Present: Penny Adler, Sue Braun, Maritza-G-Chavarin, Beryl Flom, and Janis Tan
Speakers: Veri Chavarin is the President of the San Diego Council of PTA's, president@sdcouncilpta.org
Amy Wood is the Communications Chair of the San Diego Council of PTA's, communications@sdcouncilpta.org
Introduction of Attendees:
-
Beryl chairs the Immigration & Deportation Committee for LWVSD and has been on a League Education committee for about 50 years.
-
Sue was a SDUSD Board member in the 1990's and then joined this committee. She reported that LA Unified School District is expanding preschool access, but, according to the LA Times, quality lags. Sue is concerned about food stamp/SNAP cuts made by the Trump administration. Schools are still serving free breakfasts and lunches.
-
Maritza is involved in schools and is president of a PTA. She lives in San Ysidro. She's also President of the Women's club, a substitute teacher and an architect.
-
Janis is the Executive Vice President of the PTA.
PTA and the Community
-
History of the PTA
The PTA was founded in 1887; it grew out of the Benevolence Society and women's groups. The CA PTA was formed in 1902 at a time when children were being moved out of the workforce into schools. Children's rights were introduced. Over the years, the National PTA created Kindergarten, hot & healthy lunches, wrote child labor laws, founded the juvenile justice system, and started healthy start times. There is a hierarchy: national PTA, state PTA, 9th District PTA in CA, San Diego Unified PTA, and a Unit PTA at one school site. They hold a convention for National and State Legislation. Their four principles are inclusion, individualization, impactful and integrated.
Asked why Kindergarten is not required in CA, the response was that the state did not have the funds for it last time there was a vote but now they are funding TK. Schools offer K, either half day or whole day, but it is not in the testing protocol. K is a time for social and emotional development. TK has that plus smaller classes with a teacher and an aide, nap time, and other preschool characteristics. The state still doesn't want to pay for aides or smaller classes for K. It is pretty clear which children have had school experience or not.
2) Statistics
The PTA is at schools involving 769,000 teachers and 13.8 million students nationally. Those children have a breakdown of 57% Blacks, 43% White, 46% low and reduced lunches, 16% rural, 35% cities, and 49% suburbs. They are in 54 states and territories including schools overseas. The San Diego Council of PTA's has more than 60 local chapters and 6,000 members but the District has 180 schools.
3) Work of the PTA
The PTA is trusted, non-partisan and does a lot of advocating on anything that touches children's lives or that of their families. It helps families understand education and encourages people to go to the school board meetings. They have vaccination and public health clinics and is concerned about child health.
4) PTA vs. PTO
The PTA is an organization overseeing several local chapters while the PTO is just at one school and does not do advocating at the state level. The PTO sponsors classroom parties and fundraising events for that one school. PTA charges $10 membership dues which funds their work. The PTA sponsors several programs such as art/Reflections, Healthy lifestyles, Family reading, STEM, and School of Excellence. They promote families who learn together. Families and the school collaborate to support student success.
5) PTA Work Divisions
-
The CA PTA works with the legislature and state government. It also offers grants, trains teachers, provides civic forums, and works to get more family engagement.
-
The 9th District PTA covers San Diego and Imperial Counties and provides a liaison with the State PTA. It also trains local teachers.
-
The San Diego Council PTA's provide grants to promote the PTA program, does family engagement training, assists with finance and non-profit compliance, does AI technology in schools and supports local chapters.
-
The local PTA at one school advocates for families, educates parents, hosts programs, partners with other similar organizations, and helps parents negotiate their school. They also have events at school and provide election materials.
6) Challenges
Challenges include volunteer and parent capacity, shared governance, institutional support, fundraising vs. program advocacy and civic engagement. Their goal is to train more diverse leaders, empower youth leadership, do civic engagement, and strengthen partnerships. It's been found that PTA members have more family engagement and can pursue their passion.
7) Discussion
-
How do you increase the number of local PTA's? A lot of PTO's ceased during COVID but they didn't notify the Attorney General. If a PTO is not officially closed, it cannot reopen as a PTA which is unfortunate. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the advantage of a PTA which has more structure and advocates for children and their families. People who say they want to volunteer to benefit their child are also helping other children. Only 15 members are needed to form a PTA. Choice complicates things if students are not attending their neighborhood school.
-
Since the LWV does voter empowerment too, the PTA and LWVSD could do joint events. After November, we can talk about it more. The PTA has just hosted a candidate forum for State Supt. of Schools. We want parents to vote. The SDUSD PTA meets monthly with the Superintendent. The LWVSD could talk at the Principal's breakfast.
-
After school sports are encouraged by schools and parents, but sometimes children get involved in it too much.