Category: Reflections

WSPTA Reflections Ribbons Have Arrived!

6/1/2022

Council has received ribbons for all state qualifiers from Washington State PTA. These are for all participants who advanced from the Council level to the WSPTA level for judging.

If you are the Reflections Chair or President for your local PTA/PTSA, please contact Jasmine at reflections@northshorecouncilptsa.com to arrange for pick up.

Remember to check out our 2021-2022 Reflections Virtual Art Showcase featuring all 267 Northshore artists who qualified for Council!

To learn more about Reflections and how to promote the PTA program at your school, visit our Reflections page.

2021-2022 Reflections Results from NPTA

5/10/2022

Congratulations • National PTA Reflections

Please join us in congratulating Hailey Bacalzo of Innovation Lab High School and Hayley Francisco of Timbercrest Middle School, who were honored for their artistic endeavors in the National PTA Reflections Program!

ILHS sophomore Hailey B. received an Award of Excellence for her photography entry "Lifting Up Nature".
TMS 7th grader Hayley F. received an Award of Merit for her literature entry entitled "The Shield".

This year's Reflections theme was "I Will Change the World By...". National PTA received more than 900 entries from 47 state PTAs. A list of all National award recipients can be found here: https://www.pta.org/docs/default-source/files/programs/reflections/current_reflections-21-22/2021-22-reflections-winners-list.pdf

To learn more about Reflections and how to promote the PTA program at your school, visit our Reflections page.

3/21/22 General Membership Meeting Recap

4/25/2022

Last month Council held their 4th General Meeting of the 2021-2022 school year.

We appreciate all the local leaders from across the district as well as community and school partners who took the time to attend!

Continue reading below for a recap of this meeting.

Recap: 3/21/22 General Membership Meeting

Guest Presentation by Northshore School District Ethnic Studies Framework: NSD Assistant Director of Equity and Pedagogy, Melissa Riley, and Northshore students shared a presentation on ethnic studies in the Northshore School District. This presentation answered the questions "What is ethnic studies, why is it important, and what will it look like for kids?" The curriculum will be for grades Pre K-12 and more information can be found here: https://bit.ly/pesbccdei.

Council Business:
Approval of the January 20th, 2022 Meeting Minutes which were accepted with minor changes. Approval of the preliminary budget for the 2022-2023 school year.

Election of our 2022-2023 officers:
Thank you to our hardworking Nominating Committee, Diana Christiansen, Cherry Holmes, and Jasmine Lee Fry, for putting together the slate of candidates! Diana Christiansen read the Nominating Report. The self-nomination period was held in accordance with our e-voting policy with no others submitting their names for nomination. The election script was followed with a reading from the WSPTA bylaws. A motion was cast to accept the slate as presented, seconded, and approved by a voice vote.

Congratulations to our incoming 2022-2023 officers!!

For the Office of Co President: Rachel Fitzgerald and Mary Khouzam
For the Office of First Vice President: Grace Jurado
For the Office of Secretary: Open*
For the Office of Treasurer: Serena Xu
For the Office of VP of Events: Open*
For the Office of VP of Advocacy: Jennifer Drury
For the Office of VP of Communications: Jennifer Snyder
For the Office of VP of Elementary Support: Diana Christiansen
For the Office of VP of Secondary Support: Brenae Brix

*Please be advised that by the time the self-nomination period closed, no candidate had come forth for either Secretary or VP of Events. Council will continue to seek volunteers for these positions with the goal of holding elections for them at a future General Membership Meeting. If interested in serving in either of these roles on an interim basis, please contact us at president@northshorecouncilptsa.org.

District Updates:

NSD Partnerships & Volunteer Coordinator Marco Garcia informed us that everything related to becoming a Northshore volunteer or being a campus visitor can now be completed on the Safe Visitor website for volunteers. He also let us know that the vaccine requirement has not been lifted. Finally, Community Serve Day will be August 21st 2022 with more information to come. Learn more about becoming a NSD volunteer.

