UPDATED 2021-05-27 15:16

This is your TJ PTSA official source of EC Officer Election information. If you have questions please email the president and he’ll add them to this FAQ.

Q1: One question which I’ve heard from several people about the upcoming EC election is if balloting will be secret.  I’m assuming it is, but is that so?  If anyone on the EC will know how people vote, whom would it be?
A1: As with all PTSA elections, and according to VA PTA training on elections, the Tellers committee will be able to see the ballots. The Tellers Committee for this election is Nick Costescu, Anna Lee Kim, Stacey Heller, Kaushik Goswami (all on the EC). Normally you have 3 or 5 so there isn’t a tie on the results but since we don’t actually have to count physical ballots, and the ezvoteonline system gives us the results, we don’t need an odd #. Our function is also different with an online vote. Normally tellers hand out ballots, collect them, count them, and report results. The equivalent functions for online vote is that we will help people who have technical issues voting (with the email validation, etc.) and look for folks who started but didn’t finish a ballot to see if they had technical issues (we have found that sometimes people have trouble if they don’t finish the ballot in one sitting). Paper ballots are destroyed after an election. In our case with online voting, they are archived so as an ezvoteonline admin I can go look at them anytime. I kept them there in case someone decided to audit, we can go in together and see exactly when and how folks voted. At the end of this school year, I will delete all the old ballots, retaining only the vote results in our meeting minutes. The new EC will not be able to see who voted for whom, and after the ballot closes I will remove the other Tellers access from ezvoteonline (maybe keep Kaushik just in case I get run over by a bus and someone wants to audit).

Q2: We saw the bios for the candidates recommended by the TJ PTSA Nominating Committee in their report. Where can we read similar info about the self-nominated candidates running against them?
A2: Soon we will post info from all the candidates in the same format (their name, class(es) their children are in, the position they’re running for, why they want to serve, and a short bio). Look for a news post / featured item on our website. We’re just waiting on folks to make some final edits to their info.

Q3: Who can vote in the upcoming 2021-22 TJ PTSA Officer Election?
A3: All TJ PTSA members. You are a member for the 2020-21 school year if you have purchased a 2020-21 membership of the appropriate type (adult, student, or faculty) in AtoZ.

Q4: Who can be a TJ PTSA member?
A4: According to the VA PTA Membership Handbook any living person can join any PTA.

From Section 7.1 Membership eligibility
Any living person may join a PTA, regardless of age, occupation, geographic location, familiarity with the school or district supported by the PTA, membership in other PTAs, or any other factor.

Q5: That’s nuts! A bunch of people who have nothing to do with the current school community could buy memberships and take over the TJ PTSA.
A5: True. Seems crazy to me too. I can’t vote in some other state’s state election, why can random people vote in our TJ PTSA elections?

If you’d like to see that policy change, with something like a community membership that confers voting rights but is only available to current parents/guardians, students, teachers/staff, and a support only membership with no voting rights but that is available to people that are not in the current parent/guardian, student, faculty/staff community, let the VA PTA know. I have.

Free: 866.4VA.KIDS (866.482.5437)
Ph: 804.264.1234
Fax: 804.264.4014
E: info@vapta.org

Virginia PTA
1027 Wilmer Ave
Richmond, VA 23227

Q6: When will you stop selling 2020-21 TJ PTSA Memberships?
Updated A6: Click here for the finalized timeline.
Original A6: Not sure, but we will announce when we close the voter registration roll. That will happen before the ballot starts. Check back here for updates as we figure out the dates.

Q7: When will the election will be? What’s the first date when I can vote and when’s the last date I can vote?
Updated A7: Click here for the finalized timeline.
Original A7: We don’t have the dates yet. We will post them as soon as we have them. It takes a lot of work and this is probably our first ever contested election. We have to make sure everything is done right.
We use an online voting system that does not integrate with the membership system so we have to export and manually massage and import the voter list and then maintain it manually. We want the process to be auditable. We’re also all parent volunteers with daytime jobs and families.
We’ll get you this info as soon as we have it. You will have time to read about the candidates before the election, and the election will be finished before our fiscal year ends (end of June).

There is another issue we have not faced before. Our bylaws require the EC transition as soon as the election results are in. This was fine when we did it in person and we did it in June. Now we’re doing it online which lets us do it at any time, without waiting for a meeting. If we ran the ballot in May we would leave the new EC to wrap up our business for this year. There are still events to be organized and run in May and early June, and it would not be fair to the new EC to drop them into that unfinished business. We’ve received guidance from VA PTA and they recommend waiting and also changing our bylaws in future to transition at the end of the school year rather than at the election. That would let us have the election earlier but still finish out the year

Q8: How can I check if I’m a member?
A8: Log in to atozconnect.com, click the hamburger menu, click Store, click My Orders. Look for a 2020-21 Adult Membership if you’re an adult (non faculty/staff), a 2020-21 Student Membership for students, or a 2020-21 Faculty Membership if you’re a faculty or staff.

