Summer Leadership Meetings

everychild.onevoice.

Every summer members of the Massachusetts PTA Board plan meetings with local PTA leaders across the Commonwealth. This year, meetings were held in the following places on the following dates and times:

Yarmouth, Saturday, August 3, 9:30 AM-11:30 AM
Brockton, Saturday, August 3, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM
Plymouth, Saturday, August 10, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM
Lexington, Thursday, August 15, 6:00 PM-7:30 PM
Salem State University, August 16, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM
Monson, Friday, August 23, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM
Pittsfield, Saturday, August 24, 9:30 AM-11:30 AM

Established in 1910, Massachusetts PTA is the oldest and largest volunteer advocacy association for children and youth in the Commonwealth. Today we speak up for family engagement language in laws; safe, healthy, and technologically advanced schools; and equal opportunity for all children, regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Brother Outsider *

Bayard Rustin

In the coming week the nation marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington (August 28, 1963) and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I have a Dream Speech. I was a pre-schooler when Dr. King made this speech, but there have been many

PDM

In summer of 2007, I was fortunate to spend two days in a workshop hosted by the Public Policy Institute (now Massachusetts Leadership Academy) and led by Patrick Bresette from Demos | Public Works. The topic was how to effectively frame conversations around public structures.

Breaking Ground

Treasurer, Steve Grossman

Estabrook School Principal,
Sandra Trach

A new school building is uncommon in the life of a community; a school is built about once every fifty years. So we were excited in spring of 2012 when State Treasurer Steve Grossman and representatives of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) came to the Joseph Estabrook School for a ceremonial ground-breaking for a new Estabrook School building project. The conditions surrounding the accelerated process for a new building will have to be part of another post, but I want to post pictures!

Selectmen Burnell, Cohen, & Manz

All stakeholders break ground: LPS Administration, DPF, Architects, Elected State House Representatives, MSBA

Raising Creative Students

Creative thinking inside classrooms is one of the essential goals of teaching and teachers understand and value the importance of creativity in classrooms. Creativity is a process that follows a thinking path, one that is inquisitive and noisy.  Saying that "it's a process" implies that "it's learnable" but it's not learned in the same rigorous way other thinking skills are learned. Creativity calls for a specific arsenal of thinking activities starting with risk-taking and ending with sharing.
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Image credit: Lifehack