PTAS CARRY TORCH OF CENTURY-OLD GROUP.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

An organization founded to end child labor in factories, but better known in recent generations for bake sales and paper drives, remains true to its socially conscious roots a century later.

The National PTA marks its 100th anniversary this year as the oldest and largest volunteer association in the United States that works exclusively on behalf of youths. In the Santa Clarita Valley, school Parent Teacher Associations raise money to buy classroom computers, help out needy students and provide afterschool activities for the latchkey children of working parents.

``We're not just baking cookies and we're not just bringing punch to (class) parties,'' said Sue Neiberger, president of the Santa Clarita Valley Council PTA. ``We have lobbyists in Washington, D.C. We're on the Internet now.''

The group that later became the PTA was established in 1897 in Washington, D.C., by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst.

``When PTA first began 100 years ago, a lot of the women (members) were wealthy philanthropists, dedicated to making life better for all children, to get those children out of sweatshops and into schools,'' said Neiberger, whose council oversees two dozen elementary schools in the Castaic, Newhall, Saugus and Sulphur Springs districts.

``Our philosophy has never changed - to advocate for the health, safety and education of all children,'' she said. ``PTA sees itself as the link for parents to get involved with their schools and their government.''

At Live Oak Elementary School in Castaic, the PTA funds a year-round child welfare program that assists 25 to 30 needy families through food drives and toy drives, said PTA President Lisa McKeown.

``No children should come to school when it's raining with no jacket or with holes in their shoes,'' McKeown said.

The group, which has about 355 dues-paying members, periodically buys classroom or playground equipment. McKeown said the PTA bought a high-speed duplicating machine to replace an old one that turned out blurry class work sheets; often it buys books that aren't covered by the state's funding of public schools.

Off the school grounds, the PTA's role has been to push state governments to enact legislation concerning class-size reduction, childhood immunizations, child seat belt laws, and free- and reduced school lunch programs.

PTA groups in the Santa Clarita Valley, McKeown added, have been organizing parent technology workshops to help keep adults abreast of the computer skills their children are learning in school.

On the lighter side, Live Oak will mark Founder's Day with a Feb. 28 talent show and family pot luck dinner, and the PTA also will organize the school's spring carnival, McKeown said.

At Mitchell Elementary School in Canyon Country, the PTA subsidizes a monthly fine arts program where representatives from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sea World and the Santa Clarita Repertory Theatre will make presentations or organize activities for the school's 755 students, said PTA President Karen Jucksch. In one assembly last year, a guest presenter projected astronomical constellations on the cafeteria ceiling, she said.

PTA fund-raisers stock Mitchell School's activities room with board games and children's literature. The PTA also passes out monthly citizenship, effort and academic awards, sponsors a ``Just Say No'' program, a science fair, an art fair, ice cream socials, a million-minute reading program and a Women in History week in March, and compiles a collection of student writing and artwork in a ``Young Authors'' book and an annual competition, McKeown said.

``We've been involved the past two years in putting computers in all the classrooms,'' said Suzanne Duncombe, PTA president at Pinetree Elementary School in Canyon Country.

To raise the needed funds, the PTA sold candy, gift wrap and cookbooks at the school, which has about 975 students. ``Bake sales don't make a lot of money,'' Duncombe said. ``They're not a major fund-raiser anymore.''

Along with book fairs, Pinetree's PTA paid for a music teacher, installed bins of disaster preparedness supplies in every classroom - along with a big-rig trailer full of emergency essentials on the school grounds - and issues ``Caught Being Good'' citations to reward students' good deeds, Duncombe said.

During election season, local PTA groups sponsor candidate forums so voters can question people running for school board, city council, Congress and the state Legislature seats, added Deme Larson, president of the 34th District PTA, which encompasses the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

``Wherever there are children, those children deserve a voice - and PTA becomes that voice,'' Neiberger said.

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Photo: Karen Jucksch, president of Mitchell Elementary School's PTA, helps in education projects.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News