Sunday 13 March 2016

March 11, 2016: Panther Press

UPCOMING DATES

March 21st Back to school
March 25th Good Friday
March 28th Easter Monday
March 29th Parent Council Meeting 9:00 am
April 11th Lice Check
April 13th Day of Pink
April 15th PD Day
May 2nd JK Orientation 3:00 pm
May 5th Junior Concert
June 16th Grade 6 Graduation
June 24th School Dance

POOL UPDATE

Many of you will have heard or read media reports about the potential closure of our school pool. To be clear, the pool and programs utilizing the pool continue to operate, at least until the end of this school year.

The TDSB and the City of Toronto have an agreement in place that sees the City fund 33 school pools, which are used by Parks, Forestry and Recreation outside of school hours.

Thanks to this agreement, during the school day students have access to use these facilities, which are otherwise not funded through the province. The agreement allows the city to provide notice by January 1 of each year that it will not require or provide funds to continue operations of a particular pool beyond September 1st of that year.

Late in February, the TDSB received official notice from the City that it would cease the use of three TDSB school pools, including Brown's. As the Agreement with the City covered both school and community use, the concern is now to find the funding within the TDSB budget to keep the pools operating for school use.

Trustee Shelley Laskin introduced a motion at a Budget Committee meeting earlier this week seeking clarification if appropriate notice was given and asking TDSB staff to bring back to the next Budget Committee on March 22, the costs for operating the 3 school pools (that the City has withdrawn funding for) for school use only.

With that information, it will be clear how much funding would need to be identified in the TDSB Budget to keep the 3 school pools open for student programming for the 2016-17 school year.

Brown PS school council co-chairs also spoke at that Budget meeting about the importance of the pool for student programs. We will provide updates on this situation as more information becomes available. In the meantime, please continue to have children prepared to use the pool as we have all year.

EARTH HOUR

Today at Brown we marked Earth Hour by turning off our lights and our electronic devices! Ask your children how it felt in the school? The sounds and sights are certainly different when we are unplugged.

MARCH BREAK

Wishing you and your families a wonderful March Break! It certainly feels like Spring is around the corner! How exciting!

It has been a fantastic few months, full of learning, fun and smiles! See you back at Brown on March 21st.

KINDERGARTEN REGISTRATION

If you or anyone you know in our catchment area is ready to register for Junior Kindergarten (born in 2012) for September, please have them call the school at 416-393-1560 to set up an appointment.