Educational forum meetings are very important for both educators and parents
since they are focused on questions that are really important for educators,
students, and their parents. In this respect, the Ward 20 Forum Meeting at David
Lewis Public School attended February 15, 2007 is quite noteworthy as the forum
where the questions and problems disturbing the school life, parents, students
and educators were raised. It is very important that the forum meeting provided
ample opportunities for both parents and educators to make their suggestions
as for the implementation of possible improvements or changes in the current
agenda and policy.
Basically, the meeting was focused on the most important issues the school faced
at the moment. At the same time, the major goal of the meeting was to inform
the audience with the present achievements, plans and issues discussed at the
moment. It should be pointed out that in general this goal was met and what
is more important, this was not just a kind of information simply directly delivered
to the audience but the participants of the forum meeting had an opportunity
to make their own remarks concerning the questions discussed and, consequently,
if there were arguable points they could be openly discussed.
The organization and structure of the forum meeting were quite logical and well
organized. At the beginning, the chairperson introduced the three superintendents
present at the meeting and than the agenda of the meeting was discussed. As
there were no objections or remarks the first issue, the 2006-2007 budget was
discussed. It should be pointed that parents had an opportunity to protect some
special programs and services and they were amply encouraged to participate
in the development of the budget as their opinion would be taken into consideration.
Moreover, parents were also informed about the details of the school funding.
After the discussion of the budget, the current situation in the school, its
plans and achievements were discussed. Notably, among the recent achievements
of the school may be named the fact that it was ranked #1 elementary school
in Canada. Also the school turned to be extremely concerned on the problem of
education and development of both students and educators as the distribution
of special magazines was planning as well as organization of conferences for
educators. At the same time, there were plans concerning the further development
of Young Leaders’ Forum aiming at the improvement of leadership skills
and abilities of students. By the way, students education and cultural development
are of a paramount importance for the school since many traditions are highly
honored and, it is noteworthy, that the school is particularly concerned about
Asian heritage and traditions, such as the celebration of Chinese New Year,
that is natural for this school where Asian community is widely represented.
Moreover, parents are also not excluded from the educational process since the
functioning of the Provincial Parental Committees, as well as the functioning
of board committees, was also discussed during the forum meeting with the participation
of parents.
After that the current problematic issues were discussed and the problem of
students nutrition was discussed as there was the problem of the lack of lunch
tables and of the supervision of the lunch room. In the process of the discussion,
some recommendations were developed as for the improvement of the situation,
including the change of the lunch room location and the lunch supervision of
older students over younger ones. At this point it is important to underline
that the opinion of parents was of a paramount importance at this point, as
well as at the point of discussion of the quality of cafeteria food which was
decided to change for better, making food more healthy and refusing from dangerous
food items containing trans fat. Finally, there were discussed technical issues
concerning the future plans.
On analyzing the forum meeting discussed above, it is necessary to point out
that basically the atmosphere was good and the general effect was quite positive.
It should be pointed out that the forum meeting was carefully planned and well-organized
but, what is even more important, it was characterized by wide representation
of specialist educators and parents, though it would be possible to recommend
to take into consideration the opinion and needs of students that could be defined
with the help of special questionnaires, for instance, and than discussed during
the forum. Furthermore, despite significant achievement of the school it still
has serious problems, especially concerning nutrition, but these problems could
be solved positively judging from the plans and recommendations elaborated during
the forum meeting. Anyway, it is obvious that the academic and cultural development
of students remains the major concern of educators who readily cooperate and
involve parents in educational process at large and school life in particular.
Bibliography:
1. Minutes of the February 15, 2007 Ward 20 Forum Meeting at David Lewis Public
School.
