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Hey Presidents...
Our Council meeting tomorrow will be paired with Money Matters for Boards. There is information in this presentation about the roles of each executive Board member, and what financial best practices look like. Please remind your Boards that everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. We will get started at 7 pm in the Alumni Room.
Agenda
Financial Report
Minutes to approve
We are short on local PTA donations for the Food Drive and Teen Gifts! If you have not sent your donation in, please try to bring a check with you tomorrow night.
You Rock needs to be re-thought. We do not have a Council meeting in December or May (although we can do our last You Rock spotlights at the Spring Dessert). If possible, let's see if we can do Parkwood, Children's Center and Einstein this Monday. We'll do Kellogg, Echo Lake and LFP in January. Let me know if this doesn't work for you!!
To Note: The Appreciation Luncheon has been changed to April 7!! We're keeping the Thursday, just moving it up to make sure our Superintendent can be there...
Superintendent Coffee 11/19
Apparently my harassing worked! Thank you to everyone who made it to this one. Nice audience for our speakers.
As a side note, I asked not because I wanted to make everyone feel guilty, but because Rebecca asked me to find out if we needed to find a new time. If you've ever attended one, you know that this is a really good use of your time.
And the question has come up about who is welcome to come...
This is intended to be a smaller, more intimate meeting with the Superintendent and local Presidents. The speakers are often the presenters from the most recent School Board meeting, and this gives leadership an opportunity to ask questions and get more detailed knowledge about the workings of the District. Because of that, we need to keep attendance to 2 per PTA.
The attendees do not have to be Presidents. It is more important that the knowledge be shared than to keep the President office as the exclusive attendees. In fact, Jill Riemer pointed out that this might be a great recruiting tool for people who are considering the Presidency in your PTAs. Bring a newby along as your #2 and show them what a great partnership we have with our Superintendent and School District (how brilliant is Jill?).
So, for those of you who were unable to go, here's what we heard about...
Teri Poff introduced the District TOSAs (Teachers on Special Assignment). These are educators who are key to professional development of our building staff, and some of whom are classroom teachers as well.
They are:
Lisa Levy, elementary literacy
Becki Frish, elementary math
Stephanie Smolen, elementary science
Lisa Chen, elementary & secondary science
Jen Etter, literacy specialist for secondary
Patty Gerlicher, secondary math
Siri Hilbert, secondary World Languages
Robin Dowdy, K12 social studies
Leann Rozema, K12 music
Laura King, K12 visual arts
Jackie Hubbard, Frank Kleyn & Paul Witzel, K12 technology
Melissa Sargent, K12 ELL
Peggy Thesing, special ed coordinator
Kye Hong, District behavior support
Mary Walters, District autism/behavior support
Each TOSA has identified goals for the 2015-16 school year, and is in place as a resource for teachers and the District. If there is an area that you would be interested in learning more about, you can consider inviting one of these educators to a PTA meeting! Seemed like most of them have been with the District for more than a decade.
As Superintendent Miner was heading to Olympia to testify, we tabled the update about the joint meeting the School District had with the City Council.
Teri did go over the curriculum adoption schedule. After many years of not updating curriculum, the District has been trying to get on a schedule so that curriculum is updated about every 10 years (I think).
Membership Info!
IMPORTANT DATES
December 1
December 5
Book your hotel for Convention
by Dec. 5th to entered into a raffle for a FREE 3 day convention registration!
January 25
Make sure all member forms are entered into PT Avenue. This determines the number of your PTA's voting delegates for Convention!
March 1
Deadline to apply for Membership Awards:
- 100% Teacher
- Seedling
- Sapling
- 100% Membership
May 20-22
2016 WSPTA Convention
Yakima, WA
WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING THIS MONTH
November/December Membership To-Dos
- Continue asking people to join your PTA by sharing your membership form or online joining url/website in your communications to your school's staff and families, and community.
- If you have not already set up the 'Online Join' feature on PT Avenue, talk it over with your board of directors and decide if this is a good option for your PTA. The Online join feature can be seen at https://www.pt-avenue.com/join/.
- Plan a Holiday Campaign. "Give the Gift of Membership!" or "Stuff your Stocking with PTA!" Sell membership as a 'gift' to grandparents, aunts & uncles, teachers. Coupled with some kid artwork on a card or letter, this would be a fantastic gift for the people who are cutting clutter, but love to support the kids! Or give a gift of Membership to the staff members who have not yet joined.
- Promote the Benefits of PTA membership/ Remind current members of their existing Benefits – Great Wolf Lodge 20% off, January Disney Live!, February Harlem Globetrotters. See more benefits here.
Social Media
There was a question about using kids' photos on Facebook - because even if you as a PTA get permission to take a photo and plan to not identify a student, other people can go in and tag the kid in the photo.
