Archives
June 18, 2008
Last DPAC general meeting of the year is tomorrow night!
June 10, 2008
The last General DPAC Meeting of the year is June 19th - 7pm in the Board room at the School Board Office.
Tonight's meeting for the Parent Focus Group for the District Website has been cancelled due to lack of participants.
This is your last week to get your input into the district regarding the Student Appeals and Field Trip policies. The decision will be made at next Tuesday's (June 17th) Board of Education meeting. Please see May 11 below for links.
May 23, 2008
The elections were held at last night's AGM for the 2008-2009 DPAC executive.
Congratulations and best of luck to the following people who will take on their new roles July 1st:
President - Tracy Wright
1st Vice President - Christa Sharman
2nd Vice President - Lionel Patterson
Treasurer - Craig Wright
Members at Large - Ellen Deglan, Kristine Ketter, Andrea Lyon, and Darlene Marno.
Past President - Diana MacNeil
The new executive is still looking for a Secretary and 2 more Members at Large. Anyone interested should contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
May 12, 2008
An evening for Grandparents raising Grandchildren is coming up on June 2nd at the Langley Child Development Centre. The information poster is accessible here.
May 11, 2008
A reminder of the policy review meeting tomorrow night - March 12th in room 355 at the School Board Office.
- Policy 1205 - Parent/Student Appeals - access old and new for details
- Policy 5064 - Student Field Trips - access old and new for details
- Hardship Policy - new - for discussion
Our AGM is May 22 - we need parents to run for all executive positions! After the AGM portion, reps present at our general meeting will hear an overview of programs that are available to PAC's for parents entitled Kids Have Stress, Too!
May 01, 2008
A reminder that our general meeting was changed to last night - NO meeting tonight!
April 30, 2008
Please make sure you get your BCCPAC AGM proxies and voting instructions into the office by tomorrow (May 1st). Please fax to 604-532-1403. The fax will be checked tomorrow afternoon before two executive members head into the conference.
April 21, 2008
Please don't park at the Langley Education Centre on Thursday night - classes will be in session - additional parking for those attending Boy Smarts is available at the CLA next door to LSS. Doors will open at 6:15pm and it would be a good idea to come early as there will be 750 parents in attendance!
April 18, 2008
BoySmarts IS a sellout! If you didn't get your orders in, there may only be 5 available at the door the night of the event.
April 10, 2008
Don't forget to get your orders in for BoySmarts tickets! For Langley parents to receive free tickets, they should contact their PAC executive by Friday, April 11th. DPAC reps should then email orders to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it asap! Tickets are going fast!! All tickets ordered will be sent to the school rep who orders them for the school.
Our DPAC general meeting scheduled for April 24th is cancelled due to the presentation by Barry MacDonald.
Our DPAC general meeting scheduled for May 1st has been moved up to April 30th.
Take a look at the top of the website........ the A+ and A- relate to the new ability to increase or decrease the font on the page and we hope it helps some of our readers.
March 26, 2008
Due to Spring Break, our next meeting date is Monday, March 31st. Transitions and constitutions!
Our very exciting news is that on April 24th, Barry MacDonald will be presenting BoySmarts. DPAC is sponsoring this event as part of our Parent Education so Langley parents who order tickets from their PAC before April 11th, will receive complimentary tickets.
More details here
The Food Safe course on April 5th is now full. Thank you for your interest.
March 16, 2008
Information regarding the new Student Appeals process is now posted under our Links tab to the left. The documents were received at the recent Student Appeals Conference.
March 11, 2008
Deadline extended for the budget survey! Tuesday, March 18 at 7pm is the new deadline. If you tried in the past few days and got a "closed" message, please try again: Click Here to take survey . Thanks for your help.
February 28, 2008
Attention All Langley Graduates!!!
Richard Bulpitt Educational Award
Langley District Parent Advisory Council will award $500
to this year’s successful applicant.
Langley DPAC established the Richard Bulpitt Educational Award in 2002 in honour of retired Langley Superintendent Richard Bulpitt. Mr. Bulpitt was a dedicated educator, devoted to the students of Langley, and a strong supporter of Parent Involvement in education.
This year’s essay question:
“How does Parent Involvement contribute to student learning?”
Ideas: You may refer to past or present experience, personal experience or observation. Parent involvement may involve participation with PACs, DPACs, classrooms, field trips, athletics, home, etc. No research needed – just write from the heart!
Please ask your School Counseling Department for an application package and make sure to apply by the April 4th 2008 deadline.
