal with
• Mike mentions that this is something that he will work on in the spring to create a better plan and will be sending out reminders to parents and will be translating the reminder in other languages.  He informs us that after the seismic construction, the drop off area will change and be more north, where the construction trailers currently are, and the current drop off area will be staff parking
• Teg mentions that on the southwest side, the area is getting tight to get through as the fence moves often, he mentions that they had two weeks to complete that during the spring break and he understands that they’re busy being behind.  He also brings up that there’s been swearing between the workers; Teg says it’s not acceptable the level of construction and customer relationship. Teg further mentions that parents have been struggling with moving strollers and bikes through, and the only other option is to walk through the goose poop infested fields. Teg mentions that construction crew has not been safe as no one has been wearing safety glasses, but students have been doing a good job in standing back
• Mike mentions that they have spoken to the site supervisor about music and language on multiple occasions and he continues to remind the crew; he mentions that sometimes trades are not available and this is how construction unfolds, and permitting has been another issue but we’ll remind them again regarding language and music. He mentions that Unitech is professional, and it’s the subtrades coming in.

Adjourned 8:05pm