LASA Dance 2025-26 Team Audition Meeting

LASA Dance Team Audition Meeting

  • Where: LASA Dance Room
  • When: February 24, 2025 | 6:00 PM
  • Details: Learn more about the LASA Dance program and the 2025-2026 team auditions. This meeting is mandatory for all current 8th-11th grade prospective or current LASA students that would like to join either Velocity or Dynasty Dance Team. *A zoom link can be shared upon request.
  • Learn more via: tinyurl.com/LASADance or emailing paige.edwards@austinisd.org

February Master Classes Available!

We have some fantastic Master Classes to offer in February! As always, you can secure your seat in the PFLASA Store. Learn more about these classes at pflasa.org

What’s happening in February:

2/4, Tuesday at 6:30 pm
College Planning for 9th and 10th Graders: Starting early to DECREASE stress!

2/6, Thursday at 7 pm
RAPTOR Rapid Fire College Planning Q & A

2/12, Wednesday at 6 pm
How Do I Know if I Should Hire a College Consultant?

2/18, Tuesday at 7 pm
Financial Literacy for Students
(This Master Class is intended for students only)

2/26, Tuesday at 7 pm
The Science of You: Exploring Strengths and Drives with Psychometrics

LASA Reflections Artists make it to State!

We would like to recognize and congratulate the amazing LASA artists who have been promoted from the Austin Council PTA level to the Texas PTA Reflections level in this year’s Reflections Art Program. The theme this year was “Accepting imperfection”. We had some very respectable responses this year, and hope to grow this program larger next fall! Thank you for being a part of this wonderful competition. While all of our submissions were excellent, our artists who made it to State are:

Janani Easwar for High School Literature
Gargi Pandey for High School Visual Arts
Grant Ratcliffgardy for High School Photography
Vinson Ratcliffgardy for High School Film Production

Thanks to all participants for their hard work and we’ll see you at an upcoming ACPTA recognition event in February,
-Reflections Committee for LASA

Class of 2028 Leads in Membership….but for How Long?

The Class of 2028 is still holding the lead for most PTSA Student memberships, but The Class of 2027 is closing in. It’s a tight race! We are still accepting memberships for all students, parents, friends, and faculty!

Membership counts as of January 5th:

Class of 2028 – 56 Members
Class of 2027 – 49 Members
Class of 2026 – 38 Members
Class of 2025 – 32 Members

We still have about 40 faculty members who need memberships. If you would like to donate one, add an Adult Faculty membership into your cart and put Donation in the name and email fields.

Join the PTSA or donate a faculty membership today!

Master Classes On Sale Now

Secure your seats by purchasing now. You can find a complete list here: https://pflasa.org/product-category/masterclasses/

Here are our January Master Classes:

  • SAT/ACT Webinar | Thursday, January 9 at 6:30pm
    This is a useful resource to get your junior or prepped and ready for SAT day in the spring or for sophomore students to prepare for the Junior year PSAT.
  • Finding Your Personal Fit College Options | Tuesday, January 14 at 7pm
    Don’t just get in, fit in! How to find colleges that align with your values, goals, and budget.
  • Application Strategies for The University of Texas and Texas A&M | Thursday, January 16 at 7pm
    Do you dream in burnt orange or maroon? Maybe both: Learn applications strategies for UT and TAMU!
  • How to Get the Most Out of Naviance | Tuesday, January 28 at 6pm
    Use Naviance to level up your college research game.

Open to parents and students. Please note, you only need to purchase 1 seat per household.

Greetings from the PFLASA Grants Committee!

In this season of thankfulness and giving, we wanted to take a moment to say thank you to the LASA community for its support of and faith in PFLASA. With your financial support we were able to award $11,160 in grants since the beginning of the school year. The grant requests ranged from the professional development courses that lend to the excellence of LASA faculty, to worthy classroom, curriculum and activity needs. The LASA faculty and staff, and your support of PFLASA grants are what make LASA the exceptional school that it is. We thank you!

Warmest wishes to you for a fun and relaxing Winter Break!

