Once again, MPS Council has had a very successful year. Our Council was comprised of 10 Parents, 1 Community Representative, 1 Teachers' Representative, the Principal and Vice-Principal of the School. Our Community Representative resigned part way through the year but we were unable to fill the position.

Although our Council did have some changes through evolution (parents' children moving onto Secondary School), we were successful in recruiting 2 new members and 1 returning member from a previous year. We continue to experience low attendance by guests at our meetings, however, our volunteer base seemed pretty stable. Our Council decided to use the $500 from the Ministry's Ontario Parent Involvement Policy towards: the annual cost of our website, photocopying costs for council information to parents, coffee/snacks for meetings to make a more welcoming atmosphere, etc.

It has been and continues to be an issue of having members that are available during the school hours at times to implement some programs. It is viewed that really there is no solution to this - it is dependent on the Members that are elected. We, as a Council, continued to utilize our volunteer base for several reasons - one to continue to provide the programs offered as well as to keep the volunteers tapped into "Council" so they may decide to come out and join in the future.

One of our main goals this year was to assist in the implementation of the new play structure project for MPS.

Our Website has been one of our main sources this year to keep parents involved and up-to-date on their Council. We utilize our website not only to keep parents abreast of our efforts and events, we also use it as an information resource for parents. Our webmaster has provided alternate websites for information and our members continue to provide summary write-ups of seminars and workshops that they attend. We also use it to display our minutes from meetings.

One of our first programs to get up and running was the Milk/Lunch Program. This has again has been a program that the students/parents seems to really enjoy.

We also continued our School Supplies Tuck Shop. Although this program has not been as successful as hoped, we believed it was worth continuing for at least one more year. As we come to the close of the school year - it has been decided to dissolve this program. As well, we have decided to dissolve the annual school supply order program. Both of these programs were for the convenience of parents/students, not fundraising, and we felt that the number of participants in these programs did not justify the number of hours put in by our Members.

Our Calendar Project which was initiated last year was completed this year. It was a total success in the design and production, although sales did not seem to go as well as anticipated.

The Jingle Bell Bazaar was definitely another success this year. Fun was had by all. It was felt that once again, it was a very popular event that seems to bring everyone together in the spirit of Christmas. The event is very time consuming, but the spirit that seems to fill the school and bring everyone (students, parents, volunteers, staff) together was awesome. Even the Jolly Ole Man himself j oined us again this year!

Efforts were put into our Chocolate Bars and Cookie Dough Campaign this year. This event was not as successful as in previous years.

The Greening Committee put their green thumbs to work once again this year to beautify our school grounds. The work is an on-going project, but again is viewed to be appreciated by the students.

Council held its first Garage Sale. This also was deemed to be a success. It was a fun day with many members of the community coming out to help support our School Council's efforts.

This year we implemented an after school Drama Program. The enthusiasm from the students as well as the Parent Volunteers has proven that this program is definitely a hit. Along with the students having fun and being able to explore another side of their talents they performed an awesome production at Christmas, produced radio productions, and are looking forward to an end of year outdoor play.

Council discussed the financial reporting issue again this year. The vote determined that Metcalfe Public School Council will not comply with the financial data request from the Ministry and therefore no financial data has been submitted with this report.

Ellen K. Everson
Chair
Metcalfe Public School Council
May 31, 2006