Ask most people what the PTA does and they’ll mention a bake sale or a book fair. Those are real — but they’re the visible tip of something much larger: a district-wide network of volunteers working, mostly behind the scenes, on behalf of every child in Ossining‘s public schools.
The Ossining Council of PTAs is the umbrella organization for the district’s local PTA and PTSA units — the individual PTAs at each school, from early childhood through Ossining High School, together with SEPTA, the special education PTA. Each unit serves its own school community. The Council exists for everything that is bigger than one building: the work that needs a single, district-wide voice.
PTA is the nation’s oldest and largest child advocacy organization, and its mission is simple to say and large to live up to: to make every child’s potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children. In Ossining, that translates into practical work. The Council runs the district’s National PTA Reflections program, which invites students at every level to create original art, music, writing, photography, and film around a yearly theme. It trains and supports the volunteers who lead each school unit, and helps them share what works. It carries Ossining’s parent voice to the district, to the Westchester–East Putnam region, and to New York State PTA. And it builds bridges — this fall, the Council is re-establishing a liaison with every unit and has begun working with the Ossining Teachers Association to gather parent feedback on the district’s curriculum, so that families and teachers are pulling in the same direction.
None of it is done by staff. The Council and every one of its units are powered entirely by volunteers — parents and caregivers, teachers and staff, grandparents, alumni, and neighbors — most of them fitting PTA work around jobs and families in whatever hours they can give. A newly seated Council board this fall is working to make that volunteering easier to step into: clearer roles, better communication between units, and materials in English and Spanish so that every Ossining family can take part, not just hear about it afterward.
“PTA runs on neighbors,” said Leilani Dooley, President of the Ossining Council of PTAs. “Nobody here is paid, and nobody has spare time — people give an hour at a book fair, an evening at a meeting, a skill they happen to have, because they want Ossining’s kids to have more than the basics. When families, teachers, and the community show up together, the schools feel it. So does every child in them.”
That spirit is also behind the Council’s fundraisers, including its current one: proceeds from this fundraiser go directly to the behind-the-scenes infrastructure the Council provides for every unit — Google Workspace, SMS messaging, and a public web presence. Without the Council, each unit would have to pay for those essentials on its own; carrying them centrally takes that burden off the units’ plates, so each unit can put its money where it’s needed most — its own school community.
Through November 26, supporters can order a fresh Balsam or Fraser fir, a wreath, or a tree stand through the Council’s link and have it delivered to their home, choosing a delivery date between November 21 and December 18; the code BUNDLEUP saves $37 on a bundle of a 7–8 foot Balsam fir, a decorated wreath, and a stand ($300 instead of $337), and every order placed through the link supports the Council. Order at https://jollytree.delivery/?ref=ossiningpta.
The Council’s invitation, though, is bigger than a tree. Join your school’s PTA. Come to a meeting. Volunteer for one thing. The door is open to every family in the district — and, as Ossining’s volunteers will tell you, the work is better with more hands in it.
