Standards of Affiliation Checklist, 2019-2020

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:

Home --> PTA Leaders --> Governance - scroll down and click on "Standards of Affiliation (SOA)"

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:

• Take care of all SOA requirements
• Use the SOA checklist to keep track of progress
• Keep a copy with your legal documents and/or Treasurer's binder
• Involve your entire board
• Update your membership on your SOA progress
• Ask for help if you need it!
  

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:

• SOA Best Practices & Tips
  
• SOA FAQ
• 2019-20 Deadline Dates

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!

• Elementary PTA/PTSAs with questions should contact Cindy Jensen.
• Middle and High School PTSAs should contact Melissa Kline.