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Now is great time of year for our High School PTSAs to hold a Voter Registration Drive!  Students 16 years old and up are eligible to register to vote and will then be eligible to VOTE when they turn 18.
Hosting a student voter registration drive is a great way to not only increase your local advocacy efforts, but to also put the "S" into PTSA by elevating student voices. Students can promote civic engagement through voter registration drives and registering to vote themselves. Tips & Resources for Holding a Voter Registration Drive
 Last night at the January 20th General Membership Meeting Council's Board of Directors put forward the issue of supporting the bond and levies that are on the February ballot. During this meeting we presented both the pro and con positions on the issue 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. Resources to Learn More about the Bond & Levies, including the Pro and Con Positions General Bond & Levies Info: https://www.nsd.org/our-district/overview/bond-levies Pro Position Info: https://citizensfornorthshoreschools.org/ Con Position Info: https://www.nsdstudentsfirst.com/home Voter Information & Resources February 8th, 2022 Special Election Dates & Voter Registration Information January 21st - Ballots are mailed out and Accessible Voting Units (AVUs) are available at voting centers. January 31st - Last day for voters to register or update voter information online February 8th - Last day for voters to register or update voter information in person by 8pm February 8th - *Special Election Day* Deposit your ballot in an official drop box by 8pm Additional Resources King County Ballot Information Snohomish County Ballot Information  Voter information and registration can be found at http://vote.wa.gov/.
 Please join us for our third general membership meeting of the year on Thursday, January 20, 2022 via Zoom! In addition to our regular business items, we’ll also be holding elections for our 2021-2022 Nominating Committee (See First Notice of Election post). Additionally, Council's Board of Directors would like to put forward the issue of supporting the bond and levies that are on the February ballot. During this meeting we will present both the pro and con positions on the issue before calling for a motion to determine our PTSA’s support of or opposition to the bond and levies.
Council meetings will build your PTA knowledge, give you the opportunity to network with other PTA, school district and community leaders, and they can be a lot of fun, too. Each PTA may send up to 4 voting representatives - but we encourage ALL who are interested to attend. We look forward to seeing you there!
*A meeting passcode is required to join. It will be sent to local leaders via email. You can also request the passcode by emailing Council PTSA Communications VP, Rachel Fitzgerald.  A big part of PTA is Advocacy. Getting information out to voters is one way Council supports this advocacy work. In the upcoming November 2nd Election, three (3) Northshore School District School Board seats are up for election. To increase access to candidates for voters, Council held an in-person forum on October 5th, 2021. A recording of this forum can be found below. Before watching the forum, please read this message from Council: With events of this type, there were bound to be unexpected challenges and technical issues. And, unfortunately, our forum did not escape the gremlins. Initially, the candidates struggled with the 1 minute time limit on answers and a decision was made to extend their time to answer from 60 seconds to 90 seconds. There were also challenges with recording and especially with sound throughout the event. And, to cap it off, the microphone malfunctioned 10 minutes from the end of our event. When the microphone quit, we made the decision to switch to another video format and allow the candidates to remove their masks for their closing statements to ensure a clearer delivery. Because of these issues, you will notice that our recording is not as smooth as we had hoped. There are a few cuts in recording where we had to edit out some of the more obnoxious technical issues - especially the microphone squeaks and feedback - and our attempts to fix them. Any portion of the video where the candidates were speaking has been kept intact and unaltered. Despite the best efforts of our volunteers, you may also notice a sync issue between the audio and visual at times and most notably around the 1 hour mark. Please be assured that all answers candidates gave can be heard in their entirety. We sincerely appreciate the patience of those who were in person with us and the grace the candidates showed. We especially applaud our team of volunteers for demonstrating the meaning of "PTA Flexible". The School Board Candidate Forum can be viewed by clicking the image below.  Click the image above to watch the recording of the School Board Candidate Forum from October 5th, 2021. Additional Resources for Voters
  Northshore Council PTSA will be holding an in-person School Board Candidate Forum on October 5th from 7 - 8:30PM. This forum will take place at the Kenmore Community Club.
Please note that capacity is limited to 100 people on a first come, first served basis. For those who are unable to attend, a video recording will be posted to our website by Friday, October 8th. Logistics for those planning to attend:
Have a question for the candidates? Email us! This forum will be hosted and moderated by the Northshore Council PTSA. Additional Resources July 15th School Board Primary - Candidate Q&A King County Ballot Information Snohomish County Ballot Information November 2nd, 2021 General Election Dates & Voter Registration Information September 28th - National Voter Registration Day October 13th - Ballots mailed for King County October 14th - Ballots mailed for Snohomish County October 25th - Last day for voters to register or update voter information online November 2nd - Last day for voters to register or update voter information in person November 2nd - Election Day  Voter information and registration can be found at http://vote.wa.gov/.
 Save the Date for our School Board Candidate Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021! We are working on finalizing the location and time. At this time we are focusing on planning an in person forum. Details will be posted as soon as they are available. We are also gathering questions from the community to ask during the forum. If you would like to submit a question, please fill out the form below or email your question to advocacy@northshorecouncilptsa.org. This is a great opportunity to get to know the candidates better before the November 2nd General Election. To register to vote, update your voter registration information, or learn more about what's on your ballot, visit Vote.WA.gov.
