Northport Public Schools’ recently formed Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) is set to meet as a group for the first time this week. Northport residents Melissa Hale and Laura Cavendish are helping to organize the group this year, with one of their desires being to help build and increase the participation of the Northport school and parent community.
“It’s been a long time (since a Northport school PTO existed). The closest thing we’ve had in recent years is a booster club, but that hasn’t existed for a little while, too…” Cavendish said. “Melissa (Hale) has really been heading it, she’s the one that really started to push for it. I have kind of helped her and we’re continuing to take it forward. She started with surveys to the parents to see if there was enough interest, which the response was that there is.”
Cavendish has three kids enrolled at the school, a 6th, 2nd, and 3rd grader, and Hale has two young kids herself, a 5th and 2nd grader, also at Northport. With both parents having students working their way up through the school, Cavendish said they wanted to ensure that there was a PTO group for others who had interest in discussing goals and opportunities for the students and teachers moving forward.
One of the main goals for their first meeting is to identify what the PTO goals focus will be, Cavendish said, and to establish what is most important and valuable to parents for the PTO to tackle first.
“If we can get that established, then we’ll kind of go from there with the next steps,” she said. “We have quite a few goals (a list) that we’re going to put before people as possible goals to choose from. We’re going to let each parent that attends have five votes, and they’ll get to prioritize and can put them wherever they want, so if there’s a specific goal like the after school program or teacher support, or welcoming new families… then you can put all your votes there. That will help us kind of identify and narrow down hopefully what we’re looking for.”
Getting the process started now will help to build the base of parents and families that are looking to participate. Northport is the smallest of public schools in the county in terms of student population, so families that send their kids to the district or live in the village in general already have the benefit of a close knit community. Cavendish said she hopes the group can help to further bring community members together though, noting that she’s already been impressed with the public response she’s received since posting about the PTO meeting.
“One of the things on our list is building and increasing the school and parent community and as part of that, we would likely then be looking to plan additional no cost gathering events, game nights, pot lucks, dances, things like that,” she said. “I think that it can absolutely improve the relationship and sense of community within the school and the Village of Northport.”
The meeting this week was scheduled for Wednesday, March 6 after having to be rescheduled from last week’s date. The next PTO meeting will most likely be in April.