If you purchased more than one Adult or Student membership, make sure they are each assigned to a correct type of family members (adult or student). See screenshot below.

If you need help figuring this out, feel free to email the Tellers Committee (tellers@tjptsa.org).

Q9: My kids want to join the TJ PTSA and vote. What do I do?
A9: Do the following:

• Buy a 2020-21 Student Membership for each child.
• Make sure you assign each membership to the correct child in the AtoZ cart when buying it.
• From your AtoZ email account (the one you have associated with your name in AtoZ) email tellers@tjptsa.org with your child’s name and their non-FCPS email address. The child’s email will not be visible in the directory, but we will be able to register them to vote.
• IF YOU DON’T GET US THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS THEY CAN’T VOTE. This is because the online voting system uses email validation.
• Remember you can always create a new gmail or other email account for them to use for PTSA business if you don’t want to give us their personal email.

Q10: I hear rumors and see forwarded emails from people about dates and other information about the election. Should I trust those sources? Where can I go for official information about this election?
A10: A good rule in general is that if you didn’t read it in one of our official communication channels, you risk getting bad information. Look for info on our website, in our newsletter, or in an email sent to you by the President of the TJ PTSA. If you still can’t get the info you need, email the President of the TJ PTSA.

Q11: Who is on the Tellers Committee and what do they do?
A11: For this election, the Tellers Committee is composed of Nicolae Costescu (President), Kaushik Goswami (2nd VP), Anna Lee Kim (1st VP) and Stacey Heller (Recording Secretary). The Tellers Committee normally creates the paper ballots and passes them out and then tallies them. Since our election is online, the Tellers Committee will create the online ballot and then manage the election (answering questions, helping with technical issues such as email validation, etc.) and then present the results. If you need help during the election you can email tellers@tjptsa.org and we’ll help you out.

From the TJ PTSA President

Hi TJ Community,

I’ve gotten a few questions about how the election will work, and I also want to address a rumor or two. I’m glad people are eager to learn about the election. Everything is following a timeline that is defined in our bylaws and in the VA PTA training material for officer elections.

TL;DR (translation for Boomers: “Executive Summary”)

The TJ PTSA EC has not called for Dr. Bonitatibus or Superintendent Brabrand’s resignation.

The Nominating Committee was elected by the TJ PTSA membership (800 some eligible voters) so it is false to assert that one person hand-picked the recommended slate of EC candidates.

Remember to get your official TJ PTSA info from our website, our newsletter, or our Facebook page, or email the president or attend a PTSA meeting and ask your questions there.

Only 2020-21 TJ PTSA members get to vote in the election, so if you want to vote, buy a 2020-21 membership now. We’ll stop selling them shortly. Each membership gets one vote.

Don’t buy a membership for your kid if your kid doesn’t want to be a member and vote. Because I’m going to interview them and find out if it’s really them voting! Not really but who knows, I MIGHT! I won’t, but you never know. I could…

If you buy student memberships for your student, email the president from the email address that shows up for you in AtoZ Connect and include the child’s personal email (we can’t email school email addresses). The email will be hidden in AtoZ but will allow the child to vote.

We’ll post on the website as soon as we know dates when the Ballot will open and close. Thanks for supporting the work of the PTSA with your memberships.

If you want more details, read the Wall of Text Version below.

Nick Costescu, President

Wall of Text Version

Here’s the long version in excruciating detail.

As usual, on the internet, especially on social media, you need to take everything you read with a grain of salt, and understand that the more exciting or provocative a post is, the more likely the author has an agenda to push and they are trying to get you riled up so you’ll support that agenda. It’s not wrong to have an agenda or to drum up support for your agenda, but we need to be aware this is happening and maybe seek out the other points of view before getting too upset.

One false rumor I want to address is the allegation that the TJ PTSA is calling for the resignation of Dr. Bonitatibus and Superintendent Scott Brabrand.

The TJ PTSA has no such official position.

To adopt an official position, we’d need at least an EC vote and more likely a membership vote and then we’d post an official statement on our website, which, along w/the newsletter and our official TJHSST PTSA Facebook page are the only official TJ PTSA online communications channels.

If you don’t visit our website, please take a moment to become familiar with it, it’s the authoritative source and everything else, including the newsletter and Facebook content, flows from it.

It is true that some parents have called for those resignations. They do so as individual parents, or even as TJ PTSA members, or even as TJ PTSA committee chairs. Parents do not give up their rights to advocate and to free speech just because they volunteer for the TJ PTSA. But we have no official EC or TJ PTSA position calling for these resignations.

