Cross country start time update

Hello all, as Mme Aradj posted here, Thursday's cross country was excellent - perfect weather and a huge turnout! Really, really lovely.

The start time has now been updated to 8am so you get an extra 15 minutes to sleep or eat breakfast!

In other fitness and sport-related activity, we are hoping to get the Fitness Fridays initiative up and running. Please contact the school council if you have a little time before school on Friday to volunteer or help with getting our children moving in the morning and starting the school day with a burst of activity. There was information about this on the forms that went home but we understand that there are mountains of forms to get through and it's easy to miss something!


School council email: lordlansdowneschoolcouncil@gmail.com

Quick News Round-Up

Cross Country - starts THURSDAY 17th September

Parents of Grade 1 children and up - cross country practice starts on Thursday (not tomorrow as in earlier post) at 7.45am for those who want to join in. The meet will be on in early  October so just a few weeks of training to fit in! Sessions are Tuesday and Thursday mornings before school and parent volunteers and helpers and cheerleaders are welcome!

Grade 1/2 split class

Those of you with children in grades 1 and 2 may have been aware that there were so many of them, a new class was planned for early in the school year once Ms. Mills had confirmed numbers of children arriving back in September. This has now been done - there is a new Grade 1/2 class starting this morning with 9 grade 1 students and 7 grade 2 students. Those of you affected will have received information about this. The straight grade 2 class - with Mme Mackness - remains as is. 

Paperwork, forms and work-to-rule

Parents should have received two packages of paperwork home in the past week. One of these is all white paper and is updated medical and contact information for the school. The other consisted of coloured sheets and was information from the school council including forms to facilitate the compilation and management of class lists and volunteering opportunities. As the teachers are on work-to-rule, they are not permitted to collect these. This is pretty inconvenient for everyone - teachers, office staff and parents - but there you go! If you have any of the packages and do drop-off or pick-up, you can drop them in the office. If you don't get to the school, you can send them in with your child(ren) and we are working to have a dropbox in the classrooms where the teachers can allow children to drop off the forms. The teachers are co-operating and communicating with us about this and everyone is doing the best they can!

Also, Mme Aradj has told me that she cannot start the school-based blog or Twitter feed until the work-to-rule is called off. It will be active...just not yet!

Bike Racks!

Pictured are two of the four new bike racks that we now have at Lord Lansdowne! Hurray! My Grade 2 and SK children were pretty happy about them!

If you have pictures that you would like featured on the blog, you can email me  . 

Welcome back and Welcome to Newbies!

Hello and welcome!
I am hoping some of you will have found this blog from the package of information and forms that we, the school council, distributed yesterday.

This year, Mme. Aradj is also running a blog and Twitter feed so we will be coordinating so that all sources of information are useful and will be careful that parents are not receiving too many emails or anything.

We welcome any and all parental involvement in the school council - just attending meetings is great and anything more is fantastic! We strongly believe that Lord Lansdowne parents can help make it an even better place for our children to be.

Do follow us on Twitter, if you are into that: @TorontoLLPS and also follow the official school feed @LL_TDSB . The school blog - http://lordlansdowne.wordpress.com also has links to individual class blogs.

Get in touch if you have suggestions or ideas or requests for what you would like to see here and stay tuned for the announcement of the first school council meeting!

Latest newsletter from French as a Second Language Advisory Committee (FSLAC)

Click on over to our French Resources page to see the latest newsletter from FSLAC.

PA Day tomorrow, Friday 5th of June

Just a reminder about tomorrow's PA Day. The weather forecast isn't looking great at the moment, unfortunately. Enjoy the weekend! Only 3 weeks left of the school year to go!

Details of Settlement on 484 Spadina/Waverly Hotel and Next Steps

 Dear LLPS community,

As you will read below, a compromise settlement has been reached this morning by the City of Toronto and the Wynne Group (developer) on the 484 Spadina/Waverly Hotel redevelopment. Please read below the statement from City Councillor Joe Cressy and TDSB Trustee Asuma Malik on this settlement.

As you will read, the compromised development is shorter (15 stories compared to 22) and will have setbacks on certain floors to further help mitigate the impact of shadowing on our schoolyard. Shade on our school yard remains a concern. There will be no shadows on our school building.

I think this is a pretty good settlement—perhaps the best we could have expected considering the circumstances—and a testament to the hard work of our community. I want to single out our champion, Amy Furness, but also give tremendous gratitude to countless of other parents who have spent dozens of volunteer hours in preparation for and at the Ontario Municipal Board hearing.  

It is important to note that this settlement was reached during confidential discussions over the past few months between the City of Toronto and the developer, and that the LLPS School Council was not invited to participate in these discussions.

I will spend the morning at the OMB to get further clarity on this settlement as well as next steps. I will pass along the information as I get it.

As you will remember, the TDSB bowed out of the OMB discussion in exchange for a sum of $1 million from the developer. We understand that the TDSB will still receive much of this funding, even though a compromise was reached and the building height reduced.

We need to ensure that this funding goes 100% to our school and community to help us redevelop our playground and site so that we can still save as much of our sunshine as possible. Please stay tuned for further details on this, but we already know that we will advocate alongside our Trustee, Asuma Malik, and City Councillor, Joe Cressy.

I welcome you sharing your reactions and questions to this news. Please feel free to Tweet them (to @TorontoLLPS) and share them on our Facebook group using our hastags: #saveoursunshine #484spadina #trinspa

Thanks,

Miriam

LLPS School Council Chair

Documents relating to today's settlements can be viewed here

PS. I have heard that there will be an announcement at 2pm today on the potential strike action (word-to-rule) planned for Monday. We will keep you posted with details and how it will impact next week. Stay tuned.

Nepal earthquake - relief effort

Ms. Mills asked us to pass on the following information about how Lord Lansdowne and the TDSB are reacting to help and acknowledge the terrible earthquake that happened in Nepal. I know many of you will be supporting the efforts to help in your own way and I am sure you will be pleased that the children of Lord Lansdowne will be aware and helping too. From Beth:

It has been difficult to hear the reports and see the images emerging out of Nepal following the devastating earthquake. Sadly, the death toll continues to rise each day, thousands have been injured and an estimated 8.1 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance: food, shelter, primary medical care and clean water. Families in our own community are affected by the devastation.

-        Flags will be lowered to half-staff at each of our schools on Monday, May 4th.  We will also observe a moment of silence throughout the Board that day.
-        We will be supporting the Canadian Red Cross in their relief efforts. Proceeds from our next three pizza lunches (May 5,12,19) will be donated to the Red Cross.
-        The organization already has teams on the ground in Nepal providing assistance to those in need. To contribute online, visit the TDSB website at www.tdsb.on.ca.  You can donate at school or our regional offices (5050 Yonge Street, 1 Civic Centre Court and 140 Borough Drive).
-        For all donations in excess of $20, made either online or by cheque, tax receipts will be issued by the Canadian Red Cross. The TDSB fundraising appeal will run until May 25th. The federal government has announced that they will match all eligible donations made by that date.