Displaying items by tag: PTA

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The National PTA has recognized Division Street Elementary School as a 2018-2020 PTA School of Excellence for their commitment to building an inclusive and welcoming school community where all families contribute to enriching the educational experience and overall well-being for all students.

“Research shows that when families and schools work together, students do better in school and schools improve,” said Jim Accomando, president of National PTA.

“Division Street Elementary School and the Division Street PTA have worked hard to strengthen their family-school partnership and create an environment where all families feel welcomed and empowered to support student success. We are pleased to recognize them as a National PTA School of Excellence,” Accomando continued.

National PTA’s School of Excellence program helps PTAs become partners in identifying and implementing school improvement initiatives based on PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. Schools that exhibit improvement at the end of the school year are honored as a National PTA School of Excellence, a distinction that spans two years.

“Division Street School is delighted to be recognized as a National PTA School of Excellence,” said Dr. Greer Miller, Principal of Division Street Elementary School.

“Our school is such a collaborative environment where the teachers work hard to engage the families in their students’ education, and to provide a wellrounded educational experience for all students. The PTA also does a phenomenal job with providing our students a strong Cultural Arts Program of assemblies and classroom presentations on a variety of topics.  Parents and staff work jointly on different school-wide initiatives, goals, and moving our school forward,” Dr. Miller stated.

Division Street Elementary School and the Division Street PTA are one of only 278 PTAs and schools nationwide recognized as a 2018-2020 School of Excellence.

“I would also like to thank Mrs. Connie Woytowich for doing an outstanding job as the PTA President for the past two years and assisting with the submission of our application for this wonderful award,” said Dr. Miller.

Congratulations to Division Street Elementary School on this outstanding achievement.  For more information about the National PTA School of Excellence program, visit www. PTA.org/Excellence.

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BALLSTON SPA —
The National PTA Reflections Program is designed to enhance arts education for students in preschool through grade 12, encouraging them to create works of art in the areas of dance choreography, film production, literature, musical composition, photography and the visual arts. The theme for 20172018 was Within Reach and student submissions are judged at the school, region, state, and national levels as they advance. Ballston Spa students recognized for their submissions at the regional level in this year’s program include James McIntyre, Nate Hill and Connor Acton from the Gordon Creek Elementary School; Kentaro (Ken) Tan from the Ballston Spa Middle School; and Shoichiro (Shawn) Tan from the Ballston Spa High School. The students were recognized for their achievements at the Ballston Spa PTA Council’s annual Founders’ Day Celebration hosted recently at the Ballston Spa Middle School. Student artwork and projects will be judged at the state PTA level and returned at the Legislative Education Conference in March. Congratulations to all the participants. Please contact the appropriate local school PTA unit for additional information on the Reflections Program or visit www.NYSPTA.org.

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SARATOGA SPRINGS — On Monday, Feb. 5, the Division Street Elementary School held their 6th Annual STEM Expo.

“The STEM Expo is an educational STEM opportunity for families to engage in hands-on activities with the goal of engaging students in STEM and getting them excited about doing STEM jobs for a living someday. We invite the entire community from public and private schools as they are a part of our larger learning community! I am very proud of the fact that this event has inspired other schools in the Saratoga and surrounding districts to implement similar educational STEM nights/days for their students and families,” said PTA President, Connie Woytowich.

Before the PTA started their STEM Expo, they would coordinate with other parent volunteers to provide feedback to students on their scientific experiments. With the main parent volunteer leaving the school upon their child’s graduation, the PTA decided to “change things up a bit and engage more families by way of providing activities and opportunities for learning,” said Woytowich.

“The event was a success! We had at least 100 families show up to the event. One of our parents said, ‘this is my favorite event of the school year,’” Woytowich exclaimed.

'Fourteen exhibits were present for the families to explore and enjoy.