Posted May 24, 2020 by Nicole Trimble

2020 Washington State PTA Convention
Canyon Creek Recap

Convention looked very different this year than it has in prior years! The Washington State PTA hosted their convention VIRTUALLY from Monday, May 11th through Thursday, May 21st. Our PTA was well represented at the 2020 Washington State PTA Convention. The following current and future Canyon Creek PTA executive board members attended trainings and meetings: Melanie McKenzie, Nicole Trimble, Emily Cross, Jennifer Snyder, Karen Mitchell Smith & Mumtaz Zimbalist. All executive board members must complete at least one approved training class - and classes taken during this convention will satisfy that requirement for the 2020-21 school year. 

Not only did the attendees take classes to develop their PTA knowledge and leadership skills, but they were also delegates for our PTA membership - voting on updates to the Washington State PTA bylaws and electing the 2020-21 Washington State PTA Board Member Representatives and attending the Business & General Meetings.

 

Business of the WSPTA

Here's a quick recap of the business that happened at the convention this year.
 
Bylaws - A total of six bylaws amendments were approved through the online ballot process. These amendments will take effect as of July 1, 2020. The amendments are posted on the WSPTA website's Governance page and a fully updated WSPTA Uniform Bylaws document will be available on July 1.
 
Resolutions - One new resolution and three amended resolutions were approved through the online ballot process. These documents have been uploaded to the website and are available for PTA use.
 
Elections of Board Member Representatives - The delegate body approved the election of four member representatives to the WSPTA board of directors to serve the remaining one year of the term. Sherry Rudolph, advocacy director; Candance Walters, program director; Carrie McKenzie, area A vice president; Jay Pulacode, area B vice president. The term for these positions will begin on June 1, 2020.
 
Elections of 2020-2022 WSPTA Nominating Committee - In addition, three members to the 2020-2022 WSPTA nominating committee were elected, Diane Call, Silje Sodal, and Dori Tate. The term for these positions will begin on June 1, 2020.
 
 

Inspiring Speakers & Videos

We were lucky to have the privilege of listening to three inspiring keynote speakers – Erin Jones, JMarie Johnson-Kola and 2020 Washington State Teacher of the Year Amy Campbell. These amazing women will be focusing on diversity, inclusion, and more.
 
These videos were shown and received a lot of positive feedback - so we thought you might like to check them out.

 

Canyon Creek PTA Awards

Canyon Creek PTA is so excited to have been awarded the following awards for the 2019-20 school year! Special thanks to Bethany Jager (our VP-Programs) who worked to collect and present all of the required documentation to apply for these awards.

  • Standards of Excellence -- GOLD
  • Outstanding Communication Strategy -- GOLD
  • Outstanding E-blast -- GOLD
  • Outstanding Website -- BRONZE
  • FACE -- GOLD
    • For the creation and use of our Comfort, Care and Coping (CCC) Box!

We also received the 100% Staff Membership Award! Thank you to Jennifer Snyder (our Membership Chair) for really working hard to build our membership, giving us more of a voice when advocating for ALL of our children!

Classes Taken by Our Respresentatives

Our group of convention attendees spent many hours taking classes online at home, trying to focus on learning, while things (student learning, dinner, bedtime, etc) still happened around us! We did our best to learn and gather ideas that we will share with others in our leadership team. We have things to research and new strategies to try. Check out all the classes we took!!

  • 1101 Kickoff to Convention
  • 1102 Gathering Input
  • 1103 Digital Tools for Online Meetings
  • 1201 Presidents Panel
  • 1202 Blast Off to memberplanet!
  • 1203 Social Media Guidelines
  • 1301 Branding and Marketing Your PTA
  • 1302 Change. Powered by PTA.
  • 1401 Volunteers, Find Them and Keep Them
  • 1402 Creating Space for Joy
  • 1501 Media Literacy is for Everyone
  • 1502A Vice President Panel
  • 1503 New Ways to Engage -- Lessons Learned from the Pandemic
  • 1601 PTA and the Law (required to be taken by at least one board member each year)
  • 1602 Putting the "S" Back in PTSA
  • 1702 Improving Diversity in your PTA
  • 1703 Raising Kind Kids
  • 1704 Managing Your Nonprofit PTA
  • 1801 Treasurer Panel
  • 1803 Building Your Fall Membership Campaign
  • 1901 AIM-Covering Your Assets
  • 1902 Pump Up Your Communications
  • 2102A Membership Panel
  • 2102B Advocacy Panel

 

Thank You!

Even though this year has not turned out as anyone expected, we are proud of how everyone has handled the changes and what we were still able to accomplish this year - with all of our AMAZING chairs, volunteers and community!! We look forward to another great year of figuring things out, creating memories and working with what we have to continue to build community and have some fun during the 2020-21 school year.