Welcome to the WOM School Council!

What's New?

Updated January 14, 2011

Our December newsletter has been published.

Self esteem, Self confidence:
Helping our children find the power within them

and

Students and stress: organization skills and homework help

Thursday, January 26, 2012

and

Bullying

 Supportive ways to help our children

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Both seminars will be held 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

hosted at W.O. Mitchell Elementary School
80 Steeplechase Dr.

Keynote Speaker

Western Ottawa Community Resource Centre

Please register to attend the presentation at seminarseries@womschoolcouncil.com

Childcare is available. Please let us know if you will need childcare when registering for the presentation.

Toonie Tuesday

School council will be helping to raise money for the Education Foundation of Ottawa  on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. The charity supports the emergency needs of individual students brought about by financial hardship. Over the past year, the Education Foundation has disbursed over $140,000 to pay for winter coats, boots, hats and mitts, food vouchers, emergency medication such as Epi-pens and other medications where the family cannot afford it, running shoes, emergency transportation, and field trip transportation for thousands of low-income students.

WOM Fall Craft Fair Looking for New Ideas and Organizer

The WOM School Council is looking for ideas and suggestions from parents on the WOM School Council Fall Craft Fair. The craft fair will be heading into its 12th year and next year we want to change it up to make the experience a little different.  Please share your ideas by sending an email to chair@womschoolcouncil.com

We are also looking for a volunteer to run the event for the 2012/13 school year. If you are interested in taking on this very great community event and fundraiser please contact the school council chair at chair@womschoolcouncil.com

WOM Newsletters

Looking for info from a previous school newsletter?  School newsletters are available at the school's new website, under the Newsletters tab.

Parent Resource Centre

The Parent Resource Centre helps to provide parents and caregivers programs, workshops and parenting help.  Here's their early learning winter newsletter.

School Council Info and Updates from the Board

Here's an update from the Ottawa Carleton School Board's site, including info about

• Consultation on Special Education Classes, Programs and Services for 2012-2013-New
• NCASC Information Session on IPRCs-New
• Presentation by Dr. Neufeld on Preschoolers and Young Children-New
• Homework Help
• Premier’s Awards for Teaching Excellence
• CHEO Connect in partnership with OCDSB: Session Four
• People for Education Newsletter
• YMCA-YWCA Bonnenfant Y Outdoor Education and Leadership Centre
• Premier's Safe School Awards
• Free Evergreen Workshops
• Manotick Public School Aviva Community Challenge
• Free Arts Advisory Committee Presentation

Awards

Our congratulations to our principal Heather Graham on being the recipient of the United Way’s Growing Up Great 2011 Meeting Fundamental Needs Award, which recognizes her work in the Healthy Active Schools Program. We also congratulate teachers Sue Brown (Director) and Debbie Pratt (Producer) Elementary School Event (Performance) Award for their production of Beauty and the Beast.

2011 Craft Fair and Silent Auction Update

We had 30 some crafters who took part in the fair this year and as always it turned out to be a huge success.  A huge thank you to our main organizer Brenda Verch, as well as the rest of her team: Tara Lee Forsyth, Pam Peters, Linda Paul, Samira Ayad Yedri and Bev Stonehouse who put together such a great event. 

By the end of the day, the canteen was sold out, the baked goods were gobbled up, the books were bought up, and the silent auction was well bid on and the first ever cake raffle was very popular.  We have some talented cake makers in our community and some winners who enjoyed each and every bite of their cakes.  We also had many canned goods donated to the food bank.

The Craft Fair team did an amazing job organizing a fantastic event. We are so fortunate to have a great parent community who take the time to help out with these great events to raise funds to enhance programming for all students at WOM.  We also had had many parents sign up to volunteer as well as student volunteers and many generous parents who donated items to the silent auction, bake sale, cake raffle and book sale.  Without our wonderful volunteers we could never pull off an event of this scale.

And how did we do?  Based on money raised from admission, approximately 320 paying adults/children came to the craft fair. This does not include children under 10, so our numbers are up in the 400-600+ visitors.  Over $4000 was raised to enhance programming for all students at WOM!  This wonderful event has grown into something the community enjoys coming to. 

We have a few photos here.  Thanks again Craft Fair team. Another successful year!

Domino's New Pizza Dough

Domino's pizza has had some feedback regarding the whole grain pizza dough that was introduced this year to meet the Ontario Ministry of Education's guidelines. They have reformulated their dough recipe to continue meeting the guidelines and to taste closer to their regular dough. Starting the week of November 29^th, they will be using their new dough recipe.

New Food and Beverage Policy
Please note the new food and beverage policy applies to all foods sold in schools. With lunches up and running we failed to relay important information to WOM families regarding our pizza lunches on the order forms. In order to meet the policy, our pizza slices have changed and our pizza is now served on whole wheat crust.  We are sorry if this has caused any inconvenience.  For any inquiries, changes, or any other issues, please contact our lunch coordinator at
lunch@womschoolcouncil.com

Policy - Ontario Nutrition Standards for Schools
The Ontario government has introduced a new School Food and Beverage Policy that includes nutrition standards for food and beverages sold in schools that was implemented at the start of this school year. The policy applies to food and beverages sold in school.  The new policy will help schools provide healthy menu items for all students and embody the principals of healthy eating outlined in Canada’s food guide.  The new policy will ensure food and beverages sold in school contribute to students healthy growth and development. For more information on the new policy, please visit the board website at the following link
http://www.ocdsb.ca/par/food_n_beverage/Pages/default.aspx.

School Council reports and meetings

The school council final report for the 2010-2011 year is now available.

The meeting dates for the upcoming year are: Sept 20 - elections, then Oct 11, Nov 8, Jan 10, Feb 21, Apr 10, May 8. There will be no council meetings in December, March or June.  The craft fair will be held on November 19, 2011, and WOMFEST on June 16, 2012.

Your school council will be going paperless this year. This saves paper and reduces cost.  Starting in October, all our newsletters and information will now be sent home via your inbox. Paper copies will be available in the office for pick up if you still wish to receive information in this way. Please sign up and stay up to date by creating your own account and stay informed while helping us go green. 

Bridlewood Home Hardware and WOM have teamed up
Here's how it works: When you shop at Bridlewood Home Hardware, please let them know you are from WOM, when you do HH will give 3% of your total pretax purchase back to WOM School Council that will go towards enhancing student achievement.  It's win win!

Kiss and Ride

School Council would like to remind all parents to use the kiss and ride for pick up and drop off of students.  The Kiss and Ride is supervised both before school and after school to ensure safety of our students.  We ask that you please refrain from using the side streets and staff parking lot for drop off and pick up.  With your help in using the Kiss and Ride we can keep our school a safer place.