Dear Hamber Parents and Guardians,

We require your help and advocacy today!

We’ve just been made aware that the Vancouver MLAs are set to meet with the VSB Trustees tomorrow, Friday, April 12th and they will be discussing Eric Hamber’s seismic mitigation project. We need your help and advocacy now!

We also know that the Provincial Treasury Board is set to meet in April to decide if Eric Hamber will get more funding to #BuildHamberRight.

Please consider that the new Eric Hamber will be built to accommodate 1,700 students; the same number of students as the old school. However, the new school will only be 15,000 square meters whereas the current school is 22,000 square meters!

We ask that you email your MLA today! Find your MLA HERE.

Ideas for your email:

• Ask for more funding so that Eric Hamber is built right and includes non-enrolling spaces like an auditorium, ample gym space, spaces for the arts and fashion design program, library, enough space for “real” 21st-century learning.
• Remind them that our auditorium is used everyday and that our drama, band, strings, choir, and fashion design programs will not survive without it. Why will Eric Hamber be the only high school in Vancouver without an auditorium/theatre?
• Tell them we will not have enough gym space to accommodate the current level of gym classes, sports teams and clubs.
•  State that you do not understand why a smaller high school is being built along the Cambie Corridor when massive residential developments at Oakridge Mall, Oakridge Transit site, and Heather Lands are about to be built in the Hamber  catchment.
• Let them know that it matters to our children and future generations of children, to #BuildHamberRight!

Ask for a constituent meeting to discuss Eric Hamber face-to-face with your MLA!

Students too can write to or meet with their MLAs! Last week VSB management held seismic information assemblies by grade in the auditorium. The students asked a lot of very good questions and many were very concerned about the lack of space and the fact that there will not be an auditorium in the new school. The student voices should be heard!
  Our next PAC meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 16th at 7:00pm in the Hamber staff room. Joe Ritchie, Counsellor, will be talking to us about SOGI123 at Hamber starting at 7:30. Spring Planter Fundraiser - Order deadline extended until April 19th!
 

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There are some very important upcoming information sessions and meetings at the VSB to do with the Long Range Facilities Plan and 2019-2020 VSB budget. All parents and guardians are encouraged to attend these meetings:

Long Range Facilities Plan Input Opportunities

• Feedback about the draft report can be sent via email to: LRFP@vsb.bc.ca.
• Public Information Sessions:
  • Thursday, Apr 11, 6-8pm – Kitsilano Secondary School
  • Tuesday, Apr 16, 6-8pm – Van Tech Secondary School

• Tuesday, Apr 23, 7pm – VSB Special Board Meeting/Committee of the Whole Mount Pleasant Elementary gym, 2300 Guelph St. Public consultation on the 2019/2020 Preliminary Budget Proposals
• Wednesday, May 15, 7pm – VSB Special Board Meeting/Committee of the Whole  Stakeholder and Public Input on the 2019/2020 budget
• Monday, June 24, 7pm – VSB Board Meeting Third reading and adoption of the 2019/2020 budget bylaw

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Nancy’s Kartsonas, Counsellor at Hamber, has provided the below list of free parenting workshops held at the South Vancouver Youth Centre located at 33rd and Fraser.

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