Office Manager

Cathy Lilja

Phone 301-460-0224

Fax 301-460-0225

Visit our web site

www. us.net/mccpta

Happy Holidays and have an especially Wonderful 2006!

I hope that this letter finds you happy rested and relaxed during this hectic Holiday Season. Please take time to enjoy the season and spend quality time with your loved ones. This newsletter is “packed” with information for our January 24, 2006 Delegates Assembly.

First at our last meeting you voted that you wanted all business to take place at the beginning of the evenings meeting. Unfortunately we had already scheduled an information program for you. You also voted to start the Delegates Assembly promptly at 7:30 with all business first. So in order to abide by your instructions we have made alternative arrangements for this month.

We will provide an informational program about Career and Technical Education in Montgomery County Schools to begin at 6:30 (this is strictly voluntary participation). We will officially start the MCCPTA delegates assembly at the regular start time of 7:30 with business only. We will discuss at our meeting whether we want to continue to offer voluntary attendance programs at 6:30 or discontinue programs offered by MCCPTA.

The agenda for the meeting is attached to this newsletter this month. We will have a very full agenda and we will work very diligently to abide by time limits and make sure that we get everyone out on time.

We will be presenting the New MCCPTA Council Bylaws as required by the Maryland PTA at this meeting. They proposed bylaws have been presented to the MCCPTA executive board and they have approved the “proposed bylaws” that are attached to this newsletter for presentation to the delegates for their approval.

We will be deciding on a date for the newly added May delegates assembly. We had proposed May 30, 2006 but you felt that date would not work so we are proposing May 23, 2006 as an alternative date. Please be aware that our Presidents and Principals dinner will be on Wednesday May 24, 2006. This will require delegate participation two nights in row. If this arrangement is acceptable to everyone we will be glad to honor your instruction.

We will also be voting on language that all locals as well as MCCPTA can use on directories. We were not able to get to this business last month so we will be addressing at our meeting this month.

At our November delegates assembly we had one resolution from Delegate Lechner presented and deferred for action at this month's meeting as well as a motion from Delegate Weckstein. Copies of these resolutions and motions are attached for your convenience. We will also be addressing a proposed resolution from the Grading and Reporting Committee which is attached for your review. Finally, with respect to the Board of Education's review of the academic eligibility policy, we will be deciding whether to support the alternative proposal for a period of provisional eligibility as an alternative to the automatic 2.0 eligibility cut off and also whether to recommend any changes to the existing draft such as recommending that schools “must” rather than simply “should” provide and communicate opportunities for all students to participate in extracurricular activities by ensuring that there are a range of possibilities, including extracurricular activities with open enrollment that do not require academic eligibility.

Please do not forget to mark your calendars and plan to attend our Operating Budget Forum on January 9, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at Carver. We will have a round table discussion with members of the Montgomery County Council and then we will vote on our 2006 MCCPTA Operating Budget Compact. This is a very informative evening and we hope that each of you will make every attempt to attend.

I have noticed on our MCCPTA delegates list serve various discussions about health/safety issues, new MCPS movie guidelines and MCPS response to bullying and serious incidents. Please remember that you can contact our committee chairs at any time and discuss your concerns and suggestions for action that you would like to see MCCPTA take regarding these important issues.

You will also find attached an update from our Nominating Committee chaired by Mr. Chris Barkley. Please look around you, I am sure that you will know people who you believe would make wonderful leaders of MCCPTA. Please do not hesitate to contact Mr. Barkley or any member of his committee with your nominations.

Please take a moment to read this entire newsletter and all of the attachments do not forget to present these items to your local PTA executive boards and come to our January 24, 2006 meeting prepared to represent the position of your local PTA. We are soliciting your nominations for our Champion for Children as well so please celebrate your local program successes

(see the attached flyer).

I look forward to seeing you soon!

Happy New Year,

Cindy