PRHS is well represented and supported by the School Advisory Council, with members meeting throughout the school year. The SAC welcomes all of our school-community to attend any of our monthly meetings and we invite you to submit agenda items to Ms. Jewers in advance of a meeting. Individuals may request to speak to their item if the agenda is not already full for that meeting.
Scheduled Meetings for 2024/2025 School Year
SEPTEMBER 23
OCTOBER 28
NOVEMBER 25
FEBRUARY 24
APRIL 28
MAY 26
Meetings are held at 3:00pm and are open to the public. Community members wishing to bring topics to the SAC must inform the principal in writing at least one week prior to the scheduled meeting.
SAC Monthly Meeting Minute Summary:
April 2025
The SAC for PRHS met on April 28th, but did not have quorum. Ms. Jewers updated us on the progress of our three School Success Plan goals: 1) literacy – focusing on reading fluency and comprehension in small groups, 2) mathematics – focusing on visualization tasks, 3) wellness – exit slips and focus groups have been providing us with meaningful data on what our students’ need to support their well-being at school. PRHS staff have collaborated to create new behaviour matrices for all areas of the school, modelled after our classroom expectations poster. The new behaviour matrices will be rolled out in September. The RCMP have provided two whole-school presentations on Human Trafficking and Sexting; two more on Cyber Safety and Impaired Driving are slated. The SAC suggested that we schedule some presentations on the dangers of vaping. Finally, outside community members brought up the desire for a sports fundraising committee to the SAC. PRHS will host a meeting one evening to gauge parent interest in committee participation (day/time TBD).
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
February 2025
The School Advisory Council met again on February 24th, 2025. For the school’s Wellness goal, focus groups have been conducted with a sample of students to get their input on what’s going well, what needs improvement, etc. A report will be compiled and then staff will review overall data trends to determine next steps. The focus of our Literacy goal this cycle is on reading comprehension which is being supported via small group instruction. PRHS’s Mathematics team remains focused on visualization and is planning to complete a short intensive cycle on using an open number line strategy for subtraction. The school will be hosting a series of RCMP presentations on human trafficking, sexting, cyber safety, and impaired driving/MADD; all very important topics. The SAC’s current account balance is at $396, which the members are planning to hold until a need arises. The PRHS clothing fundraiser raised $600 for student council. Mr. Gilbert is planning a 3 vs. 3 basketball game with proceeds going towards safe grad. Our garden tower (purchased with a Health Promoting School’s grant) has arrived with plans to be in use by end of March. We have yet to hear back on the success of our Apple Orchard grant proposal – fingers crossed!
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
November 2024
PRHS’s School Advisory Council met on November 25, 2024. Ms. Jewers reviewed progress on the School’s Success Plan goals. Wellness: Glenn Thompson (Student Equity Consultant for CCRCE) came to a prior staff meeting, Nov 12 to support the school in Equity concerns. As a school, PRHS will be conducting an Equity Blitz in the upcoming weeks. Literacy: focusing on pre-reading/vocabulary strategies across all content areas. Mathematics: continuing to work on MathUP Common Tasks and 15 minutes of visualization tasks per day in Grades 7-9. Student Council has started a PRHS clothing fundraiser that is open to the public. Ms. Jewers is continuing to work on moving the Apple Orchard plans forward. SchoolsPlus is planning to submit a vertical gardening proposal for the Healthy Schools Grant. Our next meeting will be held on February 24, 2025 at 3 pm and is open to the community.
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
October 2024
The SAC met on October 28th and was at full quorum! Ms. Jewers reviewed progress on the School’s Success Plan goals. Wellness: Glenn Thompson (Student Equity Consultant for CCRCE) will come to our next staff meeting, Nov 12, to support teachers enhancing gender and sexually diverse student comfort in classrooms. Literacy: focusing on pre-reading/vocabulary strategies across all content areas. Mathematics: Results from the MathUP Common Task completed by all gr 7-9 students show that they are okay using number lines but struggling to use other models when subtracting numbers. CCRCE requires 15 min of visualization tasks per day; teachers are working on incorporating this into Math 7-9 classrooms. CCRCEs Attendance Policy and Cell Phone Directive were discussed in relation to PRHS. The SAC will receive grant money from the province in November. The following proposals were approved unanimously for funding within the school to support student achievement: a classroom literacy corner (shelves, books, headphones, whiteboards, etc.), math supplies (calculators, magnetic algebra tiles, whiteboard, etc.), and student council/wellness activities funding. The Provincial Code of Conduct Policy is under review – parents/staff were emailed a link to provide feedback on an early draft. Finally, PRHS discussed some ideas to support teacher wellness. Our next meeting will be held on November 25th at 3 pm and is open to the community.
