Mt. Morris Central School Recognized As A School of Excellence

The National PTA is pleased to recognize Mount Morris Central School and the Mount Morris Parent, Teacher, Student Association as a 2019-2021 School of Excellence
for their accomplishments in building a strong, effective family-school partnership that is enriching the educational experience and overall well-being for all students.
MMCS and the MMPTSA are one of only 326 PTAs and schools nationwide to be designated a 2019-2021 School of Excellence and are one of only 13 PTA’s and schools in New York state to be awarded the designation.

To celebrate their achievements, National PTA presented Mount Morris Central School and the Mount Morris PTSA with a certificate and a National PTA School of Excellence banner to hang in their school. School and PTSA officials will gather Monday, Sept. 23 at 5:30 p.m. to dedicate and hang the banner.  “When families and schools work together, students do better in school and schools improve,” said Leslie Boggs, president of National PTA. “Mount Morris Central School and the Mount Morris PTSA have worked hard to strengthen their family-school partnership and their efforts are making a positive impact on student success and school improvement. We are pleased to recognize them as a 2019-2021 School of Excellence.”

National PTA’s School of Excellence program supports and celebrates schools and PTAs that make a year-long commitment to improving family-school partnerships. Throughout the year, the schools and PTAs collect feedback from their school communities and create and implement plans of action to make a difference for every child. Through the School of Excellence program, PTAs and families become key partners in decision-making and school improvement efforts.  “This program from start to finish was work for our PTSA volunteers,” said Amanda Lonsberry, MMPTSA President. “However, as a parent group, we felt that if we could do something to help other parents connect better with the school, it would be worth the effort. We couldn’t have done it without parents telling us what they needed or without the full support of our school leaders, who welcomed us into the school and gave us the resources we needed to finish the work. We have built the foundation of a great partnership to help our kids and their families!”

Research conducted by the PTSA showed that Mt. Morris families were looking for more information on different transitions within their child’s school life. So, PTSA members created a series of videos that parents could watch on their own time introducing them to things like graduation requirements, how to use SchoolTool, both done in English and Spanish, and important grade transitions like elementary to middle school and starting kindergarten. More videos are in progress. To see what the
PTSA and school officials accomplished, please visit http://www.mtmorriscsd.org/new-tutorials.

Mt. Morris Elementary School Principal Danielle Dean noted that the videos “help families prepare for major milestones, find key information and introduce them to the Mount Morris Central School District.” She was able to use the videos as an orientation tool at Kindergarten orientation in May.  “It was an amazing experience having other parents share the great successes that they have had within the district to the new families entering,” Dean said. “This initiative was possible because of the hard work of the PTSA volunteers. PTSA members worked hard to create videos to help prepare our families for transitions that occur during a student’s school career. We are very excited that our PTSA has been recognized as a PTA School of Excellence recipient. “

For more information about the National PTA School of Excellence program, visit PTA.org/Excellence.

For more information on the Mount Morris PTSA, please follow us on Facebook/mountmorrisptsa.