 Each year, Washington State PTA recognizes the work of individuals, PTAs, and Councils across the state via a variety of awards, including Leadership Academy and the Awards of Excellence Program. Cottage Lake Elementary and Council submitted applications and were recognized for their efforts at the WSPTA 2023 Spring Training Conference held on May 6th and 7th. Awards work to celebrate the efforts of local PTAs and Councils in a variety of different areas. The criteria reflect a strong knowledge and application of best practices and the submission process can be rigorous. These awards are truly reflective of the dedication and strength of these PTAs and the powerful contributions they make to their communities. This year's recipients included: 2022 - 2023 WSPTA Awards Recipients
Congratulations! Learn more about the WSPTA Standards of Excellence Awards and Leadership Awards and apply for your PTA next year.
Win Donuts for Your Next Board Meeting!
What is the Standards of Affiliation (SOA)? It is a checklist of 13 items that every PTA should do annually. Completing this checklist will help local PTAs ensure their independent nonprofit business remains current with all IRS, state, insurance, and PTA requirements. We encourage you to include your entire board of directors in this work, to keep your membership up to date with your progress, and to record progress in meeting minutes. Questions? Email vpsupportel@northshorecouncilptsa.org
Insurance renewal notices from AIM insurance have started to arrive!  Remember to review coverage with your board before paying the premium. Please note that premium payments are due before the end of November. WSPTA Recommendations for Insurance include:
Also be sure to add Northshore School District as an additional insured and request the endorsement from AIM when you renew - they do not automatically send that each year. NSD requires an updated copy of the form each year by December. If your PTA does not submit the updated endorsement, you risk cancellation of existing facility reservations and will be unable to make new requests until they have updated insurance paperwork. Renewing with Additional Insured and Endorsement There are two ways to request an Additional Insured with endorsement: (1.) If you have not yet renewed, when applying for insurance online, choose to add the Additional Insured and add: Northshore School District 3330 Monte Vista Parkway Bothell, WA 98021 In the description request put: “Please send Endorsement with certificate.” You will be emailed a copy of your Insurance and the Additional Insured certificates. A copy of both of these then need to be forwarded to Vanessa Greek at the NSD office. (2.) If you have already renewed but did not submit the request with the AI information at renewal, fill out the Additional Insured Request Form. Make sure you put on the request that you need an “Endorsement with certificate”. Then send the form to aim@aim-companies.com. Once you have both certificates, send a copy of each to Vanessa Greek at the NSD office. For questions, contact AIM toll free at 1-800-876-4044.  Join us for ‘Northshore PTAs Connect’ – an online roundtable discussion for PTA/PTSA leaders to ask questions, share ideas, and connect with one another.
This evening (7pm) roundtable will feature a focused discussion on the topic of PTA Success. Local leaders will have the opportunity to ask questions and get support to make sure their PTA/PTSA is in good standing and on track to meet upcoming deadlines and SOA requirements. While there may be a focus topic, Northshore PTAs Connect Roundtables are an open discussion and there is always opportunity to ask questions and tackle emerging or ongoing areas of interest or concern. Date: Thursday, October 14th Time: 7:00PM Location: Online via Zoom Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81122278122 Meeting ID: 811 2227 8122 Passcode: Available upon request Questions? Contact Council! Start the school year off right by being sure to check these important tasks off your PTA To-Do list!  This is a busy time of year for PTA Leaders with so many things to get done in order to run your PTA, plan programming for students, and provide support to your school community. Here at Council we want to make sure a few key "to-do" items don't get overlooked so we've created the checklist below. We've included links and resources for these items, but remember, Council is always here to help and support our local Northshore PTA Leaders! Visit our Contact Page to connect with a Council officer. 
 The 2021-2022 school year is upon us and the PTA year is about to get into full swing! By now your PTA has held its summer board retreat and has begun planning a membership campaign. So what's next?