NSD School Board Updates: Director Amy Cast reviewed the technology parameters with us, reviewed strategic goals and indicators of progress as it has been five years, and reviewed the use of the Levy money including safety grants, work towards more school mental health professionals, nurses, as well as fewer portables etc. Learn more about NSD's School Board.

Northshore School's Foundation: Hanisha Bakshani/NSF Ambassador North Creek High School let us know that the NSF All in For Kids event is March 31st, 2022 at 4pm at the Evergreen Church. Learn more about the Northshore School's Foundation.

Council Reports:

Staff Appreciation: Rachel Fitzgerald informed us that we will have a virtual staff appreciation for district staff. Currently collecting thank you notes from the community to put together for the staff. There will be a different piece for the council to do as well. The deadline to collect notes and gather all the information is April 22nd. Learn more...

Council Recognition Awards: Mary Khouzam updated us on Council recognition awards. This year we have an online form for nominations again which can be found here. If you would like to help with the awards recognition, please contact Mary at awards@northshorecouncilptsa.org.

Speaker and Events Grants Program: Mary Khouzam let us know that grant program has closed for this year. Click here for Round 3 Recipients.

Reflections: Jasmine Lee Fry updated us that we had 267 entries that were submitted to the council. 59 submissions were forwarded to the state. 4 entries won awards at the state level. Click here for judging results from both Council & WSPTA as well as a link to our Virtual Art Showcase.

Special Education: Laura Staneff let us know that Council will hold a series of 4 webinars scheduled for free through PAVE. The first one was about IEPS and took place on March 22nd. There will be three other webinars in April, May and June. Learn more...

Mental Health Committee: Melissa Kline & Pauline Wray updated that the Mental Health Committee's Digital Safety Event with Jo Langford happened on March 14th and was well attended. Currently the committee is working on getting Mental Health resource posters up in secondary schools. Finally, an anti-bullying article is currently up on our website and ask that you please share it with your communities.

Membership: Hanisha Bakshani & Melissa Kline updated us that 21 PTAs are over their membership numbers from last year and we have a total of 5,337 members to date.

We hope you will join us for our next General Membership Meeting on May 16th, 2022 @ 7pm. This meeting will also include our annual Spring Recognition Event!

For a full list of our upcoming meetings and events, check out our Calendar.

Reflections: 2021-2022 Art Showcase & State Results

3/16/2022

Check out our 2021-2022 Reflections Virtual Art Showcase!

This is a multi-media Showcase event! Guests are able to view the dance and film pieces, listen to the music compositions, read the literature pieces, and view the photography and visual arts pieces.

We hope that you will be able to celebrate with your student and share this showcase with friends and family!

All 267 Northshore PTSA Council Qualifier student artworks are on display and we've indicated if the artwork was either a State Qualifier or a Judge's Choice Award recipient.

Click here to view Council's Judging Results.

We'd also like to honor and congratulate the following eleven (11) artists for their awards at the state level. The four (4) Outstanding Interpretation winners will advance to the National PTA for the final round of judging!

Click here for a full list of WSPTA Reflections Finalist.

1/20/22 General Membership Meeting Recap

2/3/2022

Last month Council held their 3rd General Meeting of the 2021-2022 school year.

We appreciate all the local leaders from across the district as well as community and school partners who took the time to attend!

Continue reading below for a recap of this meeting.

Recap: 1/20/22 General Membership Meeting

Council Business:

November 15th, 2021 meeting minutes were accepted as presented.
Serena Xu, Northshore Council PTSA Treasurer, reported that the mid year financial review will take place on Monday January 24th.
The Nominating Committee was elected and includes: Diana Christiansen, Jasmine Fry, and Cherry Holmes. Click here to learn more about serving on Council in the 2022-2023 school year or to make a nomination.

Bond & Levies Support/Opposition Vote:
Council's Board of Directors put forward the issue of supporting the bond and levies that are on the February ballot.
During this meeting, both the pro and con positions on the issue were presented before calling for a motion to determine our PTSA’s support of or opposition to the bond and levies. Council would like to announce that the motion to support the Northshore School District Bond & Levies on the February 8th Ballot was passed unanimously. Learn more...

