Parent Teacher Association

Are you involved in your school's PTA? I wasn't my first few years, but this past year I decided to serve on the board. I have found that since I don't have kids at my school AND since I don't live in the community, serving on the PTA really helps build a bond with the families. I work really hard at the beginning of the year to build relationships with my kids and their parents and I've found that it becomes easier when you already know each other before the year even starts.

This past year I served on my school's PTA in the Campus Improvement position. It was my job to collaborate with the administration to decide on what in the school could be updated. Sometimes it's new signs for the hallways, sometimes it's putting in a trophy case, but this year it was decided that we needed playground covers. Down here in Texas, we don't get to go out much for recess in August/September and May/June because of the heat. The entire school has been working hard to put every penny we can to install playground covers. We haven't purchased them yet (those things are upwards of 30K!), but hopefully we will be able to in the next few years.
For the 2014-2015 school year I will be serving as the PTA's secretary. It will be my job to take the minutes at the board meetings and the association meetings. I'm pretty organized and detail oriented, so when a mom asked me to serve in that position I couldn't say no! :)

 

All this to say that if you haven't ever been involved in PTA, I really recommend that you get involved! I'm naturally a shy and introverted person and so being around these parents all year really helps them to see my personality and to see me as more than a 1st grade teacher.

(On a sidenote, I really hate posting without pictures, but there wasn't much in the way of images for a PTA post! Maybe I'll search Pinterest for something funny.... )

 

There... that's better. :)

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I also want to announce the winner from the HUGE First Grade Product Swap and Giveaway. We have over 1400 entries- thanks to everyone that participated!
The winner is....