by Dolores Winchell, President's Message By Dolores Winchell, Council President

Greetings Unit Presidents,

The last two meetings have had low attendance. You are missed when you don't attend and more importantly your unit misses out on valuable information if you do not send someone in your place to pick up your packet and take notes. Please make an extra effort to personally attend or send a representative to the monthly council meeting.

Elections/Convention Attendees

Most of you will be having your annual meetings and the election of your slate of officers for next year this month. You should now elect your convention delegates.

The president-elect is the only individual who does not need to be elected to attend convention. Any other PTA officers or chairmen you send need to be elected at your Association meeting prior to attending the convention. Make sure your delegates understand that they cannot sign contracts with vendors at convention or make commitments because these types of decisions require the approval of the association by way of a motion at a meeting.

All delegates attending should also be advised that they will be responsible for reporting back to the association upon return. Convention is an outstanding opportunity to invigorate and inspire your PTA.

Make sure convention delegates attend the convention orientation on Friday, April 23 in Costa Mesa. (Check with Kim Henderson, secretary@svpta.org for details.)

Mandatory Bylaws Workshop Rescheduled with Dinner

We have rescheduled the Bylaws Workshop for Wednesday, April 21 at 6:30PM at SVUSD office. There were several changes to bylaws this past year which are outlined in the "orange" version, which has a revision date of June 2003. Each unit attending will receive a copy of this version. Bylaws should be reviewed annually. This is an excellent for new parliamentarians or presidents to get off on the right foot. Know the bylaws going into your position and most of your questions are answered. All units please RSVP with attendee names and folks eating dinner to Karen Edwards @ www.svpta.org by Monday, April 19.

Annual Teacher Recognition Banquet

The Annual Teacher Recognition Banquet, "Someone was there, that someone was you," is scheduled for Friday, May 7, 2004 at the Laguna Cliffs Marriot in Dana Point. As of mid-March most units had not sent in reservations. I hope you all got that taken care of, as you really need to be present to support and cheer for your unit's teacher of the year. Questions regarding this event may be directed to Laura Ott at 580-3282.

PTA Toolkit Update

I mentioned at the last council meeting that this is the update year for the PTA Toolkit. Unfortunately, it will not be mailed out until late August. Make sure you or the incoming president advises the Reflections Chairman for 04 -05 that all the information they need to begin that program will be available for download at www.capta.org in August.

Sacramento Safari

Last month twenty of us attended the Fourth District PTA-sponsored Sacramento Safari. Wow! Last year there were six folks from Saddleback and this year we represented 25% of the entire group attending from Orange County. It is so refreshing to see folks getting serious and interested in advocacy. Dennis wrote an informative report for this month's newsletter about our trip.

Thanks to all the units who sent representatives. You guys are awesome! Everybody please make sure you do two important things for advocacy for next year. First, make sure a Legislative representative gets recruited to attend legislative roundtables and keep your unit informed and energized with respect to legislative activities in the education arena. Second, budget to send at least one, preferably two or more folks to Sacramento Safari next year. The cost per person is approximately $300 plus meals.

What a great investment for the education of your unit. It was wonderful to see the units represented with two or more delegates from their schools. Everyone I spoke to enjoyed the experience and looks forward to the opportunity to attend again. This is money well spent, so plan for it during your budgeting this summer.

Transition Planning

Many of you will be transitioning out of the position of president. Congratulations and thanks for your time, energy and commitment this year, but you're not finished yet. You are the chief volunteer until June 30 which makes you responsible for providing for a smooth transition with your successor. You need to role model for all your officers and chairmen this very important process.

1. Assist your successor with the recruitment of all appointed positions and chairmen, if help is wanted.
2. Bring your successor to the April Council meeting, so he/she will have an idea of what to expect next year.
3. Get your successor signed up for convention and/or Fourth District PTA training workshops and most definitely the Saddleback Council PTA Workshops on June 3.
4. Invite your successor to the End of the Year Council Dinner for Incoming and Outgoing presidents on May 20.
5. Schedule one-on-one meetings to brief him/her on the intricacies of your unit.
6. Schedule an incoming and outgoing board meeting for budget planning and beginning of the year event planning before school is out.
7. Remember how you felt when you took over as president. Do whatever you can to make for a smooth transition and hand over up-to-date notebooks and files.

Year-end Council Dinner

I am pleased to report that we will be having our end-of-the year council dinner meeting for incoming and outgoing presidents at Dave & Busters in the Irvine Spectrum. Karen Edwards spent a lot of time visiting restaurants in the area and reserved space for our group at this fun restaurant. Please watch for invitations with the particulars coming out soon.

APRIL 29 , 2004 COUNCIL MEETING:
S.V.U.S.D. BOARD ROOM, 7:30 PM
ITEMS TO BRING TO THE MEETING:

• Adopted Audit - two (2) copies - Auditor's folder
• Annual Report - two (2) copies - Historian's folder<
• New Officer List - two copies - President's folder (form in April Orange Leaves and online at www.svpta.org)
• Unit Newsletters - three (3) copies - President's foler

UPCOMING EVENTS - MARK YOUR CALENDARS:

Monday, April 12 to Friday, April 16		Spring Recess
Friday, April 23		Convention Delegates Orientation, 10:00 AM - Costa Mesa
Thurs., April 29		PTA Council Meeting, 7:30 PM, SVUSD
Friday, April 30		Legislative Roundtable, Location TBD
Mon.-Thurs., May 3-6		California State PTA Convention - Long Beach Convention Ctr.
Friday, May 7		Teacher Recognition Banquet - Laguna Cliffs Marriot, Dana Point
Tues., May 11		School Board Meeting, 7:00 PM - SVUSD Board Room
Thurs., May 20		PTA Council End of Year Dinner, 6:00 PM - Dave & Busters, Irvine Spectrum
Wed., May 26		Superintendent's Forum, 9:30 AM, SVUSD
Wed., May 26		4th District PTA Training Workshops, 9:00 AM - National University, Costa Mesa
Thurs., May 27		4th District PTA Training Workshops, 6:00 PM - Revere Elementary, Anaheim
Mon., May 31		Memorial Day Holiday - Schools Closed
Wed., June 3		PTA Council Training Workshops, 6:00 PM - SVUSD
Tues., June 8		School Board Meeting, 7:00 PM - SVUSD Board Room
Thurs., June 17		Last Day of School
Tues., June 22		School Board Meeting, 7:00 PM - SVUSD Board Room

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To provide an easier and more reliable way to compile data for next year's Saddleback Valley Council directory, please submit a copy of next year's officers and any executive board appointments to MaryAnne Shults. There are electronic templates available for MS Word and MS Excel for you to use for your data input. You may also submit as a text file with tabs between each field of information (e.g., title, name, address, etc.). See sample form attached to this newsletter (PDF version only). Forms will be emailed to you, or you can download from the website at www.svpta.org/forms.html#misc.

The form in the back of the May issue of "Orange Leaves" is for the Fourth District PTA's records and can be handwritten. For Council, please submit electronic file only.

If you have any questions, please contact MaryAnne at communications@svpta.org.

NOTE: To save any of these templates to your hard drive, right click on the link and use the "save as" function.

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Congratulations to the newly elected officers of the Saddleback Valley PTA for the 2004-2005 term.

President - Bridget White
Vice President -Kim Henderson
Recording Secretary - Molly O'Grady
Treasurer - Dennis Walsh
Auditor - Julie Swartz
Historian - Luis Alvarado

The election was held on Thursday, March 25 at 10:00 AM at the general session of the council.

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By Dennis Walsh, SVPTA Legislative Rep.

Twenty members of the Saddleback Council PTA journeyed to Sacramento on March 30-31 as part of Fourth District PTA's Sacramento Safari. We met with, or heard from, among others, a Senator, several Assemblymembers, staff members, Lobbyists and a State PTA Legislative Rep. Based on what I heard, it is my opinion there is little to look forward to in educational funding from Sacramento this year. Although bills progressed this year to relax class size reduction financial penalties (this time supported by the CAPTA), and to address equalization, neither will be passed and signed by the governor.

The state is still in a major financial crisis. We still have less revenue expected to come in this year than planned expenditures. Although the Governor might have come close to balancing the budget, it is expected that the May revise of the budget will show even less money coming in, possibly as much as $1 billion. (The May revision reflects adjustments for revenue based on tax return reporting from April 15th.) The governor will not approve anything that increases spending.

The state has somewhat weathered the financial crisis the last few years, but has not made any real progress toward solving it. To balance the budget in prior years, the state has borrowed money, held back on things so that they fall into the next fiscal year, and taken back money that was given out and unspent. The year before last they even cut school budgets in the middle of the year. In addition, they continue to pass legislation that mandates actions by school districts, without the funding to support it. This is why we have seen so many cuts in our SVUSD budget, and lost so many programs that are not part of the core curriculum. So over the last few years, the state has done the easy things, but not made the hard decisions (i.e. raising taxes or reducing spending).

Well, the time has come for the state to take some positive action! Not because they want to, but because they can no longer take the easy way out. But we are still faced with the fact that Sacramento is very political. In general, the Democrats do not want to cut spending for programs, and the Republicans do not want to increase taxes. So how this is all going to work out is anyone's guess.

Although most of what we learned was interesting, there are a few specific items I want to share with you. First is that there are at least a few people in Sacramento fighting for education. Almost every time someone brought up funding or programs for education, they mentioned Lynn Daucher (Republican Assemblywoman from Brea). She continues to work hard to further the cause of education, and appears to do a good job of getting bi-partisan support for her bills. The next is something Lynn Daucher told us. She said that Jackie Goldberg (Democrat from Los Angeles) who is the Chair of the Education Committee said that regarding the budget, if she had to make a choice between a slow death, and a pending death, she would choose to cut the slow death. What she was saying was that when it comes to possible cuts, she will choose cutting education before she would consider making cuts to social programs like health. Coming from the chair of education, it does not make you feel good about them keeping cuts away from education. Since education is by far the biggest part of the state budget, it is not likely we will get more money next year. We will be lucky if we get by without any cuts, but even this is unlikely. The final thing I heard that I would like to share with you is something we heard from a Republican Assemblyman. He said there is a conspiracy to raise our taxes. He told us how he feels this was being done to us. What this story illustrated to me was the us vs. them philosophy (party against party). I feel as though the majority of people in Sacramento are not there representing our interests, but are acting toward pushing their party line.

There is only one way to offset this. We must become more active. If every PTA member in the state sent a letter to Sacramento to tell them to keep education a priority in our state, and to not cut the budget, we might have a chance. Because when it comes right down to it, they not only want to keep their jobs, but they want to be re-elected. I have worked with the District to put a letter together that you can use. Please feel free to modify it if you choose, or just send it out the way it is. I urge all units to get involved, and to get Legislative Reps to organize and coordinate your efforts toward the reason why we are a part of PTA, advocating for our children. The letter should be available on both our web site www.svpta.org and the district web site http://www.svusd.k12.ca.us.