Deadline for the local Units to have the Reflections finalist entries to theRegional Level for Judging Is January 15th.

This applies to Region 2 (Fairbanks Council), Region 4 (Anchorage Council), and Region 5 ( Region 5 VP, Lynn Hohl.).

All other finalist from local units must be sent to the Alaska PTA office,
And must be recieved by February 15th for Judging. If you have any questions please Contact Suellen

The Alaska PTA is seeking a new Office Director. If you know anyone who may be interested in applying please have them contact the AlaskaPTA Board of Managers. The best way to contact the office or any Member of the BOM Team is via email of by phone. The montghly unit mailing has a list of phone numbers and other contact information.

And in your spare time, now begins the process of building the relationships that will help us to accomplish our legislative priorities for the benefit our children, the children of Alaska.
With your holiday cards and the Alaska Legislature starting it's session in January, take this opportunity as a Local PTA leader to congratulate your newly elected representatives. Make yourself available for an appointment to discuss issues important to your local unit.

As a leader of your local unit, you may speak on behalf of your members and for the positions that they have adopted. You may also speak to the Alaska PTA Legislative Priorities that were adopted at this years Alaska PTA Issues Conference, and National PTA Legislative Positions. The legislative priorities can be found on the Alaska PTA Web Page at www.alaskapta.org.

One of the biggest reasons that PTA is non-partisan is that in order to achieve our goals we must be able to work with whomever gets elected, and although some of us are undoubtedly disappointed by the outcome of the some of the recent elections, now is the time to build bridges and repair fences so that our work may continue. Alaska PTA was very successful in accomplishing its Legislative priorities last year and we plan to be just as successful in the new year.

PTA has a powerful voice and Legislators know it, use your PTA voice and make sure it is loud and clear!

Alaska PTA Legislative Issues Conference October 22 & 23 Dimond High Auditeria, Anchorage Schedule
Friday, October 22, 2004 6-9 PM
Introduction
New Procedures
Legislative Leadership Panel Discussion on upcoming IssuesSaturday, October 23, 2004 8:30AM - 5 Pm
Proposed Priorities
Round Table Discussions
General Session ( Voting on Priorities)
Advocacy Training

Registration Form available online at http://www.alaska.net/%7Eakpta/advocacy.html

The Fairbanks Council of PTAs will be holding its Annual Training on Saturday, August 28.

Please see their webpage for more info:

http://www.fairbankspta.org/index_files/Page313.htm

The Annual Open House for the Alaska PTA Office is on Thursday, August 12. Membership cards and the National PTA Resources packet for your school will be available from 11am-7pm, at 619 E. 5th in Anchorage.

Bring us questions and problems to work on , members of the Alaska PTA Board of Managers wll be in and out all day to help you.

Alaska PTA Legislative Fly In-Please Join Us

March 17-18 2004
Goldbelt Hotel
51 Egan Drive
Juneau, Alaska
(907) 478-6909

Agenda
Wednesday March 17th
Welcome and orientation (Goldbelt Hotel) 10:30 –Noon
Lunch (on your own) Noon – 1:00 pm
Meetings with Legislators (Capital Building) 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Share experiences (Goldbelt Hotel) 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Dinner (on your own)

Thursday March 18th
More meetings with legislators All Day
Share experiences (Goldbelt Hotel) 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Return home

For more information, please check the web site or call the Alaska PTA office at 279-9345

Announcement- Please Join us in Juneau

Alaska PTA Legislative Fly In
March 17-18 2004
Goldbelt Hotel
51 Egan Drive
Juneau, Alaska
(907) 478-6909

Agenda
Wednesday March 17th
Welcome and orientation (Goldbelt Hotel) 10:30 –Noon
Lunch (on your own) Noon – 1:00 pm
Meetings with Legislators (Capital Building) 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Share experiences (Goldbelt Hotel) 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Dinner (on your own)

Thursday March 18th
More meetings with legislators All Day
Share experiences (Goldbelt Hotel) 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Return home

Check the web page for more information.

Hello All,

This month's Local Unit Mailing includes some very important items. Along with tons of information for you to share with your members there are a couple of other things.

First, is the Awards Packet. Alaksa PTA gives Awards for Educator of the year, Student of the year, and Local Unit Honorees. Please look at the packet and see who in your school should be nominated.

Second, is the Resolutions Packet. All resolutions of Alaska PTA are passed by the delegates of our Alnnual Convention. The Legislative Committe needs to hear from you on subjects that you feel need to be addressed. There is a deadline so check it out soon.

Last but certainly not least, Convention is coming! Look for Registration Information in the mailing and Call to Convention in a Special Mailing. Convention is an opportunity for training, help, networking and desicion making for the Alaska PTA and ALL of its Member Units.

See you there. :)

Wow! January is over, and its time to start thinking of Convention. The Convention pages on the web page have been updated and the Lesilative pages are being updated for the Legislative Fly-In to juneau in March. Please check out the web page at http://www.alaska.net/%7Eakpta/index.html

Hi and Happy New Year to you all!

Several things have been added and updated on the web site, the PTA Audit Form is on the forms page. The 2004 Convention Schedule is added to the News page and there is a link to Preparing for College on both the Teen and Parents Pages. It has some helpful links on how to pay for it all.

More information on the Convention is coming soon.

Happy Holidays to All!

