About the JA PTA

The Jefferson Avenue Elementary School Parent Teacher Association is an organization committed to supporting the school administration, teachers, and students. We provide the funding for many programs designed to enrich the JA curriculum and coordinate volunteers to assist in various ways during the school year.

We meet monthly in the evenings, and anyone can attend. Meeting days and times are listed in a variety of places, like the paper schedule you get in the mail before the first day of school (in that big packet), on the school website, and the JA PTA Facebook page. Most of the time the principal or assistant principal attends as well as a teacher representative. As a parent, you are not committing to coming to every meeting if you come once or twice. You can come and just listen to find out what is going on at our school. Maybe you want to volunteer to help with an event that sounds interesting and fits your schedule; it is a nice way to connect with other families. By joining in this way, you are not committing to coming to meetings or helping with events necessarily. It just means you’ve supported us and the programs we are going to run (and you can vote on issues if you do come to meetings - a nice perk). SO please join! Even if being “on the PTA” isn’t your thing, we hope you will support us by buying a membership.  

The PTA runs events such as Outdoor Movie Night (September), the Fall Family Fun Night (October), Fun Events (Fall/Winter), Reading Challenge (January), the K-2 Art Show (March), the 3rd-5th grade Science Fair (April), Book Fairs (Fall /Spring), Jaguar Jog Fun Run (May), and Summerpalooza (June).  

Wait, there’s more! PTA provides every student and staff member with yearly JA swag, and new in 2023, each student receives a free yearbook. We also give teachers and staff a fantastic Teacher Appreciation Week breakfast, an end of the year lunch, and a yearly classroom stipend for supplies or activities. PTA also organizes school picture day (come help comb hair and straighten out clip-on ties!), “special picture days” (fifth grade class photo, club photos for the yearbook), and creates/orders the yearbooks. Finally, every fifth grader gets an additional book compliments of PTA, called a memory book. It is a collection of photos (and a who’s who of baby pictures) from their JA days, grades K-5. Parents provide the photos, so take lots and lots of group pictures at every JA event you attend; you’ll be glad you did.  The memory books are given out at the Fifth Grade Finale and they may just make you cry.