As Council officers, one of the most important things you will be doing every month is reviewing the statistical report. This report is sent to Council Presidents around the 6th of the month from Georgia PTA. Council Presidents, we recommend that you share this document with your board of directors. It will contain the information for the schools in your Council only. Your District Director receives a report from Georgia PTA that includes the all the schools in your district.

When reviewing the report, we ask that you reach out to (preferably by phone) the PTAs who have NOT submitted dues this year. It is very important that our local units are doing a membership campaign and turning in their dues monthly.

The second thing you need to review is if they have turned in their audit for the year. The audits were due by September 30th. Please reach out to those schools who have not turned in their audit to see if they need help finding an auditor or have any questions on the process.

If a local unit's fiscal year end was May 31, their IRS 990 Filing Verification Form was due to the state office on October 15. Make sure your local units are checking their bylaws for their fiscal year end date.

We need YOUR HELP in keeping our local units in good standing! Council officers are the front lines and first lines of communication with our local units. We appreciate your diligence in keeping up with the statistical report.

Council Reflections Chairs are to turn in their Reflections entries to Janice Gurley, Georgia PTA Reflections Chair, during normal business hours on Friday, December 4th at the Georgia PTA State Office at 114 Baker Street NE, Atlanta, GA 30308. If you have any questions about the Reflections program or about the turn-in process, please contact Janice at jgurley@georgiapta.org or call the state office at 404.659.0214.

On a monthly basis, please have your Council Treasurer send an email to Shiree Lynch at the state office (gapta@bellsouth.net) indicating which of your local units has PAID their Council dues. Paying Council dues is a requirement to be in good standing with Georgia PTA, however, we need the Councils to let us know which local units have made that payment.

Incorporation renewals will be mailed from the state office to local units on December 1. They will be mailed to the home addresses for both the President and Treasurer of local units and councils. If no officer address information has been provided, they will be mailed directly to the school to the attention of the President.

There is a Council Only section of the Georgia PTA website where you will be able to access the resources you will need for the year. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the GA PTA homepage to access the button. Council log-in is case sensitive.

log in — Children

password — First

We prefer that you use the training materials provided by Georgia PTA. That way a consistent message and points are being conveyed. Better yet - you won't have to spend any time preparing a powerpoint! We have them available for you to download on the Council Only section of the website.

Make sure you are keeping track of the Model Council form and its requirements.

To download the Model Council form, you can access it on the Council Only part of the website under FORMS. This completed form will be due to Georgia PTA by May 1st to be considered for Model Council status and recognition at Convention Leadership Training.

Georgia PTA is happy to offer online training opportunities for those PTA leaders who were not able to attend CLT, a council training or a PTA University. These trainings can be viewed from the comfort of their own home! If you have local unit leaders who you know have not yet attended training, we recommend that you share with them this training opportunity. They can go to www.vimeo.com/georgiaptatraining and watch the training videos for President, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership, Developing Your Communications Plan, Report Writing and Breakfast in the Classroom.

As Council leaders, you may be asked by parents and schools administrators to explain the differences between PTA and other parent groups. National PTA recently provided all states with a communications guideline for that topic. To read the entire document, log in to the Council Only section of the Georgia PTA website. It is posted there.

Here is a preview of information found in the document:

Key Messages

• While there are many differences between PTAs and other parent groups, the most fundamental is our mission. PTA is a nationwide network of families and educators advocating for children at all levels of decision making, and other parent groups are comprised of families working only at an individual school.

• As a nationwide network of more than 22,000 schools and four million families, PTA provides parents, educators, and other concerned adults with an organized way to improve education, health, and safety conditions for America’s children. In addition to involvement at the school, PTA parents have a voice with district, state, and even national level conversations.

This document contains a lot of great information beyond these two key talking points. Check it out!

We believe social media is a great way to connect people to our association. Are you following Georgia PTA on Facebook? We sure hope so! Georgia PTA posts the most up-to the-minute information on our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Be sure to share information Georgia PTA posts to your District, Council or Local Unit pages. It's one of the most effective ways we can reach more people.

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