Minutes
PTA Organizing Meeting
Harriet Tubman PTA
September 28,
2010
Sharon Wynde called the meeting to order
at 5:45. She appointed Mary Ann Henry to record the minutes of this
meeting for the records. This meeting took place during the school’s “back
to school” night with approximately 150 people in attendance.
The purpose of this meeting was to
present a proposal to the Harriet Tubman Young Women’s Leadership Academy
community to organize a PTA. Since this school began 3 years ago, our
parent group has operated as a committee of the Jefferson High School
PTSA. We now feel it is time to form our own, separate PTA, and our
members will be members of this new PTA. Beryl Morrison, a representative
from the Oregon PTA and a former parent of the Young Women’s Academy, briefly
provided some background information on the Oregon PTA; of which we would become
a unit.
Beryl spoke about the benefits of being
part of the Oregon PTA; of its national, state-wide and local relevance. The PTA
provides training for officers, information and materials to help PTAs be
successful; Beryl has provided some of those materials to Sharon. The PTA
also organizes meetings for PTA units; for example in the spring, the PTA
organized meetings at 9 PPS High Schools to hold community discussions with the
school district on the High School Redesign proposal. Beryl also talked
about the advocacy roll PTA has take in child welfare issues over the
years.
Sharon commented that the PTA’s motto is
“Every Child. One Voice.” It is the largest child advocacy organization in
the country, doing important work.
There were no questions following Beryl
and Sharon’s presentations.
Sharon called for a motion to organize a
parent-teacher association (PTA) of the Oregon branch of the National PTA.
Parent, Anna King made the first motion, and parent, Jessica Lenz seconded the
motion. All parents and community members present voted in favor.
The motion passed.
Sharon explained that our PTA will adopt the Unified Local Unit Bylaws which are established by the Oregon PTA for each of its units, and were adopted at the State Convention this past spring. Drafts of the Standing Rules where available at the “back to school night” parent table. The name that is proposed is the Harriet Tubman PTA. The dues we propose are $12 per year, which matches the dues paid by Jefferson H.S. PTSA.
The meeting continued with the remaining agenda for “Back to School Night”.
Membership envelopes will continue to be
available in the school office, the parent room, and PTA gatherings throughout
the school year. We will hold our first PTA meeting on October 19th
at 6pm. We plan to elect basic PTA officers on that date and would like to
form a committee of parents to work on identifying possible additional PTA
officers and other site-specific volunteer needs.
Submitted for approval to Oregon PTA by
Sharon Wynde and Mary Ann Henry
9/30/2010