 Below you will find links to Q&As from each of the eleven (11) Northshore School District School Board Candidates running in the August 2021 Primary Election. To view the responses, click on each candidate's image which will open a PDF of the Q&A. Note: These are best viewed from a desktop type device. A message from our Co-VPs of Advocacy: To reach as many voters as possible and provide them another resource to make informed choices on their ballots, we invited the school board candidates to answer seven questions taken from the most common questions and themes we heard from PTA and community members. We know that candidates are providing information on their own websites and social media, but it can be helpful to have one place where people can access information on all the candidates to compare them more efficiently. We chose questions that cover a variety of interests and concerns from across the district. We emailed each candidate using the email address listed on the King County Elections page. We asked candidates to submit their answers via a Google form by July 12th to allow us time to publish everyone’s responses before the ballots arrive in the mail. This gave candidates one week to respond. We recognize this was a short turn around but we were eager to get information to the voters of our district after having to pivot quickly after canceling our Zoom forums. The candidates’ answers are cut-and-pasted from the Google form so you will see their complete, un-edited answers. If they have any concerns about how their responses are presented, we have asked them to let us know, so that we may address the issue. We really appreciate that all of the candidates took the time to answer our questions. NSD School Board Candidates for Director District No. 1
NSD School Board Candidates for Director District No. 4
NSD School Board Candidates for Director District No. 5
 Voter information and registration can be found at http://vote.wa.gov/.   Council's virtual school board candidate forums that were scheduled to be published later this month have been cancelled. For a statement as to why these forums have been cancelled, please see the video below from Council President, Jane Chiodo. Our hope is to work towards hosting an in-person forum this fall before the general election in November. For a written transcript of the video below, please click here. Northshore Council PTSA Mission Statement Northshore Council PTSA is a welcoming organization that works to support our Local PTAs and serve the children and youth of our community through advocacy, education, mentoring, collaboration, and leadership. Website Links for School Board Candidates Contact Information Taken from King County Elections Page 6/29/2021.
¹No website listed. Link directs you to candidate statement on King County elections page.  Voter information and registration can be found at http://vote.wa.gov/.  Recently, Council has been sent several questions asking about our upcoming School Board Candidate Forum and felt it was best to address those questions publicly.
On June 22, 2021 at 7pm, the Northshore Council PTSA was scheduled to host the first of three scheduled Zoom Forums for each of the three open positions on the Northshore School Board. Unfortunately, all but one of the candidates pulled out at the last minute. We will leave it to the candidates to share their reasons. Due to this, the first recording was not able to be done. We are currently working on rescheduling this forum. Northshore Council PTSA has held many candidate forums in the past including school board candidate forums and most recently state representative forums in 2018 and 2020. Council volunteers have done their best to create a fair, non-partisan forum in which each candidate is asked the same questions and has the same time to answer the questions. Council took input from PTA/PTSA members as well as community members for these questions which represent a wide spectrum of issues and concerns from across the district. The three recorded Zoom Forums, though recorded on different days, would be all posted to our website on the same day and will not be edited or altered in any way. Members of the community have asked about the possibility of us hosting an in person forum. Due to the short time-frame, we do not have time to find a venue and organize an in-person forum before the primary school board election, but we will consider hosting one before the general election. Click here to learn more about the format of Council's 2021 School Board Candidate Forum. We hope that given another chance, all school board candidates will choose to participate in our Zoom Forums as it is important for voters to have the opportunity to hear about their experiences, views, and vision for the education of Northshore students in order to make informed choices. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to our Co-VPs of Advocacy by emailing advocacy@northshorecouncilptsa.org.  Northshore Council PTSA is pleased to announce that we will be hosting a 2021 Northshore School Board Candidate Forum just in time for the 2021 School Board Primary. This forum is being held to educate voters within Northshore School District about the school board candidates that are running in the Primary election. We will be sharing this pre-recorded event on July 15th. We will use social media as well as our website to promote the forum to the voters within Northshore School District. It is a great chance to get to know the candidates! The format will include 3 separate videos, one for each of the three seats that are up for election. Candidates from each seat will appear with their opponents. The moderators will be from the Northshore PTSA council’s advocacy team. There will not be an audience. We have offered each candidate two minutes for an opening statement. Following that will be a short question and answer period rotating between the candidates. The questions are being solicited from citizens of Northshore. Concluding, we will offer one minute to each candidate for a closing statement. If you have questions you would like asked during this forum, please email them to advocacy@northshorecouncilptsa.org. Keep an eye out for this important resource arriving on our website and social medias around July 15! Ballots should be arriving around the same time. See below for more information on the Primary and voter registration. This is a great resource for your PTA members and school community - please share it out! Diana Christiansen and Jennifer Drury Co-Vice Presidents of Advocacy Northshore Council PTSA 6.10 Voter information and registration can be found at http://vote.wa.gov/.  |
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