Dear Fitzroy High School Community,  

Welcome to all our new FHS students and families and welcome back to those continuing in 2017. This year we have 608 students making this the highest number of students enrolled since reopening in 2004 and means we have now reached our student capacity. 

School Council has a busy year ahead with the school review underway followed by the 4 year Strategic Plan and the Masterplan project. 

Contributions 

School Council gratefully thanks all parents who made contributions to our donation funds. The table below shows the subcommittee who oversees each of the funds and the balance of each fund as at January 2017. School Council approves spending at council meetings as recommended by the subcommittees or the school executive. 

Fund	2017 Contribution to date	Fund Balance @ 31/1/17	School Council Subcommittee
Building Fund (tax deductible status)	nil	16.333.35	Master Plan
Library Fund (tax deductible status)	nil	30, 488.42	Education
Scholarship Fund	nil	22, 102.86	Education
Performance Fund	1, 586	11, 270	Community
Performance fundraising	5, 685 (2016)	13, 333	Community
Health and Wellbeing Fund	2, 897	9, 463	Community

Projects and expenditure will be updated in future newsletters and in School Council papers.

We also thank all families who have made parent payments on Compass. Your much needed contribution allows us to provide better programs and services for our students. We hope you found the experience of using Compass for these payments trouble free and efficient

We have an unexpected number of families who have not yet made payments or accessed the payment function through Compass. If you are having any issues with Compass please contact our Compass help desk by calling 9488 1900, email timc@fitzroyhs.vic.edu.au or consult our school Compass user guide available in printed format at the school office. Please also contact the school office if you prefer a printed parent payment statement mailed to you. 

School Council Elections

Encouragingly, this year we received more nominations than vacant positions on school council which triggered the election. Thank you to all families who voted, we appreciate your effort. The election results are: 3 school councillors who renominated and 2 new members whose valuable contribution to school council is much anticipated. The subcommittee convenors and school council president positions will be announced after the School Council meeting March 16^th, 2017 

Subcommittee Membership

If this has inspired any of you to join our subcommittees please contact Abbey or myself at the school. Our subcommittees will next meet after the March School Council, early in Term 2 and before the May school council meeting. Meeting dates will be announced as soon as they are available. 

On this matter, the Masterplan Subcommittee will be looking for members who are able to assist with the school Masterplan project. We expect this will include Architects, Designers, Landscape Architects, etc. and any time that you could give to the project would be greatly appreciated. Our next meeting is March 29^th at 4.30pm at FHS. 

School Council Reports

At the February and March meetings of school council and our subcommittees we approved and reported on the following:

• The Environment Subcommittee has been temporarily subsumed by the Masterplan Working Party to form the Masterplan Subcommittee. This project commenced in 2016 to create a masterplan of the school facilities and grounds that will inform future decisions about the use of these spaces. This subcommittee also has the responsibilities of the Environment subcommittee.
• An allocation from the Building Fund to provide automatic doors at the West entrance of the main building. By automating these doors we hope to capture cool and warm air, keep out leaves, rubbish and pigeons.
• SC were pleased to learn that over the summer holidays the Jet rooms were fitted out with airconditioning and that students and teachers have been enjoying the cool environment
• We congratulate Linda Mitchell and Pauline Rice for their hard work in securing our new status of a Respectful Relationships Leading School along with a $20, 000 grant to assist with the implementation. This was achieved on the back of the work done by the Feminist Collective as was an invitation to FHS teacher Briony O’Keefe to present with Deakin University at the 11^th International Biennial Gender & Education Association Conference at Middlesex University, London in June this year. School Council congratulates Briony on this achievement.
• We approved the much anticipated School Production scheduled for July this year so look out for more news on how you can be involved and for when tickets go on sale. The brief looks amazing!

Please feel free to direct any comments or queries regarding school council matters to me or the subcommittee convenors.

Kath Boyer
School Council President
kathb@fitzroyhs.vic.edu.au