Westbriar Elementary School PTA

Dear Westbriar Families,

• Let me begin by introducing myself formally, my name is Natalie Lueders and I am your new PTA President. I have incoming 2^nd and 4^th graders.  Chances are you’ve seen me via Zoom through our community forums with Principal Tam in July. I feel like I jumped in running and haven’t had the chance to even say “hello.” Little did I know what kind of role I would be placed in when agreeing to take leadership with our 2020-2021 board and school.  Our past five months as a school community are literally ones for the history books. I think I’ll leave it at that.  

  Now, here’s the great news. The state of our PTA at Westbriar is strong.  I feel proud and confident in our school leadership, teachers and our ability as a community to truly make lemonade out of lemons. I also believe that as PTA we can strive to shift our perspective from “what could have been or should have been” to instead “how can we come together to support each other” as well as focusing on what we CAN do for our students, our families, our school and our teachers.  Creative thinking is welcomed! Our attitudes, our words and our actions speak louder than any textbook or YouTube video when helping build resilience and community – two things we all need right now more than ever.  I invite you to join our 2020-2021 PTA to be a light for one another by getting involved in this community as a member, a volunteer and even speaking up to share positive affirmations with others.  

  A few updates on what your PTA has been up to this summer:

• 1.     Zoom Community Forum Coffee’s with Principal Tam:  We’ve held two so far and have our third scheduled for August 5^th at 6pm. Be looking for the email invite in the next day or two. 
• 2.     Brownicity Workshop & Presentation: On July 22^nd close to 70 families and teachers from our PTA joined live to hear Dr. Lucretia Berry dialogue with us about skin tone and ethnicity.  If you’d like to access the resources she shared, please check out our westbriarpta.org homepage.
• 3.     Equity Committee: Our PTA has a NEW equity committee that will have a representative who sits on our Westbriar Equity Committee. Thank you Principal Tam for making this happen! Our PTA committee is comprised of four members: Mahnaz Hamesh, Eileen Jarvis, Lauren Pachman and Janice Phillips. 
• 4.     Audit Committee: Our audit team, Amy Blas, Katy Lee, and Heather Gatewood, completed the audit from last year’s books alongside our treasurer, Deirdre Naughton. A tremendous thank you to them for their attention to detail! 
• 5.     PTA Programming: Our VP of Programs, Lindsay Weitz and Katy Chernyak are hard at work identifying enrichment programs we can offer our PTA members on Mondays as well as before school with a start time of 8:30-8:45am aiming to help families have a more traditional school start time.  Keep your eyes open for registration as we get closer to September. 
• 6.     Social Media: Please join the Facebook page @westbriarpta where Angie Gutenson keeps us all up to date on all things Westbriar.  
• 7.     PTA Meetings: All 2020-2021 PTA Meetings will be held virtually over Zoom or a similar platform. Meetings will likely be held on Thursday evenings once a month.  Our schedule will be released before school begins.

I’d like to close asking you to join you Westbriar PTA and to volunteer if you have not already. Whether it’s a “one and done” or a more involved role,  we need and appreciate you – it WILL take a village this year as we pivot to a virtual-based PTA.  We need your creative thinking and heart!  Now is the perfect time to join the PTA – our goal is 100% participation from families and teachers.  

In Health,

Natalie Lueders & 

Your Westbriar PTA Board

wesptaprez@gmail.com

www.westbriarpta.org