Acme PTA

I am honored and excited to be the incoming secretary for Acme Elementary's Parent Teacher Association. Aside from vague memories of watching my mom eat brownies in a claustrophobic, windowless room in Piedmont, California, my PTA experiences have been limited to Acme meetings and to the recent Washington State PTA convention in Seatac. My impressions, so far, have been very positive.

Acme Elementary PTA has a vibrant, intelligent, dedicated, and small corps of volunteers or, what WSPTA staff refer to as The Usual Ten. Apparently every PTA has them (though none can possibly be as wonderful as ours). The challenge, this year, is going to be to grow our Usual Ten to twenty regularly-attending members, and then thirty, and then perhaps fifty or more. Wouldn't that be something?

Legends abound of PTA gatherings of yore—gatherings at which parents and teachers filled gymnasiums, packed auditoriums, lined up as far as the eye could see, and filed in to meetings in such numbers as to give fire chiefs apoplexy. I don't know how to recreate this response en masse except to show up, to write vibrant newsletters, to fix our website, and to be a dedicated servant to Acme Elementary students and staff.

I'm grateful to the outgoing officers, who created a growing PTA out of virtually nothing at all, and I'm grateful to Acme Elementary staff and the Mount Baker School District for giving us a school worth supporting.

M