The other rumor is that one parent hand-picked the slate of recommended candidates. The process for electing the Nominating Committee is well documented in our Bylaws. You, the members of the TJ PTSA, either by voting for the Nominating Committee or by abstaining, indirectly selected the recommended slate of candidates for EC Officers. So if the folks you wanted to be on the slate didn’t make it, it’s because they didn’t have the support of you, the membership.

After the Nominating Committee report came out, per our Bylaws, we opened up self-nomination to all members, and we had four parents self-nominate. They will appear on the ballot for EC Officer positions alongside the recommended slate of candidates. From then on it’s a pure democratic election, so vote. The candidate for each office that gets the most votes wins.

The Election

Here’s the timeline of posts related to the EC Officer elections, along with a summary of each. All of these posts also went out in the newsletter.

• 2021-02-01 Nominating Committee Volunteers Needed
  • This was where we reached out to all members to get self-nominations for candidates who wanted to volunteer to be on the Nominating Committee.
  • We had an online election and you, the TJ PTSA membership elected your Nominating Committee to represent you in interviewing candidates for next year’s EC.
• 2021-02-26 Nominating Committee Election Results
  • This is where we presented the results of the election of the Nominating Committee. The committee then elected its chair from its members, per the Bylaws.
• 2021-03-07 Volunteer to serve on the TJ PTSA Executive Committee
  • This is where we asked the TJ PTSA membership to apply for EC Officer positions. Everyone who applied was considered and interviewed by the Nominating Committee.
• 2021-04-04 Nominating Committee Report
  • This is when we presented the Nominating Committee’s report, which recommended a slate of candidates for the 2021-22 EC Officer positions.
  • This is the official slate recommended by the TJ PTSA membership because the members elected the Nominating Committee.
• 2021-04-11 Call for Self-Nominations for 2021-22 TJ PTSA Executive Committee Officer Positions: Deadline April 25
  • This is where we put out the call for self-nominations for 2021-22 EC Officer positions. Any TJ PTSA member was able to self-nominate for any EC position and challenge a candidate on the slate recommended by the Nominating Committee.
• 2021-04-25 Self-Nominations for 2021-22 EC Officers Positions are Closed
  • This is where we closed the self-nominations and announced the names of everyone who self-nominated and what positions they are running for.

I’m currently seeking guidance from VA PTA on the rest of our timeline and I’ll update this post when I have it, so this is all tentative for now.

• 2021-05-<early May> 2020-21 TJ PTSA Memberships will no longer be available for sale. That means at that point each 2020-21 membership will be registered to vote and no one else will be able to vote. If a membership is not associated with an email in AtoZ connect, it cannot vote. The voting system relies on email addresses.
  • If you buy a student membership you must email the president from the email address that AtoZ has for you to let him know the email of the student you are buying it for (also make sure to assign it to the student when you buy it). Don’t use the student’s school email, we can’t send emails to that address.
  • I’m joking in the TL;DR section, but I do need to email the kid’s email because they aren’t able to enter it themselves so I need to make sure we have a valid email for them to vote or they won’t get the notice to vote or be able to vote. This has happened before and it’s not fun to go back and forth with parents trying to get a correct email address for a student during an election.
  • Each person can have at most one membership.
  • Don’t buy a membership for someone that doesn’t want to be a member. My kids don’t want to join the TJ PTSA so I didn’t buy them memberships.
• 2021-05-<early May> 2021-22 EC Officer Ballot Starts.
  • We have to wait at least 30 days from the time the Nominating Committee issued its report (4/4/2021) before having the election. We’ll try to get it going around May 5 but it may be later, we’re also working the World Language and Music AP snacks and then the larger AP events at the end of May. Also end of year senior celebration and a May senior get-together. We don’t want to neglect the actual service work, it’s what most volunteers enjoy doing.
  • It also takes a lot of work to set up an online election compared to an in-person election like we used to have. We have to import a list of registered voters from AtoZ into ezvoteonline, and that’s not as easy as one would think, especially with the mysterious and unprecedented recent increase in student memberships 🙂 that have emails that have to be manually added in AtoZ. Boy those kids sure got interested in the TJ PTSA all of a sudden, good for them!
  • Actually setting up and testing the online ballot will take some time too.
• 2021-05-<later in May>: 2021-22 EC Officer Ballot Closes.
  • I’d like to close the ballot before our May 20th general meeting so we can introduce the new officers, but we may do it later. With in person elections, you vote at the meeting and then the old EC is done, new EC is “in power”. I think we introduce the new EC at the following meeting. We don’t want to do this prematurely while we have events still happening (like the AP snacks at the end of May). We want some members of the new EC to be on the audit committee but they can’t be if they have signatory authority this FY.
  • Waiting on guidance from VA PTA to finalize all these dates.
• 2021-06-31 2020-21 Fiscal Year Ends.
• 2021-07-<mid July> Audit.

If you have any questions email me.
Sincerely,

Nick Costescu, President