Category: PFLASA

Spring Break is so close you can almost feel it!! This meeting started with an announcement of a change in the Board for the current year. Our co-treasurer Lisa Hill needs to step down due to the heavy demands of her job. Thank you, Lisa, for your service. And, the Board has voted Lara Wilcox into Lisa’s place. Thank you, Lara!!! It’s really a privilege to serve with these amazing and dedicated volunteers.

The rest of the meeting was brisk with updates on the upcoming Raising Healthy Raptors event, Master Classes and Project Graduation (venue contract signed and tickets on sale!)! Also, our New Parent Coffee where we host the parents of newly accepted Baby Raptors is going to be a bit different this year. Due to scheduling demands it will be held in conjunction with Choice Sheet Day on Saturday, March 29th. The coffee will be in the library while students attend the elective fair! But we still need volunteers to successfully answer parent questions. Sign up to volunteer for the New Parent Coffee.

The rest of the meeting was devoted to answering parent questions before we got an update from Principal Crescenski. With our recent survey on why people attend PFLASA meetings, the thing I hear is that it is a great way to get answers to your questions. It’s true! The PFLASA Board, Chairs, and other attendees are experienced parents who know a lot about how things run. And the after-meeting updates from the administration are very informative. I understand that most people don’t show up to hear us approve minutes and conduct board business, so we try to keep that part short and fast. But in a school that I think is complex, nothing cuts through all the noise like a parent explaining exactly how something works.

One example is Summer PE. Are you stressing about how to fit in those two ½ credits your kid needs to graduate? This is exactly the kind of thing we discuss, and experienced parents can tell you that a quick way to knock this out is the Summer PE classes that LASA offers. In one week, your kid can do the necessary fitness gram testing and other required education to earn one of those ½ credits. LASA offers two weeks of Summer PE (Novice and Advanced) so you can get all the credit needed by attending both. And just in case you worry about whether your kid can handle “Advanced” PE, don’t. Anyone can do both or either session. If you are now wondering when and how to sign up for Summer PE, I don’t have that info. But I can tell you it is supposed to be in the Principal’s Message after Spring Break. And while I’m sure you all delight in reading my recaps most weeks, I know for a fact that it is far more fun to discuss this with all the wonderful, funny, and smart parents at the meetings. And no matter how long I make these posts, I will never answer all the questions.

For those of you staying in town I wish you the beautiful March weather Austinites love. Safe travels for the rest of you.

Happy (Almost) Spring Break,
Ellen Stewart-Klein
PFLASA President

Please help PFLASA correctly budget for next year.

The online directory software we use costs $850 per year, so we would like to know how important the online directory is to our PFLASA community.

Please complete the survey to help us decide if this is a good use of our funds. If you have additional comments, you can email directory@pflasa.org.

Thank you!

Sorry about any confusion I caused last week by dating my post incorrectly. I was in fact referring to the 2/21 joint meeting with PTSA not 12/21! If you skipped my post last week because you thought it was old, I encourage you to look it over. I’m not sure if that’s why but there was some confusion over whether there was a meeting this past Friday. But the meeting is this Friday, 3/7 at 8:15 am in the PFLASA Portable next to the tennis courts. Just a quick reminder all the meeting dates are listed here: https://pflasa.org/pflasa-meetings/.

I know we are all anxious for Spring Break and this year we get an extra Friday but believe it or not the busiest times of the year lie ahead. If you thought the fall semester went quickly, hang onto your hat because it’s going to fly by. Before we quit March, we have the New Parent Coffee on Saturday 3/29. We need lots of volunteers to talk to Parents of new baby Raptors (sign up coming soon). Then April and May (and very early June) are when we need lots and lots of help (AP Tests, AP Breakfast, Coffeehouse, Senior Salute and Project Graduation-updates to come on all of this). Just in case that wasn’t enough PFLASA also needs to prepare a budget for next year and elect new officers to the Board.

This is a crucial time to get involved in PFLASA if you care about any of the specific programming we offer (tutoring, petting zoo, teacher grants, appreciations, etc.). The budget is our guiding tool for all next year. And the Board is the entity that makes all the hard decisions (we also have some fun and get a unique perspective on this fabulous school). This year we are also planning to amend our bylaws to allow for flexibility in scheduling meetings. So now is an excellent time to get involved in all these decisions. Specifically, the Board needs an assistant secretary for next year. All Board positions are two years with the first year to help, shadow, and train. For reasons, I don’t fully understand but this position seems to spook people. It is not intensive note taking and we aren’t asking for a full transcription. But we do need someone to record our votes. If you are interested in joining the Board, any other volunteering opportunities, or just have questions, please email me at president@pflasa.org.

Please join us,
Ellen Stewart-Klein
PFLASA President

Okay, so that title is a little misleading. There’s not much of meeting to recap. We had a few updates on upcoming Master Classes, tonight’s event from the Raising Healthy Raptor committee (Managing Difficult Feelings, 6:15pm at Yarborough Library) and a plea for every one to buy tickets to the 3/8 All Grades Fiesta Happy Hour (https://pflasa.org/store/fiesta/). We ended with a QR code to our 1-question survey about why people do (or do not) attend PFLASA meetings. That information is crucial to our planning for next year. You can find it in a separate Raptor post from our VP Anna Land.

Our short meeting let PTSA get some crucial business done. Most importantly, it gave us time to hear from Trustee Lynn Boswell about the dramatic and severe budget cuts that AISD must make to stay solvent. At the moment everything is on the table including magnet transportation, 7 out of 8,* school closures (no concrete plans), cuts to programming, and larger class sizes. These cuts will hurt because they will impact student learning. Saying no to all these proposals is not possible. This is a time that calls for hard decisions. I encourage everyone to figure out what is the top priority and advocate for that. A few things to know: 1) The higher tax rate resulting from the election does not change the need for cuts; 2) The deficit is larger than anticipated because home values are projected to go down; and 3) no one currently knows if the Texas legislature is going to come in with more money (there are lots of bills being introduced on a variety of school and school funding issues but many will not advance further). And here’s where I get just a little bit political, because if your student is at LASA you are obliged to be invested in public school funding—this is an excellent time to advocate for public school funding with the Legislature, especially if you have friends or family in other parts of Texas. Our incredible PTSA will be more than happy to help you figure out how to advocate if you have questions.

Finally, there was quite a lot of talk about Rally Day (which was Monday) from PTSA, Trustee Boswell and Principal Crescenzi. In case you do not know, Rally Day is the day that PTSA’s from all over Texas come to the Capitol to advocate for public education. LASA was able to take two buses of students to participate if they underwent the proper training and some students were able to have meetings with a Representative. This is one of those glimpses into the best of LASA: the incredible kids who attend here, the learning opportunities available, the passion of our staff and teachers, and the dedication of our volunteers. Thank you to all who participated in making this event happen.

Please advocate now,
Ellen Stewart-Klein
PFLASA President

* 7/8 refers to teachers having to teach 7 classes of the 8 periods. This means middle and high school teachers have a planning period only every other day. There is also a discussion about going to 6/7 which decreases the availability of 8 classes to 7.