District Updates:

We heard form NSD Partnerships & Volunteer Coordinator Marco Garcia who discussed how he organized a COVID testing clinic and food donations packages.
NSD School Board Updates were provided by Director Amy Cast which included reviewing the monitoring report and the budget.

Council Committee Reports:

Advocacy: Diana Christiansen & Jen Drury provided updates regarding the recent Focus on Advocacy Week as well as information on signing up for the action alerts which can be found here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/subscribe-to-wsptas-action-network-group
Educational Speakers and Community Events Grants Program: Mary Khouzam, Grants Committee Chair, reminded us that there was still time to submit grant applications for the Jan 21st deadline. She also announced that the date may be pushed but that this decision is still pending. If you have further questions, please reach out to the Grants Committee.
Reflections: Jasmine Lee Fry, Reflections Chair, reported that the online showcase will be up and running at a later date as it is still be worked on. Council's Reflections Results now available!
Mental Health Committee: Melissa Kline, Co-Chair for the Mental Health Committee, provided an update regarding what the committee has been working on including advocating for more resources, putting out articles, and working with counselors on flyers and communication materials. The committee also put out a call for action - asking local PTA leaders to check how accessible mental health resources were at their school. Learn more about that here.
Membership: Co-Chairs, Hanisha Bakshani and Melissa Kline, provided an update that we have 5181 members across the district with many of our local PTAs already earning a WSPTA Membership Growth Award. The more members we have the stronger our voice is in the district!
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: DEI Chair, Cherry Holmes, hosted a DEI roundtable meeting early in the school year. Cherry asked for feedback on "What does DEI mean in your PTSA/School?" - send your response here.
PTA Support: VP of Elementary Support, Grace Jurado, asked that you please reach out with any questions or concerns or if you need any help. VP of Secondary Support, Brenae Brix, discussed that families are looking for more information on preparing around college and a local parent has volunteered to provide this information. This parent is partnering with Council to provide an info night on March 16th about preparing for college. More information will be coming soon. Middle school career days are being worked on at several middle schools. It will be a half day and presented within the students classroom.
Emergency Preparedness: Co-Chairs, Tracy Jokisch and Robin McKenzie, reported to us that an additional 117 Stop the Bleed! kits were obtained this round. That is a total of 862 kits in the district. The next meeting for E-Prep is Feb 1st at 11am and the guest speaker will be Deb Fuller. Learn more...
Special Education: Laura Staneff will soon be joining council as our new Special Education Chair.

We hope you will join us for our next General Membership Meeting on March 21st, 2022 @ 7pm.
For a full list of our upcoming meetings and events, check out our Calendar.

Reflections 2021-2022 • Results from Council

1/22/2022

Congratulations to all our talented Northshore artists who participated in Reflections this year! We had 267 entries from 28 schools. The students rhymed, painted, drew, colored, composed, danced, filmed and photographed with creativity and passion - while keeping in mind the 2021-22 theme of "I Will Change the World By..."

Judging Results: There were 59 State Qualifiers (SQ) who continued on to Washington State PTA for further judging. There were also 15 pieces that received the honorable Judge's Choice Award (JC).

Council Results by Category

Council Results by PTA/PTSA

Congrats to all the students who made it to the Council Level for judging!!

With Gratitude...

Thank you to this year's Council-level Reflections judges, including Amelie Fry, Greg Fry, Josh Grossberg, Jeannea Haugstad, Amanda Rice, Colleen Robson and Kali Robson, all of whom generously spent many hours during the busy holiday season to judge all of the pieces.
A huge shout out to all our Northshore PTAs/PTSAs Reflections Chairs for running your programs and celebrating student artists during a pandemic!
And many thanks to Council Reflections Chair, Jasmine Lee Fry, for organizing this year's Reflections program and supporting our local Reflections Chairs!

