Officers of the newly-formed Hays CISD Council of PTAs include (left to right) Presdient Bobby Yanez, Vice-President Araceli Ramirez, Treasurer Dora Zapata, and Secretary Valerie Johnson. Twenty-one of the district’s 22 campuses has a PTA and most have already sent representation to the district organization. Organizing charter efforts are under way for the 22nd campus and hopes are for a unanimous showing of representatives on the district council.
Tom Green Elementary dad Bobby Yanez says that when his oldest child started kindergarten, he saw the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) as “a great organization to stay involved with my child’s education, the schools and teachers.” Having successfully committed to that involvement, Yanez has doubled down on the investment of time and energy, being elected the first president of the new Hays CSD Council of PTAs and taking on the challenge of helping coordinate a wide range of student-supportive activities.
Yanez, whose fellow officers include Vice-President Araceli Ramirez, Secretary Valerie Johnson and Treasurer Dora Zapata, says that parental involvement “helps your child to excel in school.” Representing a cross section of the community from which the officers live, Ramirez is Membership Chair of the Kyle Elementary PTA, Johnson is President of the Simon Middle School PTA, and Zapata is President of the Carpenter Hill Elementary PTA. Yanez serves as Vice-President of the Tom Green Elementary PTA.
The motivated father is emphatic when he explains how his sense of purpose took shape. “When PTA council elections came about, I saw it as an opportunity to promote parents’ involvement in school. As our Council Board formed, we set out to strengthen every local PTA by passing on valuable information – and being a source of information the local campus groups can depend on.”
On a national level, the PTA has been providing this kind of information and support for more than a century. From its 1897 founding as the National Congress of Mothers, it has grown into a group that aptly describes itself as “influencing millions of parents, past and present, to get involved in their children’s education.” The national organization currently claims more than 5 million volunteers in 25,000 local units.
For now, 21 of Hays CISD’s 22 campuses are among those local units. Yanez says that every campus PTA is invited to the district’s PTA council and that, to date, 13 of them have already sent representation. “We are working with that 22nd campus to charter their local PTA membership this year,” Yanez says, indicating the clear hope that the council will soon enjoy the participation of every campus PTA.
“In addition,” he adds, “we will partner with Hays CISD on different events and initiatives they would like to promote. We believe by doing this, it will help promote parent involvement and help educate children, all in a safe environment.”
It all neatly dovetails with the stated objectives of the national organization, which states on its website, “the PTA provides parents and families with a powerful voice to speak on behalf of every child while providing the best tools for parents to help their children be successful students.”
Affirming the district’s viewpoint on the growing PTA movement, its Director of Community Relations, Angie Mendez, says “the unlimited human resources of our community are coming into focus with the formation of the Council of PTAs. Bobby Yanez and his fellow officers are really the spear point of a program that we expect will accomplish wonderful things for our students and serve as a great community partner.”
