Family Corner

The High School for Contemporary invites parents to attend the monthly Parent Teacher Association Meetings. Please refer to the school calendar for the next upcoming meeting or contact our Parent Coordinator.

What is a PTA?

Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA's) are school-based organizations open to all parents of children currently attending a New York City public school. The PTA is a primary vehicle for parents to get involved in their children’s schools.

What is the role of the PTA?

The PTA helps parents become involved in their children’s education, share ideas, and enrich their school communities. While the specific roles of PTA's vary, among their responsibilities are electing parent members to serve on School Leadership Teams and Community Education Councils, conducting outreach to get other parents involved in school life, and supporting school activities like Parent-Teacher Conferences, open houses and curriculum nights. Each PTA develops its own bylaws, elects officers, and holds regular meetings.

How do I join my school’s PTA?

All parents, step-parents, legally appointed guardians, foster parents and persons in parental relation are automatically members of their school’s PTA. For more specific information on how to get involved, ask your school principal or parent coordinator.

The School Leadership Team (SLT) is a group of people who develop educational policies for their school. They also make sure there are resources to support those policies.

SLTs:

• Provide ongoing evaluations of a school’s educational programs and their impact on student achievement.
• Play an important role in school-based decision-making
• Help to make school cultures more collaborative.

What is the role of an SLT?

• An SLT is responsible for developing a school’s Comprehensive Educational Plan (CEP). See the iPlan portal (Open external link)to find your CEP.
• An SLT makes a yearly evaluation of the principal’s record of developing an effective, shared decision-making relationship with the SLT members during the year. This evaluation is given to the community district or high school superintendent.
• The SLT is not responsible for the hiring or firing of school staff. However, according to Chancellor’s Regulation C-30, the SLT must be consulted prior to the appointment of a principal or assistant principal.
• Visit the SLT support site(Open external link) to get the toolkit, bylaws, training modules, and other resources.