Council is in the process of creating a website to showcase the many creative Northshore student artists! We plan to launch our 2021-2022 Reflections Virtual Art Showcase website this February where we will display all 267 pieces of artwork. Details will be posted once the website is available for viewing.

11/15/21 General Membership Meeting Recap

12/6/2021

Last month Council held their 2nd General Meeting of the 2021-2022 school year. We appreciate all the local leaders from across the district as well as community and school partners who took the time to attend! Continue reading for a recap of this meeting.

General Updates from President Jane Chiodo:

Reminder to submit your directory requests to Council's Co-Secretaries, Cheri Hardin and Pauline Wray
Each PTA needs two insurance documents by December 1st on file with the district
3 Events coming up this week: Anxiety Presentation, Teen Independence Presentation, and a DEI Roundtable. Visit our Calendar page for more information on upcoming events.

Council Business: The minutes from the September 2021 meeting were approved as written. Council's AIM insurance for the year was renewed and paid for in October. The mid year financial review committee was appointed while the election for the Nominating Committee was postponed until the next membership meeting.

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Michelle Reid, Northshore School District Superintendent, presented information on the bond and levies coming up during the special election in February 2022. She discussed that we had the lowest drop in enrollment in the state from Covid. However, we still rely on and need the bond and levy money to fund many of our programs. She also mentioned that the bonds and levies are not looking for new taxes, they are renewed taxes that already exist. Finally, she shared that the presentation is available to share at other PTA meetings.
Sue Freeman came and shared information about Northshore Nourishing Network, an organization that has been around for 11 years. Visit their website to find information about local food banks as well as other programs to help families in need. Council also keeps a list of food banks hosted at our local schools. If your school/PTA has a food bank that you would like added to this list please email us. If you would like information on setting up a food bank at your school, contact Melissa Kline.
Darin Hanson and Salim Mohammed from Maywood Hills PTA shared their new and successful approach to membership. This year, membership was paid for by their PTA for anyone who opted in via a simple two step process on their website. With this shift in their membership campaign they are able to focus more efforts on volunteering, events, and engaging with their members & school community.

Council Reports:

F.A.C.E (Family and Community Engagement): Claudine Miller discussed strategies for engaging with your school by surveying your school's teachers and admins to find out the top three needs and/or top three wishes for this year.
Membership: Melissa Kline & Hanisha Bakshani shared our membership progress so far this year. For more information, visit our Membership page.
Educational Speakers and Community Events Grant Program: Mary Khouzam shared information about how to apply for this program. Click here to learn more. Council is also hosting an upcoming Parent Education event through the grants program called “Guiding Teens On the Bumpy Road to Independence”. To learn more about this event and others, visit our Parent Education Opportunities page.
Reflections: Jasmine Lee Fry provided information about submitting art to Council by the December 3rd deadline. Visit our Reflections page to learn more.
Advocacy: Diana Christiansen & Jen Drury gave several updates including:
- A survey for local leaders/advocacy chairs on how Council can better support local advocacy efforts.
- Save the Date for Advocacy Week which is taking place January 17-21, 2022
- WA state PTA blog has an article about the importance of filling out the paperwork for free and reduced lunch. By filling out the paperwork, it gives families and students access to more than just free and reduced lunches. Click here to learn more.
- A recap of the 2021 Legislative Assembly which included an update on approved resolutions and amendments to existing resolutions as well as our Top 5 priorities. They also noted that one primary focus for Advocacy right now is more nurses and mental health professionals in the schools.
Mental Health Committee: Melissa Kline and Pauline Wray shared that the Mental Health Committee will be hosting a Parent Education event on Wednesday, November 17th at 1pm titled "Identifying and Addressing Youth Anxiety with Kendra Read, PhD". Click here to view a recording of this presentation. They also shared some of the other efforts that the committee has been doing to bring more mental health awareness and resources to students and families around the district, including promoting NSD's December 9th Forefront Suicide Prevention Training for parents and caregivers of high school students.

We hope you will join us for our next General Membership Meeting on January 20th, 2022 @ 7pm.
For a full list of our upcoming meetings and events, check out our Calendar.

