 Northshore Council PTSA held its annual Spring Recognition Breakfast on Thursday, June 6, 2019, at McMenamin's Anderson School in Bothell. The event celebrates the work of PTAs throughout Northshore as well as this year's amazing volunteers and award recipients district-wide. Guests included representatives from Northshore PTAs, their award recipients and honored guests, district officials, school board members, and community partners. Many thanks to North Creek High School's instrumental music program students and director Deborah Montague for providing wonderful performances during breakfast. Special thanks to keynote speaker, Janet Harvey, MCC, who offered an inspiring presentation about leadership and the power and value of staying true to one self. Northshore Council PTSA was also honored to present awards during the event. Many congratulations to this year's award recipients, each of whom has worked to promote the well-being and education of children in our district and beyond:  🌟 Outstanding Advocate: Corina Pfeil The Outstanding Advocate Award recognizes an individual for his or her advocacy and commitment in helping to create strong policies relating to the health, welfare, safety and education of children and youth.  🌟 Outstanding Student Advocate: Ayden Harris (7th grade, Leota Middle School) 🌟 Outstanding Student Advocate: Cami Brix (12th grade, Inglemoor High School) This is the first year Northshore Council PTSA has given this award. The Outstanding Student Advocate Award recognizes student PTA members who have made significant contributions through leadership and service in their school and community.  🌟 Outstanding Educator: Dr. Michelle Reid The Outstanding Educator Award is presented to an individual who has made significant contributions in their community to enhance the educational outcomes of all children or youth. An educator is not limited to a teacher and may be defined as a teacher, assistant, specialist, support staff, administrator or community member.  🌟 Outstanding Service: Wendy Reynolds The WSPTA Outstanding Service Award was added in 1962, building on the success of the Golden Acorn Award program. This award recognizes statewide service to children. It is awarded to an individual who has given dedicated and long-term volunteer service that positively impacts every child throughout the community while demonstrating the WSPTA core values. We are grateful to all who were able to join us for this wonderful morning of food, music, community, and celebration!  The Northshore Council PTSA Emergency Preparedness Team, composed of E-Prep Chairs from schools across the district, meets monthly to discuss and support important school safety and preparedness initiatives. Topics have included NSD Emergency Management, Safety Policies, Emergency Containers, Safe School Emergency Operations Plans, Safe Schools Advocacy in Olympia, Student/Parent Reunification, School Active Threats, Security Cameras, Door Locks, Stop the Bleed Kits and much more. At the June 3rd, 2019 E-prep meeting, three individuals were recognized for outstanding contributions to Emergency Preparedness this year:
 Northshore Council PTSA 2019 E-Prep team picture, taken at the June 3, 2019 meeting. (Photo courtesy of Robin McKenzie.) Next year we hope to expand our team to include every school PTSA in the district and create even more collaboration with the School District Safety, Security and Emergency Preparedness group. Robin McKenzie and Tracy Jokisch will be serving as our Northshore Council E-Prep Co-Chairs for 2019-20. Please contact Tracy and Robin if you would like to be a part of our PTSA E-Prep team and join our Facebook group.
 The Northshore School District has established a consistent emergency Reunification methodology for all schools to ensure efficient and safe release of students to parents in the event of a crisis or emergency situation. It conducted a drill of the process in May 2019 that included district administrators, students, parents, and community members. As a part of the drill, students were bused from Woodinville High School to Pop Keeney Stadium and then were successfully reunited with their parents after a mock crisis/emergency. More drills are being planned for next year. Here is a list of things parents should know:
If you are interested in learning more about the process and methodology of parent-student reunification, here are a couple of resources: Northshore School District "Reunification Process" page: Standard Reunification Method handbook by The "I Love You Guys" Foundation:  Reunification drill organizers gathered outside of Pop Keeney stadium. (Photo courtesy of Robin McKenzie.)  Hollywood Hill PTA expanded the Art Docent program of their school to include an Artist in Residence program. For 2018-2019, the PTA partnered with Kevin Creekmore, owner of MoltenWorks and President of the Woodinville Arts Alliance, who helped students create some whimsical garden art using fused glass techniques.
Kudos to Hollywood Hill PTA for their work on enriching their docent program and for developing a wonderful bridge between school and community as well as between student work in the classroom and the work of a professional artist. It is a wonderful example of how a PTA can leverage community partnerships to help provide amazing experiences for students! #PTAProud To learn more about Kevin and MoltenWorks, you can visit his website at www.moltenworksglass.com. To learn more about the non-profit Woodinville Arts Alliance, go to www.woodinvilleartsalliance.com. Check out some examples of the glass pieces located throughout the Hollywood Hill campus in the photos below. Many thanks to Hollywood Hill PTA President Diana Christensen and their Artist in Residence Chair, Torrey Edwards, for sharing information about their Artist in Residence program with us!
 Each month this year, Washington State PTA posted a checklist on their blog to help local PTA leaders run their PTA. The posts offered at-a-glance lists of important to-dos, key dates, as well as regular reminders about ongoing tasks. With their June post, they suggested compiling the checklists and sharing them as a "gift" for incoming board members. We thought that was such a great idea, we've done the work for you so this resource can be shared easily! It is available as a .pdf or as a Word document (in case you want to customize it for your PTA!). Below, download your copy of: Checklist for Running Your PTA: A Month-By-Month Board To-Do List!