During the holiday down time... I know, I know, but there actually is some for me... I will be updating the web page and trying to get more information online.

If you have suggested information that you would like to see on the web or if you find a bad link please let me know. There should be an email link at the bottom of every page.

There should be lots of new information to look through by January.

again, Happy Holidays and Peace, Good will to all in this coming year.

Suellen

We did it! The delegates of the Alaska PTA Legislative Issues Conference meet and established the Legislative priorities for the upcoming session. To see what was approved by the delegates go to

http://www.alaska.net/%7Eakpta/advocacy.html

Reminder...

Alaska PTA legislative Issues conference is this weekend, November 14 & 15th. In Anchorage.

Call the Alaska PTA office for registration information and more details.

Hello,

It's that time again, time for us to set our legislative priorities for the coming session. Please make sure to consult with your local units on priorities in your area and submit them to the legislative committee for consideration at the Alaska PTA Legislative Issues Conference.

The Issues Conference will be held in Anchorage on November 14 and 15th at King Career Center. Please plan to attend, full registration information can be found on the Alaska PTA web site on the legislative advocacy page, the newspage or the issues page.

http://www.alaska.net/~akpta/akptanews.html

Our business partner, the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel, is providing a special rate for this event. Please call the Anchorage Sheraton to make a reservation and tell them you are with the Alaska PTA legislative Issues Conference.

Hi all,

There is some problem with the redirect on the www.akpta.org site.

Please use the old address for the time being and bookmark it as soon as you get there so that you can return.

The addresss is:

http://www.alaska.net/~akpta/index.html

Sorry, I am trying to get the isp to help me with this, but so far no luck.

September 03
Dear PTA Leaders,

I hope you are all off to a good start to the new School year!

Your Alaska PTA Board of Managers has been very busy; delivering membership cards, answering questions, attending local PTA meetings and Board meetings and training sessions, putting together future mailings and looking in files for information that units need. In short we have been servicing the local units.

For the next month we will be doing planning for the Issues Conference and Reflections Program along with more unit training. I will also be attending the Anchorage Council of PTAs Leadership Training on September 20, to do a session on bylaws. If you can possibly attend this training you should do so. The Anchorage Council does a great job on this training; it includes a ton of information and is very comprehensive. Five other BOM members will be traveling to Phoenix to a National PTA sponsored training for state board members.

For those of you with bylaws amendments in the works, our committee chair has gotten moved so we are up and running and should be getting back to you in short order. I know that so far this summer we have seen bylaws for at least 10 units. If you can use email for these it is very helpful and faster to get out to the committee. The email lines have been buzzing, which has been very helpful. It makes it much easier for us to get back to you when we have all of our information at hand. “At hand” for me usually means in front of my computer.

I have heard from several units that are having difficulty and we are working with those people to see if we can help get things ironed out. The good news is that we also have several groups that are in the process of organizing new units.

If your unit needs information, help or training, or if you know of another unit who may need assistance, PLEASE let us know.

Suellen Appellof
Alaska PTA President


cariade@mtaonline.net
ak_pres@pta.org

I would like to publically Thank the Fairbanks Council of PTAs for Inviting us to join them in their annual Leadership Workshop this past weekend in Fairbanks. It was well attended and we all had fun networking and learning about PTA procedures and issues.

I would also like to thank Dee Parsons, Alaska PTA for making the trip with me to Fairbanks. Dee and I did workshops and met some of the wonderful people that work for the children of the Fairbanks area.

We look forward to working with the Fairbanks Council in the coming year and once again Thank You!

Suellen

Today the Alaska Department of Education and Early Developement will annouce the Annual Yearly Progress scores for Alaska Schools. We understand that the news will not be good for all schools and the Alaska PTA board has worked up some talking points for Local leaders to use when answering questions and concerns from the community and the media. These are suggestions only. Your situation is unique, but we believe these statements are in alignment with the mission and purposes of PTA.

Please use them as you see fit, edit them to make sense for your school.
(needs to contain local information from each area.)

AYP Talking Points for Parents:

We really are all in this together,
· and if we work together we can make the process smoother for everyone involved.
· Our district has so many good schools and talented, well-qualified teachers and outstanding students.
· Our challenge is to keep these outstanding educators in our district and give them the support they need.
These test scores are very important,
· They verify what we have known al along, some of our children are not making it
· they tell us many things which will help make our schools better.
· they don't indicate everything that goes on in each school. [Note improved graduation rates, awards received by district, teachers, students, decline in the drop-out rate, reduced class sizes, fewer suspensions, etc.]
Different students learn in different ways and at different rates.
· We want standards to be met, and progress must be measured,
· National and state required testing takes precious time from the instructional days.
· Some children don’t test well, on any given day results vary

Leadership Training from the Anchorage Council of PTAs

This is a great opportunity for units who don't have council training available locally. Take your board, learn new things and meet new "PTA People".

PTA leaders from all areas of Alaska are invited to attend. This includes local unit PTA leaders from Region 3, 4 and 5.
If you can get there, you are welcome!

Saturday, September 20
8:00am to 1:30 pm
at the New Diamond High School

For more information and to register, Email

Rebecca O’Hara rebohara@juno.com Or

Victoria Fredenhagen positivethoughts@alaska.com

Contact the Alaska PTA Office
for more information on training in your area.

akpta@alaska.net
907-279-9345