Harboring victory and success

Marisa O’Neil

They’ve helped fire victims in San Bernardino, organized a

districtwide college fair and produced a video on student discipline

policies.

And after taking home five of seven state awards, the Harbor

Council PTA can boast that it’s the winningest PTA in the state.

President Patty Christiansen and Executive Vice President Ellen

Carroll credit teamwork for their success, which includes winning

Outstanding Council for the second year running.

But having fun doesn’t hurt, either.

“Patty [Christiansen] and I took the job on with the understanding

we are going to have a good time, and we have,” Carroll said. “And

we’ve just carried that on through.”

Harbor Council also won My PTA/PTSA awards at last week’s PTA

Convention for Membership Creativity, Outreach Efforts, Parent

Involvement and Teacher, Staff and Administrator Involvement. This is

also the first time the council, which includes all Newport-Mesa

Unified School District PTAs, took home so many awards.

They beat out 184 councils representing more than a million

members, Christiansen pointed out.

“In all my years, I’ve never seen a PTA as active [as Harbor

Council],” school district spokeswoman Jane Garland said. “They come

to all our meetings and interact with us on a daily basis. They

deserve all their awards.”

Christiansen and Carroll have nearly half a century of PTA

experience between them. Their knowledge and experience helped with

the council’s success this year, Christiansen said, but working with

the people throughout the district really made the difference.

“Our basic goal was to become partners in education in this

district,” she said. “Our theme was: ‘Teaming up for Kids.’ We got

our parents involved, teachers involved, administrative staff

involved. We pretty much managed to be complete partners in policy

making, planning and everything.”

District involvement was so great, she said, that members of other

PTA councils complimented Christiansen’s support when she won the

Orange County PTA Outstanding Volunteer of the Year. Three tables

full of administrators, parents and board trustees from Newport-Mesa

showed up for the awards ceremony.

“She has that team spirit,” school board member Linda Sneen said.

“It’s infectious. She makes it easy, you want to be a part of it.

They’re making the district look good and it seems like there’s no

stopping us. We’ve got really good momentum.”

This year, Harbor Council PTA organized a toy and book drive for

San Bernardino fire victims. They delivered two truck loads of items

donated by local families.

The council also put on a college fair at the Orange County

Fairgrounds for students from Newport-Mesa schools to check out 200

colleges. They also put together a DVD that was distributed to all

the high school students in the district, explaining the district’s

drug- and alcohol-related suspension policy prior to each high

school’s prom.

“I’ve noticed the difference this year,” Christiansen said. “When

we were named Outstanding Council, everyone’s ears perked up. Now

they say: ‘Hey, this is a great organization.’”