Lisa Lyons and Sarah Grubert, PFLASA Grant Committee Co-Chairs
grants@pflasa.org


Want to know more about the joy you helped to spread?

  • TCEA AI Conference: This conference focused on understanding the impacts AI is having on our students, their information seeking behaviors, and how LASA can best address its use.
  • Mental Health Conference: The conference was geared to mental health professionals who work with children and how to enhance their skills when working with students.
  • ASL Conference: This conference focuses on the new ACTFL National Standards, teaching strategies, and networking with other schools.
  • College Board Forum: This LASA college counselor was asked to present at the Forum. College Board is one of the largest education nonprofits in the country and works heavily to enhance student learning, and it is honor to have a LASA counselor be asked to present.
  • Joint Mathematics Meeting in Seattle: This conference focuses on Calculus, Cryptography, Equity and Inclusion, Diff EQ, and Logic. Basically, everything this teacher teaches.
  • Data Science Education Conference: By attending this conference, this teacher will get to collaborate and share ideas with other educators in the emerging field of data science education. LASA’s data science course is one of the first of its kind, and this is possibly the only opportunity to get feedback from other experts in the field. The standards for what data science is, and what we should teach, are still being written, so this teacher will have an opportunity to shape the narrative, and better influence national and regional policy to match what our kids need.
  • Chemistry workbooks and texts: This grant covers the expense of the LASA teacher-created text and workbooks that students rely upon to meet the rigor needed for LASA Chem.
  • Lab supplies for Organic Chemistry: This request for supplies will allow for more frequent organic chemistry laboratory projects for students, giving them valuable lab experiences.
  • Classroom printer: AP Precalculus AB, AP Physics 1. Something as simple as having a printer in the classroom is critical for decreasing the interruptions to valuable class time. Having a printer in the classroom will assist the students in printing graphs and data for their lab reports without having to go to the library. It will also assist the teacher in printing last-minute documents for students without having to go to the copy room. Because this teacher teaches 7 out of 8 sections, having a laser printer with a relatively fast print output will be invaluable to their efficiency as a teacher.
  • Chalkboard: This teacher requested an additional work surface for the students of AMR, Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus, BC PreCalculus.
  • 300 copies of Wilson translation of Odyssey: The request came from the Eng 2 cadre. It is a more relevant translation to our curriculum.
  • Insect boxes and Arthropod vials for Biodiversity project: Planet Earth.
  • Display case for Debate Team trophies and plaques: LASA’s Debate team is one of the best in the nation and they have many trophies and awards from this year and years past. There was not a centralized, secure place to display their awards. An amazing bargain was had on a retired display case purchased from the State Surplus Store. Debate Team students will do a little refurbishing and the case will shine!
  • Online access to Hubro Marketing Simulation, 3 month subscription: For the Entrepreneurship class. Students will have the opportunity to work in teams to engage in a real-world simulation of a globally competitive landscape. They will manage things from start-up capital, research and development, market analysis, global product placement, price strategies, hiring and firing of personnel, etc.—all while competing for many multiple simulated financial quarters against every other team, all in order to understand how real business strategy and decisions affect company financials in the global marketplace. This is the same simulation software used by colleges and universities all over the world, including Texas A&M University, Harvard, Boston College, etc.

Reflections 24-25 Accepting Imperfection

We would like to recognize and congratulate the amazing artists who participated and excelled in this year’s Reflections Art Program. The theme this year was Accepting imperfection and we had a decent response from LASA and hope to grow this program even larger next fall!!! Here are the LASA artists for this year who will be receiving awards at their upcoming recognition luncheon. Thank you for being a part of this wonderful part of LASA and ACPTA programs. Our fantastic artists are:

Vinson Ratcliffgardy
Janani Easwar
Sierra Kumar
Amelia Ratcliffgardy
Grant Ratcliffgardy
Vivian Prather
Sanvi Paranjape
Gargi Pandey
Tiernan O’Keefe

Thank you for all of your hard work, and we’ll see you at the recognition luncheon!

Reflections Committee for LASA