Richard Bulpitt Educational Award Criteria
Richard Bulpitt Educational Award Application 2008
February 26, 2008
Langley School District Budget survey prepared by Langley DPAC - Click Here to take survey
If anyone needs an explanation on any items in the survey, please don't hesitate to contact either This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
February 25, 2008
Everyone should wear Pink on Wednesday, February 27th - click here to find out why!
February 22, 2008At 12 years of age, our children are subject to the Provincial Youth Criminal Justice Act and ironically, concurrently, they are protected by the Federal Privacy Act. Signed consent is required for parents to obtain any information other than academic progress. Medical and criminal information is denied to parents through Section 8 (2) of the Federal Privacy Act.
At 14 years of age, the Federal Age of Consent is in effect. This means that the youth can have sex with adults, run away from home, stop attending school, and cannot be forced out of or back into the family home against their will. These are the youth are too old for most children’s support services, and too young for others. They are hormonal adolescents, and often rebellious;
At 16 they can legally quit school, can legally leave home, and can obtain a license to drive a car with parental supervision;
At 18, our youth can vote, they are subject to the adult court system and the consequences of the criminal code, and can drive without restrictions if they have two years experience.
And, finally, between the ages of 21 – 25, the young person has a fully developed adult brain.Youth at risk for drug abuse (including youth with ADHD, LD, TS, FAS, MI, or normal youth who are unsupervised and not monitored) and youth who have become addicted to drugs should not be suspended from their schools to be further disconnected, and 'kicked out' of their family homes without support in place for them, but that is what the professionals are resorting to advising parents to do. Remember, these youth are too old for most support services, and too young for the others. Langley’s Alternates to Suspension program is helping these youth.
Youth addicted to drugs should not have the legal right to refuse necessary treatment for detox and rehabilitation. Their brains are not finished developing, and are skewed by drug abuse. Both of these things impair good decision making and good health and development. A new law similar to that enacted in July 2006 in Alberta called the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs Act (PChAD) should be created in BC for parents to access mandatory detoxification and rehabilitation for their drug addicted youth.
These laws would also help fulfil society’s obligation to protect its most vulnerable members. There is a Youth Wellness Centre presentation on for youth only on Thursday, February 28th regarding addictions. Info here for parents to pass on.
Please print out the petition and then mail it to:
Family and Community Advocate
c/o Box 446
Fort Langley, BC
V1M 2R7
You can also send letters in support to these community government leaders.
January 17, 2008
The report was released from the Special Education Inquiry today to a crowd of approximately 140 at the Fort Langley Community Hall. For a copy, please click here.
January 12, 2008
You are cordially invited to join our distinguished panel and Langley’s education partners for the official release of the Langley Special Education Inquiry Report.
4:00 p.m., Thursday, January 17, 2008
Fort Langley Community Hall 9167 Glover Road, Langley
Please R.S.V.P. to:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
604-533-1618Sponsored by the Langley Teachers’ Association, CUPE Local 1260, and the Langley District Parent Advisory Council with support from the BCTF.
For more information and background info, please go to:
http://www.bctf.ca/IssuesInEducationDecember 14, 2007
BCCPAC Registration deadline is December 15th in order to vote at the AGM in May. If you have not already done so, fax in your application to BCCPAC with the notation that DPAC will pay the membership fee - they will then invoice DPAC.
Deadline to Apply for Parent Congress is Dec. 21, 2007
The second annual Parent Congress, hosted by the Ministry of Education, will take place in Vancouver, January 28, 2008. The theme for this year's congress is “Working Together: Parents as Partners in Education.”
Parents and legal guardians in B.C. may apply online. Application forms are available at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/apc/application.htm and must be received before noon on Friday Dec. 21, 2007. This year, participants will be selected randomly by the Ministry of Education.
A question and answer page is located at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/apc/faq.htm
More information can be found at www.bced.gov.bc.ca/apc/. Questions may be directed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
December 13, 2007
Tonight is a social night for members. Drop by from 7 - 9pm. Bring an appy or goodie of some sort to share and please feel free to bring your spouse and other PAC members if you'd like.
Note that January's meeting date has been changed to the 23rd due to a conflict with the North Langley consultation date.
