Welcome to the official website of KYTSA
Dear Technology Education Teacher:
Welcome back to another exciting year! I know many of you have survived those first full days and now are well into your semester. Just getting to know the names of your students is your greatest challenge these days, let alone thinking ahead to competitions, regional, state and national conferences. Somehow that time just seems to creep up on us and before you know it we have deadlines waiting. I hope that this year, more than any other we can keep you up to date with the current happenings in Kentucky TSA to assist you in your role as chapter advisor.
For those of you who are new to TSA, let me take this opportunity to welcome you and explain about our organization. The Technology Student Association is the only student organization devoted exclusively to the needs of students interested in technology. Open to students enrolled in or who have completed technology education courses, TSA’s membership includes over 150,000 middle and high school students in 2,000 schools spanning 47 states. TSA is supported by educators, parents and business leaders who believe in the need for a technologically literate society. Members learn through exciting competitive events, leadership opportunities and much more. The diversity of activities makes TSA a positive experience for every student. From engineers to business managers, our alumni credit TSA with a positive influence on their lives.
By affiliating with TSA, you will receive a startup disk that is called TOTAL TSA which will give you valuable information for starting a chapter, leadership lessons and competitive event guidelines all in one convenient CD. These are very helpful in planning your chapter activities and preparing for competitions in the spring.
There are two types of membership available in TSA. Your students may join by paying both state and national dues. Each individual member pays $9.00 for national dues and $3.00 state dues. Advisors must pay a $10.00 membership fee. Both national and state dues must be paid.
The other option is the Chapter Affiliation Program (CAP) which is available to large chapters who may be interested in affiliating on a “flat fee” basis and with an unlimited number of students. CAP member is effective in chapters where students rotate through a technology education class for a portion of the year. CAP chapters affiliate for a $350.00 national membership fee, a $150.00 state fee plus any other local chapter fees that may be applied. TSA operates under a unified dues policy. Whereby members must affiliate and pay applicable dues at the local, state, and national levels. Kentucky TSA has direct affiliation with the national TSA office, which requires that all membership dues (state and national) are sent directly to the national office. Your membership must be received by February 1 to be eligible for voting privileges at the state conference.
On the state level, your 2009-2010 state officers began their year early in June working with the other state officers from their fellow Career and Technical Student Organizations. The officers began planning the year and how they could best serve the members of Kentucky TSA. One of the most important elements that the officers addressed was the need to better communicate with the local chapters. As a team, they made it their primary goal to utilize the website and make information available to chapter officers and advisors on a regular base and to make themselves available to chapters as needed to assist with recruitment of new members. Another equally important goal for the officers is to build membership in this student organization. Over the last few years our numbers have remained steady but 2009-2010 officers made it their goal to put membership recruitment at the top of their priority list. You will find membership recruitment ideas and flyers updated on the website in the next few days so be looking for those.
Our Kentucky TSA State Conference will be held March 18-20 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Louisville. We are back to our original days of Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I think this will be easier for a number of schools. The National Conference will be held June 28-July 2, 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland. This is a new venue for us and we are all looking forward to this exciting conference.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask advisors to begin seeking out state officer candidates for the 2010-2011 school years. We continue to have outstanding state officers who do a great job at leading our organization. I know that many of you have said that you would like to run a state officer. I encourage you to begin the search now while you are organizing your own chapters to find a qualified candidate to run at this year’s state conference.
Please feel free to contact any member of the 2009-2010 Executive Committee. We want to be here to assist you in any way. Their contact numbers are on the TSA website and are available to help you.
Robin Johnson
KY TSA State Coordinator