Dear Genesee Hill Families, 

Our PTA has achieved several accomplishments in the first two months of the school year, and we wanted to reach out to share what we’ve done together so far and to thank you for your continued support and participation.

In October, we have:

• Funded DEI training for our staff
• Co-hosted our first Parent Education Series event on kids and screens with viewing and discussion of “Screenagers Part 2”
• Hosted our first in-person social event with the Monster Mash
• Completed our first month of listening sessions
• And, for our second consecutive year we have received a PTA Member Growth Award!

Thank you to everyone who completed our family and staff surveys and participated in our listening sessions. We successfully completed three in-person sessions, one for families with neurodiverse students, one for our staff members, and one for all our GHE families, hearing from a total of 126 individuals and families (which represents 24% of our community). This input has given us a deeper understanding of our collective needs, and we’ll be spending the next few months synthesizing what we learned and preparing to share the results with you. 

One message is already abundantly clear: Every one of us is looking for a community that is trusting, inclusive, and a place where each of our voices is heard and appreciated toward the common goal of supporting our children’s educational experience and academic excellence.

It is our role as your Parent Teacher Association (PTA) leadership to name the issues we are facing and make space for us to come together and find the solutions. The changes and growth required for all our members to feel a sense of belonging often involves a certain level of discomfort as we adjust to new community norms and broader inclusivity. As your PTA Board, we are committed to making the space for each of you to be heard, valued, and included when building the best community for our children. 

To this end, you can expect your PTA board to be working hard this year to have challenging and explicit conversations with the goal of supporting a strong Genesee Hill Community. Looking ahead, we will be sharing additional resources on microaggressions (thank you Genesee Staff for helping lead this work!), holding our first community conversation, resources for our neurodiverse students, designing FAQs held on our website, hosting a Kindergarten Q&A, and in January continuing our Parent Education Series.

Thank you in advance for your engagement, your time and your passion so that together we can raise strong, educated, compassionate, and resilient children.  This is your PTA; please reach out with any questions.

In partnership,
Lia Barros and Michael Brown, Co-Presidents

Dear GHE families,

Our vision this year is to focus on building a strong community at Genesee Hill Elementary that centers the voices, experiences, and needs of all our students, families, and staff. In the month of October we will be rolling out our Community Needs Assessment, “The Month of Listening.”

There will be three parts to this assessment to try to capture everyone’s voice: 1) Individual family survey 2) Staff survey and 3) Listening sessions. We are inviting you to please complete the survey and consider joining one of our listening sessions where you identify. We are asking for your honest and open feedback on your needs and how the GHE PTA is doing in building a space of inclusion and belonging for you and your family. 

Read more in the latest email from our PTA co-presidents.