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
September 2024
The SAC held its first meeting of the new school year on September 23rd, 2024. We did not have quorum as we were missing members from key groups. The principal, Ms. Jewers, went over the basics of how SAC functions, in addition to information about the current school year plan. PRHS has three new teachers joining us this year: Andrea Meeks (Resource teacher), John Crant (junior high French and Healthy Living), and Jessica Lake (Social Emotional Learning teacher). We have four international students from Turkey, Germany, and Czech Republic that will be staying for varying lengths of time. Drama club, wellness club, GSA, student council, yearbook will continue this year. A new science club ran by Regan Maloney (Fundy Geo) will begin in October. Justin Gilbert and John Crant will run culture club, alternating with chess club. The attendance policy remains in effect. High school students who miss 20% of class time may lose credit for a course. A province-wide cell phone policy has been implemented at the start of the year. This has gone over well with the students; they have been good about keeping phones away. Our school has decided to allow phones at recess and lunch time. Phones are never to be used in the washroom. Students on an off class can only use phones in the lobby or cafeteria. If phones are seen/heard, students immediately surrender them to the office where they are kept for half a day (until lunch or until EOD). Lates were identified as an issue last year. To combat this, students will receive late slips that will be tracked by the office. Frequent lates will result in escalating consequences. The SAC was unable to approve any of the funding requests due to a lack of quorum. These items will be voted upon at our next full meeting.
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
Previous Years:
April 2024
The PRHS School Advisory Council met again on April 15th, 2024. Our school has been receiving more support from regional Math Coach (Kelly Power) and Literacy Mentor (Rachel Collins). This support has focused primarily on grade 8 students in order to best prepare them for the upcoming Provincial Assessments in reading, writing, and mathematics. To support student wellness, a new program has been started with junior high students: Guy’s work and Girl’s work. PRHS has tapped into support from SchoolsPlus and NS Health, in addition to our Social-Emotional Learning teacher and classroom Healthy Living teachers, in order to run this program. The SAC had previously approved funds towards the purchase of furniture for the cafeteria to support student wellness; during this meeting, we approved an additional $712.25 for this cause. Badminton and Softball teams are running now at the school and a Sports Banquet is being planned for June. A few students and staff will be attending the DramaFest at Dalhousie University. The school should receive staffing numbers for next year in May which will help inform class scheduling decisions prior to 2024-2025 course selection for high school students in June. The SAC also approved $500 in funding to go towards the purchase of school supplies for the 2024-2025 year. Providing students with school supplies helps to decrease equity barriers to education.
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
January 2024
The SAC met on Jan 31st to discuss updates to our School Success Planning and approve funding requests. PRHS has seen some improvements in Math 8 and Math 10 scores (CCRCE focus classes). We have started using Knowledgehook at our school, in addition to Building Thinking Classroom’s approaches to instruction and assessment. This cycle, we will be implementing visualization tasks from MathUp programming with junior high (gr 7-9) students. The Chignecto Family Math Intervention (Gr 7-8) teacher will be at PRHS during Cycle 3 to provide small group pull-out support. For literacy, we remain focused on improving student writing using the provincial rubric for support. For wellness, our PRHS is hosting guests that will be completing an Inclusion Scan. Our new Social-Emotional Learning Teacher is Karen Yorke-Gilbert. Volunteer packages now need to be re-done every three years; if yours is expired, please contact the school to complete a new package. The SAC voted unanimously to approve the purchase of two robotics kits for tech classes. The SAC has also approved a budget of $3,500 for the purchase of functional furniture for the cafeteria to make this a more welcoming space for students to use during off classes, breaks, and lunch.
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
November 2023
PRHS’s School Advisory Council met on November 28th to discuss ongoing plans to enhance student success and well-being. Math and Science teachers are focused on improving problem solving abilities in all students via Building Thinking Classroom’s Framework. In the new year, our school will increase us of MathUp and Knowledgehook resources to support algebraic fluency. English and Social Studies teachers continue to focus on writing by supporting student progress in ideas and organization. The school Wellness Centre update is in progress: furniture and paint has been ordered for the space, and we have plans to paint two walls with the African Nova Scotian flag and Mi’kmaq flag in addition to the existing pride flag. Student Council has been hard at work planning for the Holiday season. Turkey dinner, a school dance, and various activities will take place in the month of December. SAC approved funding requests for after school skating club fees and wellness activities to be run by Student Council. Finally, PRHS will be returning to a single lunch break for all students in Semester 2. Starting Feb 1st, all grade 7-12 students will be on lunch from 12:10-12:50 pm.
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
October 2023
On October 30th, the SAC met to discuss PRHS business. We reviewed provincial assessment data for our school and discussed plans to improve standardized test scores via a problem-solving group (mathematics), writing group (literacy), and other CCRCE-led initiatives such as MathUp Leadership PD that Ms. Jewers is attending. PRHS staff recently updated the Expected Classroom Behaviours matrix and will have ongoing discussions with students around what it means to be respectful, responsible, and safe at school. A new Wellness Centre is being planned as a quiet meeting space for groups during the school year; stay tuned for updates! Our SAC chair, Kitty, has secured a $1000 grant through Parrsboro Creative to help fund visual art journaling – a new lunch time activity available to all students on Thursdays. PRHS would like to thank community members who also donated art supplies towards this vision!
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.
September 2023
The first SAC meeting of the new school year took place on September 13th. New members include Kitty Brown and Christine Rushton. We have elected Kitty Brown as SAC chair, Christine Rushton as SAC Vice Chair, and Michelle Hoffmann to continue her term as SAC Secretary. We reviewed the function, purpose, and roles of the SAC. PRHS teachers and other community members are invited to submit proposals for funding in future months.
Download the detailed meeting minutes here.