Fix your settings. On your page under Settings, you will see a lot of choices just under General. Right about in the middle of the page, find the one called "tagging ability." Make sure it is set to "Only people who help manage my Page can tag photos posted on it."
Enrichment Programs
Another side conversation.
At some point, we will do a round table to find out what kinds of classes you all are running, what the costs look like, if you're having any difficulties with vendors, scholarships, insurance, forms, accommodations, building staff, or anything else.
In elementary school, this takes up a lot of time and energy. In secondary, enrichment programs are pretty non-existent because ASB takes over.
To keep costs down for your families or to see if you can offer a wider variety of classes, consider these two options. 1. Some buildings will offer activity pay to teachers who would like to stick around and teach an enrichment class. See if there's any money for that and any interest from the staff. 2. We have two high schools full of kids who need community service hours, and they are all talented at something. It would be a heavy lift, but there could be an opportunity to get high school kids to teach a 6-week class (creative writing, art, physics, robotics, culinary, anything PE, computer programming... even gaming, iMovies, movie critiques, world languages...). There are Career Coordinators in both high schools as well as Honor Societies and other clubs that you can work with.
Council Nominating (keep reading!)
Guess what? I'm going to start asking... on Monday!!
One - I need 3 people to say yes to the nominating committee this year. Hopefully we'll be able to collectively send potential candidates to the committee for persuading.
Two - I need people to consider taking on a Council role. This board will fully retire, as we are all on our 2nd year in our current positions. Some of us may be willing to change to a different position, but to be a healthy organization, we need new energy/eyes!
We will see if we can elect a nominating committee at the November meeting, which would give us plenty of time to introduce candidates to Council if need be. Please consider taking this on!!
Convention
Hotel Reservation
Book by 12/5 for a chance to win 3 day convention pass!
The WSPTA office invites you to consider making hotel reservations early. This is due to a large annual soccer tournament which is during the same dates as convention and hotel rooms are filling up quickly. When you make your reservation, your credit card will not be charged until you check into your room. Click here for hotel information.
Do you have people who might be interested in going to Convention but don't want to make the drive? Let's talk about that - this is a great time to work out some carpools... or rent one big vehicle!!
How can Council help you? Give us your ideas, your feedback, your needs, concerns, and triumphs.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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Council Meeting on Monday
Happy Thanksgiving!! |
Important to know:
FedEx discount code: 0520882103!
You Rock (new schedule)
October: Brookside
November: Shoreline Children's Center, Einstein, Parkwood
January: Echo Lake, Lake Forest Park, Kellogg
February: Syre, Briarcrest, Special Needs
March: Highland Terrace, Shorewood, Meridian Park
April: Cascade K8, Shorecrest, Ridgecrest
* We can elect to strike the April meeting, as it is the Recognition Dinner month, and do our April winners in May at the Spring Dessert.
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Mark Your Calendars
Monday 11/23, 7 pm: PTA Council Meeting, Alumni Room
Wednesday 11/25: Early Release Day
November 26-27: Thanksgiving Break
Training Opportunities
Other training opportunities (you can attend in any Region, if there is a location and date that is more convenient for you):
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MID-WINTER CONFERENCE
2/23 | Bellevue | TBD | TBD
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PTA & THE LAW
11/24 | Vancouver | 6:00pm - 9:00pm | Register
1/9 | TBD | TBD | TBD
12/1 | Seattle | 6:00pm - 9:00pm | Register
1/30 | Arlington area | TBD | TBD
12/1 | Tacoma | 6:00pm - 9:00pm | Register
11/30 | 5:30pm - 9:00pm | Walla Walla | Register
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Other Events
Youth Mental Health First Aid Training
Hello Friend of the Family Support Department at Center for Human Services,
As a leader in your neighborhood, I wanted to share with you an opportunity for adults who live or work in the City of Shoreline.
The City of Shoreline is sponsoring 2 free trainings in Youth Mental Health First Aid.
Youth Mental Health First Aid is a public education program which introduces participants to the unique risk factors and warning signs of mental health challenges in adolescents, builds understanding of the importance of early intervention, and most importantly – teaches individuals how to help a youth in crisis or experiencing a mental health challenge.
The next one is Monday December 7th.
Please help me spread the word about this free training opportunity. It is a great training for anyone who cares for or works with youth: parents, teachers, youth group leaders, coaches, aunts, uncles & grandparents!
To register, contact Tanya at 206-631-8836 or tanya@chs-nw.org
Tanya Laskelle
Family Support Program Director
Center for Human Services
(206) 631-8836 office
(206) 402-2470 cell
Tanya@chs-nw.org | www.chs-nw.org
CHS - "Building a stronger community...one family at a time" - NOW CARF Accredited!
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