Dear St Brigid Families,

We hope you are managing as well as possible during these challenging times.  We wanted to give you an update on a few items:

1. Pizza Lunch

With school closures now lasting into May, we have decided the best and safest thing for us to do is CANCEL ALL PIZZA/SUB DAYS until the end of the school year.  As of the end of this week, all orders from March 23rd onward will be removed and credits will be issued in the Munchalunch system.  To keep things as simple as possible we think the best plan is to roll all credits over for pizza purchases in the next school year, with the exception of grade 8 students (grade 8 families will get an email regarding reimbursement in the next week or so).  We hope this is an acceptable solution for most if not all families. If you do need the money reimbursed rather than carried to next year please email us directly to let us know.

2. Resources for parents/guardians/kids:

Ms. Blanchet sent out some links to educational and mental health resources in her last email to parents/guardians.  Also included was a link to the Ontario government’s Support for Families application website, where families can claim $200 per child 0-12 years old, or $250 for children and youth with special needs (0-21 years old), to help offset costs associated with distance learning. 

3.  Online Safety Webinar and Courses for Youth

On April 15th, the TCDSB’s Catholic Parent Involvement Committee (CPIC) hosted a Zoom webinar entitled “Guard your kids online and help them shine”, with speaker Josh Ochs of Smart Social.  During the COVID pandemic Josh will be hosting other free Zoom webinars on keeping kids safe on Tik Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, Fortnight, Youtube and Netflix, if you are interested in attending from home at 7:30 PM on April 20 or 21.  See here to register for a webinar, and see here if you have an older student who is interested in an online lesson on how to set up Instagram, Tiktok, etc. for a positive impact (temporarily free if parent opts to sign up for a 30 day trial membership with Smart Social).   

4. CSPC Meeting

The CSPC meeting scheduled for April 16th was cancelled.  A remote meeting will be scheduled for next month if possible, to discuss whether any parent council funds need to be redirected/modified with the cancellation of pizza and move to distance learning.

5. TCDSB Budget Consultation

All parents are invited to participate in the TCDSB’s 2020-2021 Budget Consultation.  Please see here for more information as well as links to the proposed 2020-2021 budget and survey.  The deadline for feedback is May 7, 2020.

Take care and we hope to see you soon.

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