QESBA Schedule for the Week of December 20, 2010 Monday, December 20, 2010: Montreal
Tuesday, December 21, 2010: Montreal - Go Publique
Wednesday, December 22, 2010: Montreal
Thursday, December 23, 2010: Montreal - Closed
Friday, December 24, 2010: Montreal - Closed
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
The QESBA Board of Directors and Staff wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season.
QESBA HOLIDAY SCHEDULE AND HIATUS OF THE MONDAY MESSAGEThe QESBA offices will be closed from Thursday, December 23, 2010 and will re-open on Thursday, January 6, 2011. The Monday Message will be on Hiatus until Monday, January 10, 2011.
ADVISORY BOARD ON ENGLISH EDUCATION
QESBA was represented last week at a meeting of the English Advisory Board by President Debbie Horrocks, Executive Director David Birnbaum and Director of Communications and Special Projects Kim Hamilton to discuss school board governance, the future of school boards and the dossiers surrounding the topic. While the Minister has yet to confirm any timetable or process for school elections, the Advisory Board is eager to develop its own arguments for an eventual written advisory that it will submit to the Minister on this subject. It was a lively and wide-ranging two-hour exchange. ABEE Chair Kate Lemaistre thanked QESBA for participating.
GO PUBLIQUEQESBA is currently preparing the complementary materials to accompany the lynchpin of Phase II of its “go publique” campaign – a promotional video to be launched on January 24th, likely at the Rialto Theatre in Mile-End, Montreal. The Board Chairs have been invited to be part of the launch. Those materials are expected to include Website support, a mass-distribution pamphlet and some support advertising in regional and urban newspapers. The initiative is being overseen by the newly-named QESBA Communications Committee, chaired by Steve Bletas.
ENGLISH EDUCATION RESEARCH CONSORTIUMExecutive Director David Birnbaum and Senior Policy Advisor Lucie La Ferrière met last week with Noel Burke, Concordia Principal of Extended Learning, and Lorraine O’Donnell, Coordinator-Researcher of the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network, to begin explorations on the possibility of creating an English education consortium. The strategy would be to initiate and complete research that more directly responds to the identified needs of school boards and other stakeholders. A draft proposal is being prepared, and consultations with network partners, including the MELS, will be undertaken before any further steps are taken.
COMITÉ MELS-RÉSEAU SUR LES RESSOURCES FINANCIÈRES ET MATÉRIELLESThis senior MELS-network committee on school board financing might have found the optimum solution to a difficult problem that school boards had no part in creating: the integration of school board accounts into the general government ledgers, based on new GAPP rules. These changes would require financial reports at the end of the government’s fiscal year on March 31st as well as the currently-required accounts at the end of our fiscal year on June 30th. School boards will retain their single June 30th year-closing, with quarterly reports serving as the basis for a March 31st report at the end of the 3rd quarter. There are indications that Quebec’s Comptroller-General will accept this solution. There are, of course, many details still to be analyzed and addressed by the committee, where QESBA and ADGESBQ are both represented. |