FIRST DISTRICT PTA WINTER CONFERENCE

SAVE THE DATE! First District PTA is reinstating the Winter Conference. We are asking you to save the date: Saturday, January 21, 2023, and to plan to attend this informative morning. Topics will include current education issues, including the state budget and hints on how to advocate for what you learn. Cost is TBD but will be low. More information and agenda coming. Save the date and watch for registration in early January.

CALIFORNIA STATE LEGISLATION INFORMATION

California State PTA has announced that the Legislation Conference will be held in Sacramento on March 20-21, 2023. Conference registration will cost $260, which covers lunch, dinner and a coffee break on day one at the Embassy Suites in Sacramento. CAPTA has secured a hotel rate of $234 plus tax per night for attendees. Registration should hopefully open in the next month.

Advocacy Monthly Calls - California State PTA - The California State PTA has monthly legislation briefings. Anyone can attend. Please sign up here if you are interested in attending. 

Patty Scripter, VP Legislation & Advocacy

[email protected]

FIRST DISTRICT PTA RECRUITING FOR 23-25 BOARD

Do you remember when you first joined a PTA board? Wasn’t it great that PTA provides resources, training and counterpart assistance?

At First District PTA, we offer our volunteer Board of Directors marketable skills, leadership training, computer skills, as well as support from a great group of individuals with the same passion.

If you are enthusiastic about children and enjoy a challenge, we welcome your skill set.

If you have any questions about the available positions, please contact Diane Velasco Hyland, First District PTA Nominations Committee Chair at 626-616-5442 or [email protected]

Please consider joining the First District PTA Board of Directors here. The deadline to submit your application/self-nomination form is Wednesday, December 14, 2022. 

REFLECTIONS

So many artists and creative Reflections entries! Thank you to all of the local council leaders that submitted their virtual Reflections entries to First District PTA via the required Google Form and uploaded the Google spreadsheet by the December 1, 2022 deadline. We will share the judging results in January 2023.



SENIOR SCHOLARSHIPS

A reminder that the deadline for the $1,000 Volunteer Service Scholarships from California State PTA is February 1, 2023. The scholarship information can be found here: CAPTA Senior Scholarship.

The First District PTA Commemorative Scholarships will be distributed to council PTA scholarship chairs in January 2023. More information will be shared as the Google Form becomes available.

EDUCATION

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s report Card, released data on student performance trends in mathematics, reading, science, and writing.  The National Center for Education Statistics administers the assessment.

The results for California compared to the nation are trending downward.  The 2022 National public average scale score (0-500) was 235.  You can drill down NAEP data here or NCES data here.

Please review this data and share it with your local school district leaders so that an action plan can be developed for the most urgent findings in each school community. There are resources provided by Tom Kane from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. There are resources from the Education Recovery Scorecard and how to explore federally mandated State Education Plans to address learning loss. Also included is the meeting of the National PTA Legislative chairs discussion here.

Diane Velasco Hyland, VP Education & Family Engagement

[email protected]

FIRST DISTRICT MEMBERSHIP AWARDS

As of December 1, 2022, First District PTA has 62,987 members to date, which is 89.98% of the way to our 2022-23 70,000 goal. Only 7,013 more!

Congratulations to our November council and out-of-council unit monthly membership challenge winners: 

NOVEMBER BUMPER CROP TROPHIES

Council Award: South Pasadena: 112.4% of last year's membership!

Out of Council Unit Award: Henry Dalton Elementary PTA: 253.3% of last year's membership!

NOVEMBER YIELD PER ACRE TROPHIES

Council Award: San Marino, 84.06% of total enrollment of schools with PTAs

Out of Council Unit Award: iPoly High School PTSA: 140.69% of enrollment

In addition, Richard Henry Dana Middle School, Arcadia Council, has qualified for the Gardener Award by having 100% of their classroom teachers joined as members. 

First District PTA's 2022-23 membership challenges can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iw_SHPlQ6ILzRJ3Zi0W9-jiwaWs5AGlK/view?usp=sharing

Kitty Cahalan, VP Membership

[email protected]

INSURANCE PREMIUMS DUE NOW

ALL insurance payments must be made directly to our insurance broker AIM (Association Insurance Management, Inc). DO NOT SEND INSURANCE PREMIUMS THROUGH CHANNELS!

All PTAs will fill out the insurance questionnaire and submit payment through the AIM Insurance Portal. Your president and treasurer have received an email directly from AIM with a link to the portal.

Insurance payments must be made to AIM no later than December 20th or a late fee applies. Please allow time for it to arrive by the deadline if you are paying by check. The deadline means the payment must be “received by,”not “postmarked by” the 20th.

CLICK HERE TO PAY INSURANCE NOW

You may pay the insurance premium via ACH transfer or unit check. A short video tutorial on how to use the portal and make your payment is available here: HOW TO PAY INSURANCE VIDEO

Don’t forget to visit California State PTA’s website to download the latest copy of the Insurance Guide from AIM. The guide is also available in Spanish here. 

-------------------------

MID-YEAR AUDITS

Auditors, Treasurers, and Presidents, it’s time to begin preparing for the mid-year audit! 

Treasurers: Please review the California Stae PTA Toolkit chapter called “Preparation for an Audit” and use this information as your guide to ensure that all the reports and data your auditor needs are included in what you hand over to them for the audit. 

Auditors: Get familiar with what's needed for this audit and how to conduct the process. Review the information in the PTA Toolkit. Review the Audit Q&As from California State PTA.

Presidents: Be sure to include the presentation and review of the audit on the agenda for the first possible executive board meeting after the close of the audit period in anticipation of presenting the audit for adoption at an early spring association meeting (January or February, if possible). Keep up the support and positive vibes! Your finance team is working hard behind the scenes! 

Who can perform the audit?

• Our insurance company, AIM, requires a qualified accountant to perform the audit, but only if they are going to do it without a review committee to double-check their work.
• AIM defines “qualified” as someone who has been professionally trained/licensed to perform audits such as a CPA or other professional accountant. 
• They do not need to be currently employed in the field. A bookkeeper/bank employee is generally not trained to do auditing.
• A person who is not a qualified accountant may still be the auditor. Their findings must be reviewed by an audit review committee. 
• Your audit review committee can be made up of a combination of non-check signers and check signers as long as the majority are non-signers. 
• The treasurer and financial secretary should not be a member of the committee as you cannot audit your own books. 
• The audit review committee appointment (and the auditor appointment if not elected to the position) should have been ratified at the first general association of the year, and their names should be recorded in the minutes.

QUESTIONS? CONTACT ME!

If you have any questions, please contact me at [email protected], and be sure to add my email address to your safe email sender list to avoid losing important information in your spam folder. If you have an urgent question (need a response in less than 24 to 48 hours), you can text or call me at (818) 653-7703.

Visit our website to see past issues of "You Heard it Here First!"