PTA meeting dates: Once a month; the 2nd Wednesday of every month at 8:00 am at the school.

Colegio Maya´s PTA, is a happy group of volunteers who join together in an effort to support the Maya community. To give you an idea of what is usually happening during the school year and to make you curious enough to want to join the PTA volunteers, we present a summary of some of our activities.

A very rewarding tradition is the Student International Potluck during the first semester. Students ask their parents to provide a dish of typical food from their home country. As we have so many different nationalities in our school this is a culinary highlight for students and teachers.

Every year we have a Christmas bazaar to provide students, teachers and parents with the opportunity to do their Christmas shopping in a unique atmosphere. Usually we have a very impressive variety of products: Guatemalan handicrafts, homemade cookies, handmade crafts and much more. Best of all: PTA wraps the gifts free of charge!!

One of the more popular events is the Fun Run. This Saturday morning event invites all active persons of the Maya community to run, walk, skate, skip, or whichever is your favorite means of locomotion for the designated distance.

I Love To Read Program: This is a preK-5th grade motivational home reading program. The program is organized around a particular theme (usually with a literary title involved). Children are given packets of reading logs to keep track of the time read on a daily basis at home. The program is designed to instill a habit of daily reading and motivate children to read more than they thought possible. A huge elementary-wide graphic mural is created by the Education Committee to permit the children to visually paste their progress and see the progress of the rest of the school. Activities are planned throughout the month to integrate class work with the related theme. Much parent involvement is solicited. Integration of the library, art department, drama, music and home room teacher is also encouraged. A closing ceremony is planned to give credit to all of the readers.

Book Fair: A local book fair is planned as a 2 to 3 day event. Approximately 7 booksellers are invited and offer both English and Spanish children's literature. The stimulus is to provide children and parents with quality literature to purchase for their home libraries as well as to introduce them to the best booksellers in Guatemala.

Our biggest fundraiser is the well-known annual Friendship Fair. This is possibly the most exciting event PTA organizes in Colegio Maya! International food booths, games and a raffle with great prizes make this a very enjoyable day and a highlight of the school year!

We have Teacher Appreciation events throughout the year to express our gratitude for all that they do for our children and Colegio Maya. Often these are set up in their faculty lounge with lots of goodies, decorations and love!

Publishing Center: Teachers have expressed a strong interest in the re-installation of this center established by a committee of parent volunteers. 3rd to 5th grade students may have access to the center which allows children to physically publish in a hard bound version their final writings.
In between these events we try to schedule other activities throughout the school year such as speakers on subjects of interest to the parents, sharing of resources for parents, social events or anything else you can think of and suggest to us.

The PTA Board is composed of a President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer, as well as the following special positions:

Director of Teacher Appreciation
Oversees, coordinates , manages and sends out invitations to these events:
" November/Thanksgiving "Thankful for our great teacher's"' food
" February/"You're a Favorite Valentine" sweets
" May end-of-the-year Teacher Appreciation Dinners

Director of Educational Programs
Organizes activities designed to enrich the curriculum and encourage home/school interaction. Includes the planning, coordinating and executing of:
" Elementary "I Love to Read" Program (PK-5th grade motivational home reading program)
" Book Fair (Part of the I Love to Read Month)

Director of Publicity
" Prepares flyers/announcements for special events
" Submits updates to the elementary Thursday bulletin and HS Daily Bulletin when needed.
" Provides updates for the Colegio Maya PTA portion of the Maya web site

Be a part of it - catch the spirit!

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