Library Committee
The Library Committee supports the school librarians and the teacher-librarian who run the BIS Library. Besides assisting them with the planning and selection of new additions each year, as well as maintenance and administration, the parents on the committee also conduct other regular activities for the students. There are regular book readings, helping students prepare theme-based charts and other projects such as comparing folktales from different regions, or creating their own fantasy villain, etc.
One major activity in which the “library parents” play a big role is the Annual Book Fair open only to parents and students of BIS. Selected vendors display exciting new titles so that the visitors can get acquainted with the best new books and authors in the market. The committee also helps coordinate guest speakers, design charts and work with the IT and Business Studies students to design a website, questionnaire and lottery to create awareness.
The librarians, committee members, teachers and the Principal all work together to select new books for the library during the Book Fair, and receive donations from students and parents throughout the year.
Kitchen Committee
The BIS kitchen, perhaps the best-known school kitchen in the city, is parent run and has been part of the school since its very inception in 1962. It was set up with the aim of providing wholesome, nutritious and fresh food to the students and staff, and began on a smaller scale, serving milk to the children, before gradually expanding to snacks and finally to managing a full-fledged afternoon meal. Over time, as the kitchen began catering to far greater numbers, there have been significant renovations, as well as constant innovations with new menus and recipes.
Parent volunteers, numbering about 60, including many mothers and also some fathers, devote their time for this purpose. They are hands-on involved in running the kitchen, with the help of a few staff helpers, planning menus, supervising the cooking and serving the students.
The committee also oversees the planning of menus and other essentials, ensuring that over the course of the week, the meals are balanced. With help from a nutritionist, the food served is always interesting, healthy and easy to put together.
Committee members also oversee the selection of vendors, monitor purchases and delivery each week.
Bus Committee
The Bus Committee was constituted primarily to ensure development of safe, consistent and timely transport for children to and from school. It is responsible for route planning and finalising of rates.
It selects reliable vendors and oversees smooth functioning, ensuring that optimal number of children are accommodated on each route while spending the minimum possible time in commuting. The committee also develops a transparent and competitive rate structure.
Each bus route is coordinated by a Committee member and Route members who frequently travel along with the children and handle day-to-day issues related to timings at stops, space constraints, quality of driving, cleanliness and the absence or presence of bus attendants.
Sports Committee
The Sports Committee’s primary role is to assist the school’s Physical Education(PE) Instructors in fulfilling their goals. It also acts as the channel between the parents and school as recommendations from the parent body are communicated to the school with regards to all activities connected to sports.
The Committee works with the school PE instructors to help prepare the School’s inter-house sports calendar, in order to synchronise it as much as possible with the MSSA (Maharashtra State Sports Association). The Committee also works to liaise with clubs or other viable venues for tie-ups with the school to hold certain annual inter-house events that need to be held outside the School premises like Swimming, Athletics, Badminton, Squash and Tennis. Members also assist PE Instructors with inter-house events that are held on the School premises.
There is continuous monitoring and review of all external resources currently being availed of by the school to ensure that terms of service, facilities, communications, collection of forms, payments, etc., are streamlined as well as feedback and/or concerns, if any, are addressed. The Committee invites or responds to new external resources for sports not already being offered and evaluates the same.
The Committee has successfully worked out an arrangement for students to go once a week to Cooperage sports grounds for PE in an effort to raise the standard of the PE programme at BIS.
It has also organised parent volunteers for inter-school soccer matches, each of whom follows an assigned age group to liaise between the players’ parents and teachers with regard to practice and match schedules. The volunteer also organises and co-ordinates pickups and drops to and from the matches and ensures the presence of at least one parent at each match.
IT Committee
The members of the IT Committee are mainly parents whose professions are related to the IT field or are adept in IT-related matters. The committee works to plan, develop and ensure that the school’s IT infrastructure remains completely aligned with contemporary developments in the field.
The body plans for, and recommends procurement of necessary hardware and software packages and related equipment, and presents budgets for the same. It oversees the types of OS required to run educational packages that are used, implements integration of networking to facilitate use by teachers in preparing lectures as well as in classrooms, while at all times maintaining necessary levels of security and privacy.
Over time, the aim of the Committee is to ensure that BIS moves towards a completely paperless communication system.
Infrastructure Committee
The Infrastructure Committee is constituted mainly from the parents who are architects, engineers, interior decorators or otherwise aware of, and interested in, the development and maintenance of the school infrastructure.
It conducts periodic reviews of the buildings, suggests plans for regular maintenance as well as repairs and renovations. In consultation with the management, it also guides the implementation of projects that may be taken up from time to time.
Some important projects executed by the Infrastructure Committee include the renovation of the 4th floor in the Babulnath building to create open space for activities and develop special purpose rooms for Yoga and Music. It also works closely with the IT Committee on the IT infrastructure and led the setting up of the Green Room and the AV Room etc.
Fund Raising Committee
The Fund Raising Committee is drawn from amongst those parents with some experience in managing and raising finances.
The Committee works with the management, giving advice regarding investments and working with it on other plans and avenues for fund raising.
Inclusion and Diversity Committee
BIS has been a pioneer in inclusion and its student body has historically had a substantial number of students with special educational needs – relating to physical and other learning disabilities. Consequently, it has a parent committee focused on inclusion and diversity that spearheads efforts to make the school more inclusive in all senses of the word. The Committee also works towards socio-economic inclusion.
Believing that inclusion benefits not just students with special needs (and it will not admit those it cannot benefit), but also teaches other students values of care, compassion and empathy, the committee ensures that the thrust toward inclusion has intensified over the years with the addition of more special educators and counsellors, the introduction of assistant teachers etc.
Communications Committee
The Communications Committee attempts to communicate the ethos and values of the school through various channels and media. It serves as the voice of the school and uses the school website and social media platforms – LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter — to tell the unfolding story of BIS.