Good evening my name is Caroline Brown I would like to introduce myself as the Issaquah Council PTSA President for this year. I am flying solo but you can be assured I have a wealth of experience and knowledge from my wonderful board behind me J
We met as a board in August much like your selves and set our goals and theme for the year.
Our mission however we have decided to leave unchanged as we feel that….
“The mission of the Issaquah PTSA Council is to advocate for students at the local and state level and to support our member units with particular focus on helping them adopt Best Practices and develop leadership.” Is just right and is still our direction.
Many goals continue from last year as we feel there is still work to be done or modified from last year. So our lineup is as following….
1) Actively support and reinforce advocacy efforts at all levels.
We need to remember that advocacy goes beyond legislation. Our association is at heart, one of advocacy….so I am encouraging our members in many venues to use their voice to speak up for children. I would like to thank Suzanne Weaver for giving us a “come see us, this is who we are” speech at our last general membership meeting I hope it inspires others to come and share their stories and experiences with the board.
2) Provide ideas to our local units to engage and collaborate with teachers.
We need to continue to support our units as they work with the T in PTSA to support and encourage their work with our students.
3) Engage the community in a conversation surrounding homework.
This goal should be a fantastic example of our advocacy in action as we use our voices to advocate on behalf of our students as we revisit the knotty topic of homework/ grading the whole shebang.
4) Continue to determine areas of opportunity based on student and parent input.
We feel very proud of the work done with the senior survey last year. And we still feel that parents and students would like an avenue to voice their thoughts on schools maybe at a different age groups/ transition points so working with the district we will see what happens.
5) 100% trained local units elected executive officers.
A well trained board is an effective board on behalf of all those concerned. As we look at the management of a nonprofit the careful oversight and a lot of understanding is vital.
6) Achieve 90% PTSA memberships District-wide.
It’s time to draw a line in the sand….or maybe coffee grounds in the northwest. I was told that if state PTA membership declines at the rate it has been doing there will not be a PTA for our current Kindergarten by the time they leave high school. I must also share that as Region 2 Membership chair this will not happen on my turf so watch this space.
Lastly our theme is ~Inspire – Connect – Engage…. We feel that this sums up how our council will be working to help our local units in the community and the acronym is pretty cool too……