In this issue:

1. Relief Spreadsheet

2. Is your School Association Incorporated?  How do you become incorporated?

3. School Records Review Group 

4. SACS End of Year Instructions

5. Active After-school Communities Program (AASC) 

1.  Relief Spreadsheet

2.  Is your School Association Incorporated?  How do you become incorporated?

Please ask yourself these questions in order.

Question 1 Does the name on the top of your Constitution end in ‘Inc.’ or ‘Incorporated’?
                   e.g. Tamar Primary School Inc.

Yes – Go to Q2

No – Go to Q3.

No – we don’t yet have a School  Association. Go to Q3, skip step2.

Check to see if your Association was actually registered as incorporated.   (Some school communities missed this step thinking it was enough to have ‘Inc.’ on the end of their name and a letter from the Minister!  But they still need to register with Consumer Affairs.) 

You can find out by checking your files for letters from Consumer Affairs; or by searching the National Names Index at www.asic.gov.au under the search option (http://www.search.asic.gov.au/gns001.html); or by checking  with Consumer Affairs on 03 6233 3450 or http://www.consumer.tas.gov.au/business_affairs/incorporated_associations

Yes – all’s well.  You are incorporated.  No need to read on. 

No – Go to step 6 of Q3.

Question 3 You have an un-incorporated constitution. 

If you need to become incorporated you will have to change your constitution to a new format. 

1.   Use the incorporated template from the Department of Education website. Complete the information as required, transferring information from your un-incorporated constitution. http://www.education.tas.gov.au/schoolassociations/incConstitution1.htm

2.   Hold a Special Meeting of the School Association and pass a motion to become incorporated.

3.   Appoint a person to be responsible for the Constitution for the School Association.

4.   Send the draft incorporated constitution to Business Support Service (BSS) by email businesssupportservice@education.tas.gov.au  (The school can help with this.) It will be checked.  If for any reason that it has to be changed, an officer at BSS will contact the responsible person. 

5.    When the document is final, BSS will forward it to the Minister for Education for approval.  The Minister will send you a letter saying whether the Constitution is approved.

6.    Decide whether you want to transfer, at no cost, the incorporation of a P&F or another incorporated sub-committee. (The Department recommends that the Association be incorporated, not the P&F as Association incorporation covers the P&F and all other Association activities, but P&F incorporation is limited to P&F activities.)

o        No – go to straight step 7. (That is, you have no incorporated sub-committee, or they are unwilling to transfer.)  You need to incorporate from scratch

o        Yes – skip step 7. You can transfer the existing incorporation to the Association at no cost.   Simply change the name from the P&F to the School Association.  The P&F or sub-committee should agree at a Special Meeting of the P&F or sub-committee. Complete the following change of name form and send it to Consumer Affairs.  http://www.consumer.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/51073/assoc_change_name_resolution05A.pdf

7.   Fill out an Application for Incorporation form from http://www.consumer.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/51069/assoc_application05A.pdf  attach: 1. a copy of: the constitution 2. a signed copy of the resolution/Minutes approving the move to incorporate 3. the fee set out on the form.  If you don’t yet have office bearers, just fill out the name of the Public Officer. Send it to Consumer Affairs.  There will be a 4-7 day turn-around period. (It is okay for the school to pay establishment costs if the Association does not have an income.)

3.  School Records Review Group

The review of the Disposal Schedule for School and College Records and relevant Business Classification Scheme will begin in early 2006.  To complete the review and continue on with the support being given to School and College Administrators a working group has been formed.  The working group includes school administration staff who expressed an interest following the TSAA conference and representatives from the Records Services Unit and Business Support Service.

The Records Services Unit will be developing a school records management training package in consultation with the working group in 2006.

To assist schools in managing their records the following records management resources are currently available at http://www.education.tas.gov.au/deis/recordservices/schools/default.htm

• Student Record Keeping Broad Guidelines - DRAFT : http://www.education.tas.gov.au/deis/recordservices/newweb/schstaff/draftguidelinesstudentadminfiles.pdf
• File Classification - Guide for Schools : http://www.education.tas.gov.au/deis/recordservices/schools/fileclassification
• Records Disposal Reference List for Schools : http://www.education.tas.gov.au/deis/recordservices/schools/disposal
• About Records Services Unit & Our Services : http://www.education.tas.gov.au/deis/recordservices/newweb/brochures/rsu&services.pdf
• Guidelines for Duplicate and Short-term Value Records : http://www.education.tas.gov.au/deis/recordservices/newweb/brochures/shorttermvaluerecords.pdf
• Student Administrative File Guidelines : http://www.education.tas.gov.au/deis/recordservices/newweb/brochures/studentadminfiles.pdf

 4.  SACS End of Year Instructions

The  2005 SACS End of Year instructions are now available from:

 Past BSS Banters

Want to have a quick look over some of the recent Banter articles?

You can find all past Banters on the website:  http://www.education.tas.gov.au/admin/ff/banter/default.htm