Submitting Reflections to Council

11/12/2021

You have promoted Reflections and shared your due date with your school community. Some of you may even be receiving artwork!

So now what? Now it's time to submit artwork to Council! Deadline to submit is 9PM on Friday, December 3rd.

Check out our Step-by-Step Guide to Submitting Your PTA's Reflections Entries to Council below. For questions or help with your submissions, please contact Jasmine Lee Fry at reflections@northshorecouncilptsa.org.

Make sure you have registered your Local PTA Reflections Program with the National PTA.
Make sure the signature lines on all entry forms are filled in. Names can be signed or typed.
Take any necessary digital photos of visual arts pieces or work with families to get photos. Please check the rules to ensure the pieces are compliant.
Arrange for blind judging as necessary. Click here to read more on judging Reflections.
Determine the artwork you will be submitting to Council. Each local PTA can submit up to 20 pieces (+ up to 6 special artist pieces) to Council.
Each PTA has its own Dropbox folder. A link will be emailed to Reflections chairs and PTA presidents by Monday, November 15th. Once you have access to the folder, please upload a test file so we have time to troubleshoot any issues you may encounter.
Inside your folder you will see:
- Directions -- Please read this document before submitting.
- Spreadsheet -- You will fill in some information needed to coordinate judging and to advance pieces to WSPTA. All of the information you need should be on the entry forms.
Upload/copy/drag student art piece and entry form to the Dropbox folder. You should be submitting two files per student entry. The exception will be Music Composition entries that require notation; those entries will have three files (This is only for middle and high school divisions).
Please rename the files to match this format: Student First Name and Last Name - Arts Category - Form/Artwork/Notation (notation is only used for 6-12th Music Composition entries). This will help us make sure the hundreds of pieces of art we receive can be matched to an entry form.
1. Example 1: Jasmine Fry - Literature - Form
2. Example 2: Jasmine Fry - Literature - Artwork
When you have added all of the artwork and entry forms to your Dropbox, please email reflections@northshorecouncilptsa.org and let us know you are done and how many pieces you are submitting, so we can verify that we have matching numbers.
Feel free to submit your artwork early! After 9PM on Friday, December 3rd, access will be restricted to the Reflections Dropbox folders.

For more information about Reflections, including entry forms and rules, visit our Reflections page.

Upcoming Reflections Roundtables

10/10/2021

Council is hosting two (2) Roundtables focusing on Reflections!

Join us for one or both of these roundtables which are designed to support our local PTA/PTSA leaders with any questions they may have about the 2021-2022 Reflections Program.

Monday, October 18th • 7:00PM	Thursday, October 21st • 11:00AM
Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89529669181 Meeting ID: 9895 2966 9181 Passcode: *Available upon request	Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84478095827 Meeting ID: 844 7809 5827 Passcode: *Available upon request

Can't make it to the roundtable but still have questions? Check out these additional resources for help!

Email Jasmine Lee Fry (Council Reflections Chair) - reflections@northshorecouncilptsa.org
Check out Council's Reflection page, WSPTA Reflections Site, and National PTA Reflections Site
Connect on Facebook by joining the WSPTA Reflections group and Council's Reflections group
Sign up for Council's "Almost Weekly" PTA Reflections Communications with everything you need to know:
Click this link to SIGN UP and SEE PAST ISSUES.

Reflections Theme Search for 2023-2024

9/9/2021

The theme search for the 2023-2024 Reflections arts program is underway! Students are encouraged to submit theme ideas that spark fun and creativity! In response to the winning theme, students from Pre-K through 12th grade will create original works of art in one or all the available arts categories: Dance Choreography, Film Production, Literature, Music Composition, Photography, Visual Arts.

The student who submits the winning entry will receive a $100 prize from National PTA. Past themes and duplicate submissions will not be considered. Submissions must by received via email by Nov. 1, 2021.

Click here to for a list of past themes. Submit your entry using the NEW online Theme Search form.
Questions? Email ptaprogdir@wastatepta.org.

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