What the PTIA Does
As the International Academy's official parent-teacher organization, PTIA provides many opportunities to enhance your student’s experience. Volunteering and attending meetings is not required, but encouraged.
The membership fee helps to sponsor many popular IA traditions that all students enjoy. Plus, members receive helpful insights, reminders and tips throughout the year from veteran parents.
What PTIA provides...
The membership fee helps to sponsor many popular IA traditions that all students enjoy. Plus, members receive helpful insights, reminders and tips throughout the year from veteran parents.
What PTIA provides...
Parent Support
- Parent Groups – For families with students in each of the classes, parent groups meet periodically to socialize and get information on important milestones relevant to the grade year.
- Mentor Program – Connects incoming families with a current IA family. The current families will help ease the transition for the new families and help them feel like part of our IA community by answering questions, inviting them to get involved, and sharing some of our insights and experiences.
- Hospitality – At each event, PTIA helps ensure attendees are comfortable and oriented.
- Back-to-School Event – To begin the school year, PTIA sponsors a special event that updates parents on topics of interest. The event also includes a brief orientation for new parents.
- Health & Wellness – Events & programs for helping families support the health & wellness of their students.
Student Events
For the students, PTIA provides social highlights, which help students bond at key times of the year.
- Olympics – The IA tradition that unites each class with fun and excitement, held each fall & winter, requires many parents’ help on “games day” and in preparation for the events.
- Welcome Back Dance – This event lets new students get acquainted with friends they met only recently in class and veteran students visit with friends from previous years. Parents have important roles in planning and offering this event.
- Snowball Dance – A mid-winter social gathering for students.
- Brain Break – Between final exams, IA parents provide students with snacks and a chance to unwind together. Many parents are needed to provide food and assistance on each of the three days in June.
- Senior All Night Party(SANP) – A fun-filled night with friends after graduation, this all-night event enables IA parents to provide a safe venue for their grads to celebrate with all their classmates. Many senior and junior parents are needed.
- Senior Gift – Each year, the PTIA gives a special gift to each of the graduating seniors. One parent is needed to coordinate this project sometime before February.
School Support
- Staff Appreciation Events – Three times a year, parents demonstrate families’ gratitude to the IA teachers and staff through a dinner or luncheon. Many volunteers are needed for this committee.
- Beautification - Building/Gardening - IA parents are charged with caring for two, student-planted perennial gardens on school grounds, including the courtyard where students often relax with friends or meet to discuss projects. Volunteers are needed for Fall and Spring clean-ups.
- Fundraising – The PTIA treasury provides grants to teachers to support unforeseen classroom needs and professional development that will benefit our students. We also use donated funds to support all the other PTIA activities described above and below. Many parents’ help is needed, especially now as we are working on the auction.
- Tile Sales – To commemorate the time our students spend at the IA, parents can purchase a tile to hang in the hallways surrounding the ISC. One parent is needed to coordinate this activity.
PTIA Support
- Student Directory and Parent Reference - To facilitate communications among IA families, PTIA publishes the student directory, and we give it free to members each October. It includes resources for understanding details about our unique school. A good opportunity for those who want to volunteer while staying at home (through October).
- Membership – When parents join PTIA, the membership committee helps ensure their information flows to the proper committees. We need parents’ data entry help. Another easy task for volunteering from home (through October, several helpers are needed).
- Website, Communication & E-News – The PTIA’s website and Facebook pagres are regualrily updates with a variety of helpful news and information.
- Leadership – PTIA's executive board ensures the organization fulfills its goals, and actively finds ways to help the school and its students thrive. Plus, there’s no better way to network at the IA than to serve as an officer or committee chairperson.