Now it's time to plan your first general membership meeting of the year! While some PTAs may be planning for in person meetings, many will plan for their meeting to be held virtually, which may require a little additional preparation. If you are new to hosting virtual meetings, get to know your virtual meeting tool’s online support – there should be tips for setup for all the features, including screen sharing, enabling closed captioning, and login requirements. TIP: Host one or more practice meetings with a few board members ahead of time to get accustomed to the online meeting tools and platform you'll be using. Whether the PTA meets virtually or in person, the same items of business must be done.
Bonus Tip: Plan on having something additional to offer your members once the business is complete. The first meeting is a great opportunity for your principal to give an update on the start of the year – there are lots of things about this school year that are different! Plan ahead with your principal and make sure you know what format for taking questions they are comfortable with. During the meeting, act as the moderator by setting ground rules and expectations for how members will participate and ask their questions. Questions about planning your 1st general membership meeting of the year? Contact Council - We are here to help! Information provided in this blog was originally posted by WSPTA in a 2020 article. Click here to read that article.  The Washington State PTA Standards of Affiliation Agreement Checklist 2020-2021 is now available! This checklist is a tool to help your PTA keep up with its legal requirements, both as a non-profit and as a PTA. The requirements come from the IRS, the State of Washington, your insurance company, and WSPTA. What your PTA needs to do:
There have been a few updates this year to make the SOA even better, including an introduction page that has clear instructions, calls out what’s new to the checklists in 2020-21, and offers a number of resources to answer questions and give more detail on all requirements. This video from WSPTA offers a great overview of SOA and what it means for your PTA: In addition, WSPTA offers a number of tools to help support your PTA in completing the SOA checklist, including:
Remember that sharing the progress of your SOA with your members also lets others know about how your PTA operates and shows the work that goes on, often behind the scenes, to keep your PTA legal, safe and operating within the very best practices of our state. Questions? Council is here to help!
 The Washington State PTA Standards of Affiliation Agreement Checklist 2019-2020 is now available! If you are looking for it from the home page, navigation is as follows: This checklist is a tool to help your PTA keep up with its legal requirements, both as a non-profit and as a PTA. The requirements come from the IRS, the State of Washington, your insurance company, and WSPTA. What your PTA needs to do:
New this year on the Standards of Affiliation Checklist is to update IRS Form 8822-B. The IRS added this requirement in 2018 for security reasons. Form 8822-B should be filed when the PTA’s mailing address changes or the identity of the “responsible party” as listed on the IRS Form 990 changes. The "responsible party" for a PTA should be a principal officer (usually the president or treasurer). There is no penalty for late filing, but it is important that records with the IRS are up to date. Do it as soon as you can! Because this form requires that the responsible party include his/her Social Security Number, the suggested best practice is that the outgoing responsible party should make sure that this form is filled out by an incoming responsible party during transition, to ensure their personal information is not left on this account. This video from WSPTA offers a great overview of SOA and what it means for your PTA: In addition, WSPTA offers a number of tools to help support your PTA in completing the SOA checklist, including: Remember that sharing the progress of your SOA with your members also lets others know about how your PTA operates and shows the work that goes on, often behind the scenes, to keep your PTA legal, safe and operating within the very best practices of our state. Questions? Council is here to help!
 Each PTA is a legal corporation and your officers have fiduciary responsibilities to keep your organization on track. Some requirements come from the IRS, others are Washington State law, your PTA insurance company has requirements and WSPTA also has standards. Keeping on top of it all can be a challenge!
Washington State PTA (WSPTA) offers the Standards of Affiliation (SOA) as a guideline for keeping all the important requirements for your PTA up to date. Taxes to insurance to best practices-- all can be tracked with the help of the Washington State PTA SOA checklist-- and the 2018-19 SOA is now available! Tracking your PTA’s compliance with the SOA checklist is a great way to stay on top of things this year. Sharing the progress you’ve made with your members also lets others know about how your PTA operates and shows the work that goes on, often behind the scenes, to keep your PTA legal, safe and operating within the very best practices of our state. If parts of of SOA don’t make sense or you need further help and clarification, WSPTA has also created a Best Practices and Tip Sheet with details on each of the 13 requirements. And, of course, Northshore Council is here to help you as well! Contact us with any questions or concerns you may have! |
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