  Janet Harvey, MCC Northshore Council PTSA is pleased to welcome speaker Janet Harvey, MCC, who will be the keynote presenter at our upcoming Spring Recognition Breakfast on Thursday, June 6, 2019 at McMenamin's Anderson School, Bothell. Ms. Harvey is a nationally renowned speaker, coach, author and educator. Having faced her own obstacles head on, she offers unique and specific tools for transforming challenges to resiliencies, effective management of success and creating something beautiful within our lives. Ms. Harvey is an ICF Master Certified Coach, Certified Mentor Coach, Accredited Coaching Supervisor and ICF Global Past President. Her new book, This. Shift. Works: the pathway to fulfilled living will be available in Fall 2019. We will also be joined by the North Creek High School Jazz Ensemble who will be performing during the event. Great company, wonderful music, tasty food, and a morning of recognition and inspiration! We hope you join us!!! RSVPs are due from local PTAs by Thursday, May 30th! PTA/PTSA PRESIDENTS: Please send in your RSVP by email to: ncptsabreakfast@gmail.com. If anyone from your PTA will be attending, please make sure to include the following information:
IMPORTANT: If no one from your PTA will be attending, we still need the names of your award winners and which award they have received. Please send this information by the RSVP deadline of May 30th. Questions? Contact ncptsabreakfast@gmail.com.
Also-- please be sure to check out our responses to Frequently Asked Questions!  Our final Council Membership Meeting of the year took place on May 6, 2019 at Woodinville High School! It was a lively meeting full of great energy and information. After co-Presidents Carrie McKenzie and Grace Jurado called the meeting to order, we welcomed incoming Washington State PTA President, Janice Kutzera, who, with humor and grace, led the ceremonial installation of our incoming 2019-20 Northshore Council Officers. Northshore Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid took some time to address 'suburban legends, ' including questions about implementation of the new 7-period day in the high schools (starting Fall 2019) and study hall, start times, NSD's commitment to mental health supports in our schools, 5th grade camp, the district budget outlook and more. Fun fact: Dr. Reid was this year's recipient of Washington State PTA's Outstanding Educator Award, which was presented to her at the WSPTA Convention in April! Council business included Treasurer Tricia Woods's review of recent budget reports as well as a vote to approve the proposed 2019-20 Council budget. Financial Review Committee member Nancy Chamberlain reported the results of the completed mid-year financial review. Then our VP of Communications Robin Zaback, encouraged local leaders to take our Council Survey-- please let us know how we are doing by taking the survey before Friday, May 17th! She also reported on the upcoming membership database change to memberplanet, encouraging PTAs to be sure to enter their incoming officers into PT Avenue in order to help facilitate the transition. If you want to share your feedback regarding National PTA's proposed dues increase, be sure to respond to WSPTA's survey before May 15th. School Board Director Jackie McGourty shared some updates regarding the recently completed NSD audit, end-of-year district events, as well as a few legislative updates. This led into a brief legislative update from a PTA perspective from Council's co-VP of Advocacy, Nancy Chamberlain. The Art Docent program is celebrating 50 years in Northshore and NSD Partnerships Coordinator Natalie Campbell shared some of the exciting updates they are making to the program. You can learn more about the changes on the Art Docent Program 50th Anniversary Update page on the NSD website. New materials are password protected, but interested leaders and art docents can email partnerships@nsd.org to request access. Natalie also shared some exciting upcoming district events including:
Northshore Schools Foundation Director Carmen Dalziel encouraged us to spread the word about their upcoming Family Fun Day on June 8th-- a free, family friendly event with activities, music and more! She was also excited to announce that they are also currently reviewing grants submitted in their Spring Classroom Grant cycle-- be on the lookout for announcements of grant recipients soon! To cap off the final meeting of the year, Council First VP Cindy Jensen and co-President Carrie McKenzie presented this year's Golden Acorn awards to Robin Zaback and Robin McKenzie. Both of this year’s awardees raised the bar for their positions. Their engagement and impact can be seen and felt across the entire district and beyond, and still they are extremely active in their local units. They are an inspiration to all of us! Congratulations to Robin and Robin!!! ;)  Northshore Council's 2019 Golden Acorn recipients Robin McKenzie (left) and Robin Zaback (right). After the meeting adjourned, local leaders broke up into groups to attend spring training classes, including:
Many thanks to all who attended our final Council meeting of 2018-19. And thank you to our instructors as well as to the local leaders who took the time to join us for Spring training! We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting in the Fall!
 ArtSpring is an Art Festival designed for Northshore middle and high school students who are supported by the Functional Skills & Academics (FSA) program. This year's event was an experience in community and creativity as students, teachers, paras and peers from 7 Northshore Schools came together at Brightwater Center on May 2, 2019. Students unloaded from their yellow buses and found their way into ArtSpring to participate in the art projects that were designed just for them: crayon rubbings, printmaking, watercolor hearts, sensory bags, jelly fish sculptures, and more! The kids loved sitting for caricatures and face painting and petting the gentle support dogs. And the teachers loved seeing their students having such a great time with their peer mentors and the artists. All students went home with wonderful art projects in their Safeway grocery bags. We thank Safeway & Albertson’s foundation for their support of ArtSpring through the Educator grant they awarded to Kenmore Middle School and the Northshore School District. We appreciate and acknowledge the importance of the grants received from Inglemoor High PTSA, Bothell High PTSA, Kenmore Middle PTSA, and Skyview Middle PTSA. We could not do it without the enthusiastic support communicated through these grants! Look for ArtSpring installations in your schools soon and get ready for more specially designed art events in the years to come embracing students of all abilities. More information about ArtSpring can be found on NSD's website: www1.nsd.org/artspring Below are some photos that capture the joy of art and community for our kids at ArtSpring! Many thanks to NSD art instructor JoAnn Grambush for her contributions to this article!
In addition, WSPTA's Legislative Consultant, Marie Sullivan, has written some articles that also provide great insight into some of the new legislation. Check out her analyses:
We are grateful for your feedback! The survey will close on Friday, May 17, 2019. |
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