Northwest Chinese School Parents and Teachers Association (PTA)
The NWCS Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) was founded in 1997. It is composed of all teachers, parents, and legal guardians of current NWCS students. The PTA works to support the school's educational goals, to provide a safe and healthy learning environment, to enrich the NWCS learning experience, and to enhance the mutual understanding among the parents, teachers, and the board of directors. According to the NWCS by-law, the PTA chair is eligible to attend the NWCS board meeting as a non-voting delegate to convey the voices from the parents and teachers. In the past six years, the PTA has been playing a very important role in supporting education, operation, and administration, as well as safeguarding NWCS students and organizing local Chinese community events.
PTA Responsibilities
In addition to involvement in school activities, the PTA runs the following functions:
1. Parent-On-Duty
In 1999, some PTA members voluntarily organized to guide traffic, assist
teachers, and safeguard students. It has been so successful that PTA started to
organize it officially since then. With the rapid expansion of NWCS,
Parent-On-Duty demand has increased remarkably. To meet such a demand, NWCS
requires all families to attend the Parent-On-Duty services. All NWCS families
are grouped into several on-duty teams and take the on-duty tasks in turn.
Please participate in the service when it is your turn. Refer to "How
to Become Involved" section for contact information.
2. Classroom Representative
Each class has one or more parents as classroom representative(s) who facilitates the communication between the teacher and the parents, assists the teacher in the activities specific to the class. Please talk to your child's teacher if you are willing to be your child's classroom representative.
4. Library
The library opens every school day. It has a collection of Chinese books, magazines, newspaper, cassettes, and videotapes. The purpose of the library is to provide services to students, parents, and the local Chinese community, while at the same time raising funds for the school through donations. The library has been one of the busiest scenes at the school. Help is needed. If you have any comments, suggestions, or donations to the library or want to volunteer, please contact: library@nwchinese.org.
5. Fundraising
In the past few years, several parents volunteered to raise funds for NWCS by selling gift certificates and phone cards. Last year, over $2,000 was raised and distributed to the participating classes. The money has been used to purchase classroom supplies and gifts to the students. It is a substantial way to provide the teachers with a class budget, in addition to the Prize Station.
PTA hosts highly attended seminars for parents on a wide range of topics during class time on Saturday. The purpose of organizing seminars at class time is to make parents waiting time more enjoyable. Topics range from child education, healthcare, personal financing, to anything of interest. Feel free to provide topics and recommend speakers to PTA's seminar coordinator Luping Liang, lluping@microsoft.com.
7. Summer Activities
The PTA and NWCS administration are working closely with organizations in China and Canada for the summer programs of next few years to provide summer camps with enriched learning experiences, exciting discoveries, and community service opportunities for the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Stay tuned for future updates.
8. Other events
NWCS organizes several big events each year, such as the Chinese New Year celebration, school picnics, etc. The PTA is naturally the most important task force for all those events.