The next Hastings PAC General meeting will be held virtually Tuesday, May 18th from 7-8:30pm. Zoom invite and agenda details will be sent closer to the date. All parents and guardians of Hastings students are welcome to attend.
Meeting minutes from our April 21st meeting can be found HERE.
Hi! I’m Avery, grade 7 student at Hastings and co-founder of the Hastings Podcast.
I started the podcast with my friends Lillian and Nasja, also in grade 7. We wanted to both give some students at Hastings a chance to share some things about them personally and about things that go on the school. We also thought the parents would appreciate an inside look at things that are going on in Hastings right now, because of the Covid restrictions and also because of course they can’t follow us around all day. (Although I know my moms would probably love to)
So far, we have three podcasts out. The first is on slang; slang words that kids use that parents might not understand. The second was released in February and is about how the students we interviewed spent their winter breaks. (Spoiler alert: nobody went anywhere!) And the most recent one is about wether students prefer cats or dogs—a very controversial topic in elementary school!
Please check out our podcast on Teams or wherever you get your podcasts! (But actually just Teams). Click on the link below, sign into Teams, and it will take you to the episode.
Episode 1 – Slang Words
Episode 2 – Winter Break
Episode 3 – Cats & Dogs
The Hastings Library Diversity Book Drive is going strong! Over $700 has been raised so far and 130 book suggestions have come in. The first batches of books are already on the library shelves! Great job Hastings Elementary community and let’s keep going!
As always, we are mindful that not everyone has the means to donate financially. For those who do, remember – our goal is to raise $4000 by May 14th! So, if you keep putting it off, thinking you’ll get to it later, do it now!
Ways to donate:
1. Visit Iron Dog Books at 2671 E Hastings St and purchase one of the librarian pre-selected books OR contribute to the in-store Hastings Book Drive account (no donation is too small!).
2. Contribute using the School Cash Online donation form (select Hastings PAC as the fund destination and note that it is for the book drive in the message section).
And keep those book suggestions coming, by using this form!
And a final note about some related work our librarian has been doing. Books with offensive content or appropriated stories – books written about BIPOC experiences by white authors and cultural stories told by settlers/colonizers – are being removed from the shelves and being replaced that with all the new, wonderful, diverse books coming into the library. Thank you for that important work, librarian Erin!
Hear from our guest speaker! Vote on proposed funding that benefits our school and students! Hear from our Principal and Vice-Principal! Get an update on the Diversity Book Drive!
The Hastings School Parent Advisory Council is having a general meeting on Wednesday, April 21st from 7-8:30pm, on Zoom. All parents and guardians of Hastings School students are welcome! Zoom link below.
Nora Harmsworth, parent and PAC member at Trafalgar School, will be our guest at the meeting, and will speak about PAC’s role in community building and inclusivity.
Nora has been an active member of the Trafalgar PAC for seven years. She is a Canadian of Chinese descent from Windsor Ontario. She has worked as an Immigration and Refugee Lawyer and is currently a Graduate Student of Liberal Studies at SFU and Art History at UBC.
Please find the meeting agenda HERE
Please find the minutes from the Feb 23, 2021 meeting HERE
As we have two proposed motions to vote on, please find the budget HERE for review prior to the meeting.
We hope to see you there!
Hastings PAC is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Hastings PAC April General meeting
Time: Apr 21, 2021 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81508502219?pwd=b0dRSWsxeGtNSElUckxpQllMMDhqdz09
Meeting ID: 815 0850 2219
Passcode: 257768
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kwUkopfhK
April is THE month to learn more about autism from those in the Autistic community. Here are a couple of websites/social media accounts to get you started:
The Autisticats
https://theautisticats.weebly.com/
https://www.instagram.com/the.autisticats/
https://twitter.com/autisticats
Neuroclastic
https://neuroclastic.com/
https://www.instagram.com/neuroclastic/
Lydia X. Z. Brown has some very thorough answers to frequently asked questions about Autism here:
https://www.autistichoya.com/p/introduction-to-autism-faqs-of-autism.html
Justin McElroy, a local CBC reporter, is a stellar resource with regards to all things COVID in B.C
(https://twitter.com/j_mcelroy). He also wrote an article for Autism Awareness Day about being Autistic:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/autism-awareness-day-mcelroy-finch-piece-2021-1.5971745
Here’s a wonderful explanation of the autism spectrum, written in comic strip format by Rebecca Burgess:
https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/
Looking for ways to help your kids understand and accept their peers with autism? Here is a great list of children’s books compiled by Huffington Post:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/17-childrens-books-that-promote-understanding-of-autism_n_5ade4580e4b036e7aeb58a64
(P.S. Any of these books would be a welcome donation to the Hastings Elementary Diversity Book Drive!)