Office Manager

Cathy Lilja

Phone 301-460-0224

Fax 301-460-0225

Visit our web site

www. us.net/mccpta

I hope that this letter finds that everyone has survived the rush of the start of the school year. I have heard from many of our local PTAs during the past few weeks and I have been so impressed with all that everyone is doing for the children throughout the county. Please step back this month and take a few moments to enjoy the beautiful fall weather with your families!

The recent tragedies after the football games during the month of September impacted everyone. Each school and PTA responded to the needs of their community and supported them during these difficult times. We were very pleased to be able to partner with the Montgomery County Police and look forward to a continuing dialogue about ways that we can support parents, students and schools so that these terrible acts do not continue. Our Safety Committee under the leadership of Pam Moomau will be sharing information with you throughout the year as we work with the police to offer information to all of our families to help keep our children safe. We know that this is an ongoing concern of everyone and we will work cooperatively with the police and the school system to keep everyone informed.

Thank you to all of the delegates, presidents and MCCPTA executive board members who attended our September delegates assembly. We RUSHED through a lot of information – thank you for your diligence and patience. Attached to this letter are the Executive Board summer Resolutions dealing with misuse of PTA directories and Policy FAA workgroup participation as well as a motion to add a May delegates assembly. Please read carefully and share with your local PTAs and come to the October meeting prepared to take action. If you have any questions about these issues or anything that happened at the meeting, please do not hesitate to contact me or one of our officers. WE are always here to serve you. You will also find attached the MCCPTA Advocacy Priorities along with instructions on how to come prepared to share your local PTA’s priorities.

It has been brought to my attention that we have many new delegates and that I used some MCPS acronyms at our September meeting that may not have been understood by all. Please accept my apologies – at our October meeting we will have a list of the most commonly used MCPS acronyms for your convenience. At our September meeting we talked about the CIP budget – CIP stands for Capital Improvement Program. I am sure there were other acronyms that I used that I do not recall – please contact me and I will be happy to answer your questions. I will try to remember to explain whenever I use these terms in the future, thank you for your patience.

At our October delegates assembly we will have a brief presentation by the directors of Hands on Science and FLES (Foreign Language for Elementary Students). These are wonderful programs offered through MCCPTA – we are excited to hear from their directors and to share news about these programs with our delegates. We will begin our October Delegates Assembly with a program on Bullying and Gangs, please plan to attend beginning at 7:30.

Thank you to all who attended our Delegates, Treasurers, Area Vice Presidents and Cluster Coordinators training on October 1, 2005. We want to thank Meredith Walters the chair of our training committee for putting this together. A special thank you to Sharon St. Pierre, Victor Salazar, Juan Johnson, Jane DeWinter and Paula Robinson for all of their hard work in making this day informative for everyone and for making sure everyone was well fed! If you were unable to attend do not despair, Meredith will be offering additional training throughout the year. Please do not hesitate to contact Meredith if you have any questions.

There will be a CIP Forum on October 27, 2005 from 7:30 – 9pm in the Carver Auditorium. The purpose of this forum is to preview the FY07 Capital Budget and the FY 2007-2012 CIP. This forum will be a good opportunity to learn about the CIP process, boundary studies, and relationship of maintenance concerns to the CIP. This forum will be presented by the MCPS Long-Range Facilities Planning Department and the MCCPTA CIP Co-Chairs, Marney Jacobs (301-493-5003) and Jim Keenan (301-963-9174).

The FAA-RA workgroup has begun to meet to review the current FAA-RA regulations which govern long-range facilities planning. This group will comment on the concepts and language in the regulations. There are representatives from MCCPTA Executive Officers, CIP Co-Chairs and from most of the six areas. Updates from the committee will be posted to the delegate’s listserve. Interested PTA members should contact Marney or Jim for more information or the schedule of meetings

I would like to encourage every delegate to sign up for our electronic Bulletin and our delegates list serve. We will be sending our all important information for upcoming meetings electronically on the bulletin, we will send a copy electronically to every president and ask that they share with their elected delegates and we will mail a hard copy using the MCPS pony system. The MCPS pony is an interoffice delivery system that will deliver our President’s newsletter in an interoffice envelope to the local school office. Please check your PTA mailbox for important MCCPTA correspondence. We will not be sending the President’s letter by US mail this year in an attempt to curb our postage expenses. We believe that we are making every attempt to get all important information to you electronically as well as using hard copies sent to your local schools. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Attached please find your county dues payment voucher. Dues are due on November 1, 2005 in the amount of $0.75 per member. Please make your check payable to the MCCPTA and mail to 15101 Bauer Drive, Rockville, MD 20853 or you may pony mail to MCCPTA, North Lake Center. Also please be aware that this payment is in addition to the payment you will make to the State/National Level (you should have received another voucher sent directly from the State office for that payment).

Once the MCCPTA office receives your payment, MCCPTA delegate voting cards will be mailed to your PTA President so that your school may participate and vote in any upcoming delegate assemblies. Therefore, your timely manner in paying your dues is very important.

Please be aware that you will be receiving an invoice for the bonding and liability insurance premium by the end of the month. If you have any questions, please contact our treasurer, Juan Johnson.

I look forward to seeing everyone at our October delegates assembly. As always we will help any delegate introduce any new business that they deem important. Please remember that your MCCPTA Executive board is your elected representatives and that we are here to serve you and to speak as one voice for every child. Don’t forget that our November delegates assembly will be a business only meeting!

Cindy