This material is provided by GA PTA

Georgia PTA 2005 Legislative Priorities

Georgia PTA and its members:

• Support public K-12 schools with adequate state funding, reflective of the actual costs of providing the state defined services, and Support equitable distribution of state funding to K-12 schools, currently calculated on property tax wealth in each school system.

• Support using public funds for public schools only.  Oppose any effort to use public funding for private schools or home school programs.

• Support efforts to reduce the 40% non completion (graduation) rate in Georgia through:

- Early identification of potential dropouts
- Improved instructional programs for at risk students
- Expanded counseling and guidance services
- Job placement and work experience programs
- Immediate follow-up of why individual students drop out

• Support multiple criteria be used to determine promotion and retention, and not rely on the results of just one test.

• Support multiple opportunities for parental involvement, as defined in the Parent Act of No Child Left Behind and the National Standards for Parent and Family Involvement, in decisions regarding school policies and curriculum, for their own student and for all students.

• Support the right of local boards of education to manage and control local public schools [such as mill rate, selection of instructional materials, hiring of personnel, and school calendar] as they seek to improve the quality of education for all students and are sensitive to differences in educational needs of children and youth.

• Support efforts to protect the health and safety of our children and youth.

• Support efforts to reduce childhood obesity through physical education and nutritional programs in regular school programs.

 Adopted:  23 October 2004

Priorities serve multiple purposes:

• Instructs the membership about issues the GPTA board feels are most important during the upcoming legislative session.

• Informs the decision makers about what is important to GPTA.

Priorities represent what the organization stands for and the viewpoint that to obtain those objectives, laws must be created or amended. 

Priorities should be adopted based on the positions of the organization and not on the probability that GPTA will or will not have success with a specific priority. 

 

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