November 1, 2007
Urgent Announcement
Due to the board meeting continuation tonight, November 1st, our scheduled general meeting is cancelled pending further notification.October 29, 2007
As promised to all who filled in our recent surveys (either on-line or paper copy), all of the results have been sent via email to the Trustees and Senior Management for the District. The reports sent contained a total of 530 pages of data and written comments that were collated after the closing of noon on Thursday, the 25th (yes, if you got them to your school on the 25th, I received them on the 26th and all 4 were entered). Since that many pages is a lot of information to absorb, it is important that the Trustees and Senior Management received it all prior to the board vote on the 30th. Simply presenting it to them 15 minutes prior to that decision as a delegation would have done a great disservice to all who filled it out. The personal comments from parents will not be publicly available due to the small number of responses from some schools – these were not PAC opinion comments from our members – they were parents’ personal thoughts on this issue and were sent as such only where we said they would go.
For survey #1 on Middle schools in general, there were a total of 359 surveys started and 305 completed; of those, 69 were paper copies that were manually entered. The trustees and senior management received both the complete results with all comments and results that were disaggregated by school. Please click here for the final results summary.
For survey #2 on the options contained in the October 9th report to the board, there were a total of 62 surveys started and completed – all answers were required. For the results summary, please click here.
I would like to thank the parents who took the time to fill in the surveys; their input is most appreciated and now rests with the board.
Diana MacNeil
President
Langley DPACOctober 15, 2007
This is the link to the additional survey that DPAC is doing based on the options and alternatives presented at the October 9th board meeting including the new motion passed. You will need to read the following documents in order to understand those alternates:
Elementary Schools Report
Secondary Schools Report
Section C
October 01, 2007
There is a new survey for parents from Langley DPAC on the current options for Middle Schools in Aldergrove and South/Central. Please click this link to complete the survey. It will be available until noon on October 25th. After the new options are presented to the board on the 9th of October, we will post a survey on those options with the same deadline for completion. It is our intention to present the results of both surveys to the trustees prior to the 30 October board meeting in order for this information to be read prior to decisions being made.
September 2007
We could learn a lot from crayons:
some are sharp, some are pretty,
some are dull, some have weird names,
and all are different colours....but
they all exist very nicely in the same box
~author unknownWe can say the same about parents. We all have talents we can bring to our schools to help in small ways to make great things happen for our children. Whether it’s reading with your child, helping with homework, or volunteering at your child’s school – you are making a difference in your child’s learning. All studies point to increased student achievement when parents are involved.
It has been said that you can’t legislate commitment, passion, or collaboration; and yet you need all three to reach a goal. We have a great district due to all of the hard work of the people involved, including Trustees, staff, and our parent volunteers.
Our parent voice has three levels. At the school level, your legislated voice is your Parent Advisory Council (PAC); at the District level, your legislated voice is the Langley District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC); and at the Provincial level your recognized voice is the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC). This has been confirmed many times by the Premier and our Minister of Education. In order to be that voice, however, we have to hear from you, the parents.
So if you want to effectively get your opinions heard all the way up to the Ministry level, follow some of these steps:
Together, we can be the best box of crayons our kids will ever have! September 2007December 14, 2007
- Parents - it is your job to give your thoughts and opinions to your PAC executive. You can do this by attending PAC meetings or contacting one of your PAC executive members. By asking to put your issues on the monthly agenda for discussion and feedback, you can be more effective. (Remember though that the PAC is not the place to discuss individual parents, students, or staff members.)
- School Parent Advisory Councils (PAC) - it is your job to accurately report your school’s parents’ needs and opinions to Langley DPAC as well as BCCPAC. Attending or sending a representative to DPAC general meetings can do this. Again, asking to put an item on the monthly agenda opens up the discussion to other schools in the district which leads to more effective collaboration. (DPAC is not the place for discussing individual parents, students, or staff members either.)
- Langley District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC) - it is our responsibility to accurately report parents’ opinions to the District as well as to BCCPAC. We have many opportunities to pass on parents’ views to the district through the various committees that we sit on. We set up parent surveys on local issues and we also have connections to other DPAC’s; we discuss the various issues and find out how similar our wide-ranging opinions are.
- BCCPAC reports to the Learning Roundtable and the Ministry of Education. BCCPAC is the voice of parents provincially and to be effective they too need to hear from as many schools and districts as possible so they can accurately report the opinions and issues of parents. We need to hear from you. Bring your questions and concerns to your PAC’s, through them to Langley DPAC, and through us to BCCPAC, the Learning Roundtable, and the Ministry of Education. Please contact us so we can all be more effective in our jobs. Check your school newsletter for your PAC contacts; DPAC can be reached through the links at www.langleydpac.ca.
