I love this site! I have been active in PTA for 4 years now, 3 years as an officer.
I get frustrated with how we do everything. You join the PTA to get involved with your child's education. At some point you realize that you are really signing on to mop the multipurpose room floor after putting away all the chairs. The assignments were created a couple generations ago and we just show up and do the grunt work. New ideas are not really welcome. This frustrated me about the old board members. The funny thing is, they are gone now and we are still not open to anything new.
I am all for taking a fresh look at what we do but I can't really get any support. For instance, we have a back-to-school picnic where we ALWAYS serve hotdogs and fake Oreo cookies and Koolaid. Yum! And every year without fail there is a big panic on the day of the 'picnic' because we can't find enough grills. During planning I always suggest why don't we just pass out icecream sandwhiches instead. Invariably, I am shot down. My thinking is that nobody gives a s*#! about the hotdogs. Most adults still need to find some dinner afterwards. Nobody is thinking "Boy, our PTA is great, giving me this wonderful hotdog".
The gathering is nice. We keep it short (1 hour). We could perform the same function with a lot less bother and nobody would notice the difference. In fact if we active members were free to mingle during the event, we could get to know more people. Do I have to mention that the people who are such strong advocates for the 'deluxe' hotdog package are nowhere to be seen on the day of, before, during or after?
I am all for us working smarter. It seems like we are on autopilot and have lost track of the big picture. I think going on classroom field trips is at least as valuable as attending PTA meetings where we discuss what kind of cookies to buy and where to place them for 15 minutes. We actually alienate the very people we're trying to attract! I have seen it happen over and over again.
I live in a working class neighborhood. Most of the parents are young and many have big problems. Our old PTA was all-white. Finally, we are getting more diverse but we still have a ways to go before we mirror the make-up of the student body. The new officers have a really good attitude about the other parents. We don't resent them. We don't resent the teachers either. They don't come to the meetings but it never occurred to us to that they should. There is a teacher representative who speaks for them.
At some point you have to ask yourself if there isn't a lot of support for something why not let it go? I mean there isn't a lot of support, right? And holding on to events/functions/practices means that there is less energy for doing something different. I do believe there is something nice about tradition especially where kids are concerned. But we need to listen to new people and let them do what they want to in the school instead of handing them an assignment that was dreamed up years ago when this was a middle class neighborhood and many women didn't work outside the home.
i think it's important to remember that the number of people who show up at your meetings is NOT necessarily an indication of the volunteers you can get to "do" things.
i too work full time outside of the house, it consumes 11 to 12 hours every day... i also coach soccer... and take care of elderly parents.. i am also the pto president. i can do things at night... but attending anything during the day is extremely difficult. my story is just one of thousands in the naked city (or however that went)... some parents just can't do things at night. that's OKAY. there are volunteer opportunities all over the clock. capitalize on what you can.
provide parents the opportunity to volunteer WITHOUT attending the meetings. don't make meeting attendance mandatory. i have lots of people who come up and tell me they'll be happy to help when i need it, but they're just not "meeting attending" type people. it really is OK. some are happy to run an event after school, but can't so "after dinner."
give your parents the opportunity. send volunteer sign-up forms home in your summer mailing and/or school take-home... don't make 'em come to a meeting to volunteer. web pages and e-mail make staying informed much easier and timely.
wow, these are some of the most awesome replies i have seen on here. Yea we all get "burnt-out" at some point if there are no volunteers to help. I am the pto president, im also a teachers assistant at the school, and I work a full time job at night. My kids and the kids at our school are my main concern. We can only do so much and I cannot understand how parents cannot want to be involved in their childs education. We are trying to come up with ideas to increase our turn-out at our meetings. Our first general meeting is always the largest. New kindergarten parents usually always show up and then after about 2 meetings we are down to strictly our board. It gets a little depressing, BUT we are only human and can only do so much. Any great ideas to recruit volunteers would always be greatly appreciated. [img]smile.gif[/img]
"Metzy MOM" We too have often wondered if letting a event go/close due to lack of parent involvement would wake some people up & get them involved!! Let us know if you try it.
We have decided to only give money to classes whos teachers participate as a way to motivate/wake them up.... [img]tongue.gif[/img]
I never really thought about the clique issue till I spoke with some moms of my children's friends. And that was one of the first things they mentioned when I spoke of the PTO. I believe we are relatively clique free, though it is hard when you kind of hang with cluster of women you know. I have said to the moms that of course you sit with people you know at the meetings but in general our group is inclusive. What I have noted about lack of involvement is alot of moms work in the evening when our meetings occur. Our new president is having two meetings on our meeting date. One in the morning and one in the evening, hoping this will entice more members.
OK. I have waited to post this idea, mainly because I had hoped that such a negative idea would not be necessary. Alas, I see that it is. Our school principal, asst. principal and myself spoke about lack of parental help for events just before school got out. We spoke about 'letting an event fail', on a controlled basis. Take Santa Shop for instance. Let's say you need 6 parents to run it. Only 3 sign up. 12 others look at the sign up sheet, but pass it along without signing it. Close the shop for the day that you don't have enough volunteers. By 'controlled failing', you could have it open an extra day for those students who obviously will miss out on a turn to shop. This method could be used for any event. I hate to say it, but that is what it may take for some parents to realize it takes EVERYBODY to help out a little bit. Even if a parent couldn't work the shop, they could make phone calls to staff it... And so on and so on and so on...
