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Greening, Health & Activity

Councils often support their schools by working to enhance the school environment and promote healthy and safe activities. The resources listed below can help councils with these endeavours.

  • Updated Greening information coming soon (February 2021)!
  • Healthy Schools 2020 Resources on healthy catered lunches, healthy pizza days and healthy fundraising.
  • Active & Safe Routes to School Provides resources, tools, information and links for schools and communities to create their own unique active school travel program. All of the resources for teachers are linked to the Ontario Curriculum using the Curriculum Unit planner.

School Council Constitution

All School Councils in the province are required to have a constitution which complies with Ministry Regulations and Board Policies. The new constitutions should contain the following elements:

  • An election procedure
  • A conflict resolution procedure
  • A procedure to replace a member
  • A communication strategy
  • The principal should be a non-voting member
  • Your table officers should include: Chair, Vice Chair or Co-Chairs, Secretary, Treasurer and a CSPA representative
  • You should establish a procedure to communicate with all your school's parents and to get input from them on important issues. Your council has to communicate more than just amongst its members
  • Ministry guidelines dictate that your Council can advise on ANY matter relating to the education of your children and the operation of the school. The Council is, still, advisory to the Principal
  • Elections must occur in the first 30 days of school year, not spring

 Reference Documents:

Best Practices

Follow these links for more tips to make your school council efficient and effective.

Principal Profiles

Each year the school board invites school councils to submit a principal profile. The principal profile outlines the desired characteristics in a principal that would best fit the specific needs of your school and school community. The school board refers to this profile during the principal transfer and placement process. 

Councils looking for guidance in creating a principal profile can review these samples the information and links below.  Completed profiles can be e-mailed to associate.director@ocsb.ca.

Policies and Legislation

OCSB Policies and Procedures for Catholic School Councils:

Community Engagement

When a school has an active, involved parent community, everyone benefits - students, parents, teachers, and the wider school community. These resources can help councils engage the parent community at their school. 

  • 7 Steps for Building an Engaged Community - People for Education has developed a great list of steps to help councils build community in their schools.
  • Parent Engagement Tools The Council of Ontario Directors of Education (CODE) has developed a number of parent engagement resources for school councils and parents.
  • Parents as Partners in Education - workshop materials - Parents as Partners in Education is a series of 15 workshops developed by our board through funding from the National Office of Learning and Literacy. The goal of the program is to help parents with the challenge of supporting their children in school from kindergarten to grade 8. The workshops are presented in plain language, so they are especially beneficial for parents with literacy and language barriers. CSPA encourages school councils to consider offering these workshops as a means of supporting and encouraging parent engagement.
  • Safe & Accepting Schools - Identify the feedback received from students, staff, and parents regarding safety and acceptance at school. Share with School Councils the measures put in place to respond to concerns identified. Support your school’s Safe & Accepting Schools Team in making your school safer, more inclusive, and more accepting