Advocacy is one of the four core elements of the Shoreline PTA Council mission statement. For us, that means empowering local PTAs to make their voices heard in our state and local government to affect change on issues impacting that PTA's children, school, or community. We do this primarily by providing support and resources for local PTA's Advocacy or Legislative Chairs.
Advocacy is a year-round activity, but there are two annual events where Legislative Advocacy takes center stage. In January or February, PTA members from across the state convene in Olympia to promote our legislative priorities at Focus Day with our representatives in the Washington State Legislature. In the Fall, we come together again for Legislative Assembly where we evaluate and set our priorities around which issues we want to put our collective energy into for the next year.
Focus Day Focus Day is a day when PTA members from around the state come together in Olympia to advocate for our State PTA legislative platform. As a District, we try to join in this day of advocacy as a part of WSPTA and use it to meet with our own representatives to advocate for our own community. Encourage your PTA members to register and plan to attend. Also, we encourage you to coordinate with Shoreline PTA Council as we will typically try to schedule meetings with our 32nd and 46th District Legislators as well as coordinate car-pools to the event.
Focus Day is January 20, 2020
Action Items:
Encourage all of your PTA members to complete the Advocacy Survey. (This was sent to you in email, let us know if you need the link again.)
Register for WSPTA Action Alerts to receive weekly updates throughout the Legislative Session.
Learn more and Register your PTA members at WSPTA Focus Day.
If any of your members have a personal connection to any of the Legislative Priorities, consider preparing a personal statement for our Legislators. Personal stories tend to have the great impact.
Legislative Assembly Each year in the Fall, delegates from local PTAs meet to propose, debate, and vote for the Legislative Issues (including the top 5 Legislative Priorities) which will form the foundation of the WSPTA platform for the next year. In even numbered years, the existing issues are removed and a new set of issues are proposed. In odd numbered years, we update the previous year's issues and new issues may be added.
The date and location for Legislative Assembly 2020 is TBD.
Action Items:
Ensure your local PTA has allocated budget to send delegates to Legislative Assembly.
Determine how many voting delegates your PTA is allocated and who will attend to vote. You may send as many non-voting delegates as you would like in addition to the voting delegates. Reference the Advocacy Handbook on the WSPTA Leadership Guides webpage for help in calculating your allotted voting delegates.
Register for Legislative Assembly (Registration has not yet opened for 2020.)
Submit draft Issues/Resolutions/Principles by May 1, 2020.
Submit final Issues/Resolutions/Principles by June 1, 2020.