|
Dieringer and PTSA (Parent, Teacher, Student Association)
Dieringer has a PTSA group at each school. You can go to their
websites by clicking on the links above.
What is a PTA?
A PTA unit is a local, self-governing membership association whose
main purpose is to promote the health, welfare, safety and education
of children and youth in the home, school, community, and place
of worship. PTAs traditionally work within a school community, although
there are examples of non school based PTAs working for children
in other settings.
Why Join a PTA?
One important reason to join PTA is that PTA is the only group
whose exclusive interest is the health, welfare, safety and education
of your children. Children cannot vote, and are not organized and
do not participate in the legislative process. Thus, they have no
say in creating the policies that affect their lives and well-being.
PTA allows you to speak for the interest of your children when you
cannot be there yourself. Whether in Washington DC, Olympia, or
in your own city government offices -- everywhere decisions are
made that affect your children, PTA is there speaking on behalf
of your children. This has always been and will always be a central
focus of PTA. In 1937, PTA was advocating for child labor laws.
Today the issues are equally important for our children -- internet
safety, youth violence, levy/bond election, education reform, school
class size and many more.
Another compelling reason to join your local PTA unit is that every
study ever conducted on the relationship between student performance
and parent involvement in education shows that when parents are
involved in education, student academic performance improves. Involvement
in PTA allows you not only to be involved in your child's education,
but also allows you to get to know their teachers better and become
more familiar with the school and what goes on there. It also allows
you to get to know the parents of your children's classmates better.
Even if you don't have a great deal of time to devote to PTA activities,
by becoming a member and attending meetings you are showing your
children that you believe their school and their education is important.
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, your membership in PTA has
a direct impact on your children and the quality of their school.
PTA has the ability, more than any other organization, to make a
school a better place for your children to learn. PTAs do this by
addressing the needs of their individual schools. By becoming a
PTA member, you can help identify those needs and develop solutions
that may include: making the school safer, becoming more technologically
advanced, being more tolerant to others' differences, and bringing
enriched educational opportunities to the school.
|
