Thank you to all who attended our first meeting of the 2023-2024 year!! It was great to see everyone and we always appreciate the time and dedication parents take to be engaged in their childs education.

The September meeting minutes are attached as a PDF below.

Coming Up:

• Our next DPAC meeting will be on Monday October 2nd monthly DPAC meeting (yes it’s still happening on that date) – agenda and meeting details will be posted shortly but a key agenda item is that we will be approving updated bylaws as well as voting for new executive members.
  • We need as many schools represented as possible to have quorum and consensus! Please put it in your calendar and notify your PAC members. All DPAC reps from all PACs and interested parents can attend in-person or virtually from PG, Mackenzie, McBride, Valemount, Hixon. We would love to hear from all of you!
  • Please also remember that you need to be an officially elected member of your PAC executive in order to run for a DPAC executive position 🙂 If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask us! And yes – you can do both – you really can!! Many of us have held positions at both the PAC and DPAC level so you are not sure how that could or would work just reach out to us and we will be happy to connect with you.

Save the date! Food Safe is confirmed with Audrey Van Aalst, the same great instructor we had last year!

Registration link for FoodSafe: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/sd57-foodsafe-course-2023-tickets-722400438157?aff=oddtdtcreator

Ticket sales start Wednesday September 20th and end on Thursday October 19th – there are a max total of 30 tickets available.

SOGI – as many may have heard or are aware, there continues to be significant misunderstanding around what SOGI is and why it is part of the BC Curriculum. We would like to share some great links, resources, information and facts to help improve awareness and acceptance,

“Sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) is not its own curriculum; it is one aspect of diversity that is embedded across a range of grades and subject areas. SOGI-inclusive education is about treating everyone with dignity and respect. All students need to see themselves and their families reflected in lessons, language and practices. Like other forms of inclusion in schools, the goal of SOGI-inclusive education is for everyone to understand the diverse society that we live in and to feel safe, valued, and respected.”

BC SOGI Education Guide – https://bc.sogieducation.org/sogi3

• BCCPAC – SOGI Resources: https://bccpac.bc.ca/index.php/resources/46-sogi/1052-sogi-bite-size
• Government of BC- Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI): https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/erase/sogi
• Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD): https://ccgsd-ccdgs.org

“62% of 2SLGBTQ+ students feel unsafe at school.”

Still in Every Class in Every School (Peter, Campbell, & Taylor, 2021)

Everyone has a sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). It’s an inclusive term that applies to everyone, whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit, heterosexual or cisgender (identifying with the same gender that one was assigned at birth).

It’s important for schools to be inclusive and safe spaces for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Being SOGI-inclusive means:

• Speaking about SOGI in a way that makes every student feel like they belong
• Not limiting a person’s potential based on their biological sex and how they understand or express their gender
• Welcoming everyone without discrimination, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity

The Minister of Education announced on September 8, 2016 that all British Columbian boards of education and independent school authorities were required to reference sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in district and school codes of conduct by December 31, 2016. 

This directive follows the July 2016 amendment to the BC Human Rights Code, which added gender identity and expression as a prohibited ground of discrimination (joining the already existing inclusion of sexual orientation). 

All public school boards were already required to address bullying by having codes of conduct in their schools that articulate all areas protected from discrimination in the BC Human Rights Code—including acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and consequences. These schools are now required to ensure their codes of conduct include behaviours and consequences related to SOGI.