The Executive Committee of the Washington School Public Relations Association proposed eight propositions for bylaw changes to its membership. WSPRA members voted on these bylaw changes after approval from NSPRA. WSPRA requires 2/3 of its members to vote to meet a quorum.  Voting was held in April for two weeks. The results may be found here. 

Please see the list of the changes below. To see the bylaws in their entirety, please see our webpage.

Proposition 1
Article VIII: Officers, Section 2

Added verbiage to the role of President-Elect stating, “This officer will coordinate content and presentations at all conferences and professional development events, as well as sponsorships.”

Executive Committee Rationale: With the increase of responsibilities in planning multiple in-person and virtual professional development events, we have identified a need to clarify the roles of our board members as it pertains to conference and workshop planning. This change will help us to ensure workload is evenly distributed amongst officer positions and reduce board member burnout. 

Proposition 2
Article VIII: Officers, Section 3 & 11

Replaces the existing role of  Vice President of Eastern Washington with Vice President of Event Logistics (Section 3). Adds the wording “ The executive committee will actively recruit board candidates from both sides of the state” to Section 11.

Executive Committee Rationale: Since the pandemic, there has been an increase in the workload of the President Elect position due to the expansion of our professional development offerings to include virtual professional development opportunities. After review as a board, we have decided that due to the expansion of membership in Eastern Washington, a role specific to the recruitment of Eastern Washington members is no longer required. Instead, the Vice President of Event Logistics will replace the Vice President of Eastern Washington and support the President Elect by acting as the event coordinator. This will help evenly distribute the workload of conference planning and reduce board member burnout. 

With elimination of the role of Vice President of Eastern Washington, we have added Section 11 to ensure future executive board members actively recruit officers from both sides of the state. 

Proposition 3
Article VIII: Officers, Section 4, 5 & 6

This proposition introduces the creation of a new officer position: Vice President of Marketing. Vice President of Marketing shall manage the creation of graphic content for the WSPRA website, social media channels, communications efforts and conferences. This officer will also manage WSPRA’s social media channels. This proposition removes the responsibility of social media campaigning from the Vice President of Communications and will require a shift in the title of Vice President of Marketing and Membership to the Vice President of Membership. 

Executive Committee Rationale: In an effort to reduce the workload of individual board members, we plan to create a new officer position and clarify the roles of two existing officer positions. The introduction of the Vice President of Marketing will create one contact for graphic design and social media. This shift in responsibility will reduce the workload of the Vice President of Communications and support the recruitment and retention of board members. 

Proposition 4:
Article VIII: Officers, Sections 7 & 8

Replace the word “for” with the word “of” in the titles for the officer positions, “Vice President for Finance” and “Vice President-Elect for Finance”. 

Executive Committee Rationale: To create consistency in the labeling of officer positions. 

Proposition 5:
Article VIII: Officers, Sections 9

Delete the words “he/she recognizes the need” and replace with the word “needed”.

Executive Committee Rationale: Grammatical change. 

Proposition 6:
Article X: Meetings

Changed the wording that requires one general meeting to be held east of the Cascades to, “The executive committee will actively solicit locations for conferences on both sides of the state.”

Executive Committee Rationale: COVID-19 resulted in a shift of our conference scheduling. Prior to the pandemic, WSPRA offered three in-person professional development opportunities each year, one was required to be held east of the Cascades. Since the pandemic, we have begun offering two in-person professional development opportunities, along with virtual professional development throughout the year. We have found it very limiting on our conference budget and planning to require conferences be held on one side of the state or another. This shift in wording will allow more flexibility in the planning of the location of future in-person conferences. 

Proposition 7:
Membership Dues

Increase annual membership dues by $10. Dues would increase to $90 instead of $80. 

Executive Committee Rationale: Membership dues have remained flat for several years. Since the pandemic, WSPRA has had to adjust, providing virtual professional development options along with in-person conferences.  This subtle increase offsets the rising costs the Association is experiencing across its professional development platforms. 

Proposition 8:
NSPRA Recommended Grammar Changes

NSPRA recommends the following changes to the Bylaws:

• Lowercasing all references to "Chapter"
  
• Lowercasing all references to "Board"
• Lowercasing all references to board positions
• Change all references from chairman to chairperson
  
• Fix minor grammatical errors
• Adding language that the president submits annually required financial reports prepared by the treasurer and membership data to the NSPRA business manager by Oct. 31. 
  

Executive Committee Rationale: These recommendations were submitted to the WSPRA Board during NSPRA's review of the changes.

If you have any questions or concerns about any of these proposed bylaws changes, please feel free to email brittany.kaple@esd105.org or call at 509-490-5520. To see the full list of Bylaw Changes, please use this link: