Q&A: Palomar PTA President Jennifer Zaheer Talks Goals, Challenges with Patch

A new school year has begun, bringing new faces, challenges and of course, a new Palomar Council PTA president.

Jennifer Zaheer, a mother of two Poway Unified School District students, was named the president for the 2011-12 school year.

Zaheer took some time to talk to Patch about her experience, goals and any challenges she may have this school year.

Patch: Tell us about your family and how you are involved in your child's school.

Jennifer Zaheer: I was heavily involved in their school’s PTA and the education foundation as well. I did everything from volunteering in the classroom and teaching kindergarten math to running the volunteers on campus and shepherding them around during school tours before the term started. I ran the Halloween Carnival last year, and I started a now very successful DADS Club a few years ago to bring fathers and male role models closer to the elementary school experience. I feel blessed that I have had the chance to be so often on school grounds, and that I could be inside their classrooms and watch them learn. I formed some special bonds with quite a few of their teachers, and I feel my children benefited from that closeness as well.

I am married to a pediatrician, and we have two boys: Alex, who’s a freshman at Westview High, and Robby, who’s a sixth-grader just entering Black Mountain Middle School. Now that we are “done” with elementary school, I have turned my volunteership mainly to Palomar Council, but I have encouraged both my children to be involved with the PTSAs on their campuses. I hope to bring student involvement in PTA back to council once the year is under full swing, starting with my own kids!

Patch: How did you prepare for this position?

Zaheer: I’ve been an officer or chairperson for PTA since my children entered PUSD. When we moved here in 2003, I joined Sunset Hills PTA as a legislation chair. From then on, I was hooked, and I eventually volunteered to be a council CHARACTER COUNTS! Chair, which led me to volunteering for Ninth District PTA on a few committees … and eventually I was not only a unit president but also VP of programs at Palomar Council, as well as VP of education and parent involvement at Ninth District (Ninth District PTA is the county umbrella for all San Diego PTAs as well as part of Imperial County, whereas Palomar Council is the umbrella for all PTAs in Poway Unified School District).  I decided that after the madness of holding at least one board position on every level of PTA up to the district level (as well as holding a position on an Education Foundation board) last year, I’d focus solely on Palomar Council this year when I accepted the nomination and was eventually elected president.

I have also attended CA state PTA convention the last six years running, and I have attended and taught at the Summer Leadership Conferences that Ninth District PTA holds every June. I believe training is so very important in creating a successful group dynamic as well as handing the tools to any given organization that must work together as a team to achieve their goals. To that end, I have worked quite a lot on making sure that those who look to me for leadership (in any board position I’ve held over the last few years) will always be able to feel supported in their efforts on PTA’s behalf.

Patch: What's the focus of your term? What are your goals?

Zaheer: In its simplest terms, I guess one of my main goals is to get my unit presidents, officers and chairpersons back to basics with training. Once that training is on board, I want us to move forward in the new decade to meet the needs of our community as they arise, and to use new ways of thinking to do this. I want teamwork and collaboration to be a goal of every unit, and I want to demonstrate this by example. I’d like my units in Palomar Council to be well-informed and to use that knowledge we provide to do great and wonderful things, as we always strive to do.

Time is precious to our parents, and I want them to appreciate and look forward to coming to our monthly meetings, knowing they will get something out of it for spending so much time away from home on a volunteer basis. We are all overburdened with everyday life, so if I can help make their PTA volunteer experience that much richer, easier or fun, I am willing to go in that direction and demonstrate how they can do the same.

Patch: What challenges are you facing this school year?

Zaheer: As always, the biggest challenge for PTA is the ever-shrinking public education budget both statewide and nationally. Coupled with the fact that parents in our community are losing their jobs and everyone’s household budgets are tight, it’s harder and harder to make up that difference that really matters in a child’s school experiences.  We have to rethink our game plan, and we can no longer just throw money at the situation to make it better. Our programs in PTA are now virtually curriculum-based, and our dollars are spent more wisely on things that will matter for the longer term. We’re going beyond the typical schoolyard bake sale, and we’re embracing the notion that those important supplemental programs and services we provide will go directly toward meeting the education, health and welfare goals of all children.

Advocating for children is a perpetual challenge with the current financial situation we find ourselves in. But with the help of parents and volunteers who care, we can make that difference. In believing that, we have helped achieve great and wonderful things through PTA.

Patch: What would you like all parents/guardians to know?

Zaheer: From a PTA standpoint, I’d like them to know that we really do care about everyone’s children. It’s not just about “my child” and his experiences at school. It’s about all children, everywhere. In PTA, we have a saying: “Many hands make light work.”  I’ve taken that to heart, and I’ve seen the results. Parents want to help their children achieve, and they always want their children to have the best of everything. If we work together, as a community, as a county, as a state, as parents everywhere, we can make that happen. Academic success is a possibility, and parent involvement is the key that unlocks that goal.