Pta?

[mojomom]

Does anyone here attend their schools PTA meetings? If so what do you think of them? Do you come away with any knowledge of what is going on in your dc's school that you would not have gotten thru the usual way like letters or P/T conferences? I have been attending dd's PTA meetings and I really don't see anything I come away with. It is cliquish, they discuss what fundraising they are going to do for the year, someone complains about the fundraising, someone complains about something"frivolous" the money is going to. I did get insight early into the plan for our district to become an open school enrollment and learned a little about the No Child Left Behind campaign. But that was about 15 minutes of 10 hours worth of meetings. I am just curious about what others PTA's are like. I will just keep volunteering at my dd's school, I think I do more for the school that way and for dd seeing me there.

[bestjob]

My daughter's ps has two separate organisations: the School Supporters Association, which is the fundraising and activities group, and the School Council, which is the policy group. I don't go to the meetings of either of them, but I do work for the SSA, and I think that they are doing a great job. They raise an incredible amount of money and they do a lot of things for the school. It is not a large number of parents, compared to the size of the school.

The School Council is pretty ineffective. I am not sure if that is because they don't do much or because they can't do much. They are meant to work with the principal, the teachers, the local board and the provincial Ministry of Education.

[lauren]

My experience has been similar to yours mojomom. I have been to a few PTO meetings, but it doesn't seem to fit for me. I like and respect a lot of the parents (all women actually), but in that room something else seems to happen to them. Things can get petty. Maybe because they are looking for ways to control things because they can't always control the really important things at school, I don't know. Anyway, I decided to stop going, and figured that if I really wanted to have more impact I should go to school board meetings. I try to be as helpful as possible with the teachers my children actually have, and the principal knows that I'm generally a "willing to help" person. I sometimes wish there was an alternative for people to pitch in who don't "fit in" at the PTO....

[princess buttercup]

Have a Q about your PTO?

I have avoided my kids schools PTO since the paper to "join" came home. And a "fee" of $3, to support the activities.... blah blah! Aren't I part of the PTO by having my kids in this school? Why do they sell all this crap? If they expect me to pay?
I've been wanting to ask if anyone else has encountered a "pay to join" PTO? (I'm new to this area)

[mojomom]

Yes we had to pay for memebership I think the national rate is like 2.75$ or 3 somthing. Our PTA voted for the dues to just be 5$ so when they raise the dues again no one has to vote on the increase.

Also at our PTA only one teacher and the principle are there, it is mostly parents. The School PTA board is made up of parents. That is where all the buddy buddy stuff comes in. They are all neighbors and voted each other in. It was so funny we usually only have maybe 10 parents come to the meetings, but last month was nomination month and I had to miss it but dh had to drop off a project we are working on for the school and the parking lot was full. It was full of everyones friends so they could vote their friends in. I honestly found humor in that. Well anyway I think I am sounding petty so I will stop

[daylily]

My own experience has been more positive. There's no "pay to join" policy. How ridiculous! At our school, being a parent makes you a member. I am PTO vice president and next year will be president. We have monthly board meetings, and monthly programs at which all families are encouraged to attend. The programs include a huge potluck picnic supper in September, a Family Reading Night at which free books are given to each child as a door prize, an international potluck at which each family brings a dish to share that reflects their national heritage, etc. All programs are free, although sometimes we sell pizza for $1/slice and serve free drinks, fruit and vegetables before the programs. The entire family is encouraged to attend and we sometimes provide childcare for preschoolers and we provide a bus for people who have no transportation. We are planning an ice cream social (free ice cream) in May.

Board members are not voted in. Instead, we just appeal to the school community for volunteers. Any parent may attend the board meetings which are also attended by the principal and one teacher representative.

We do fundraising activities, mainly because in our district, the PTO funds, or at least subsidizes, the field trips. This way, children from low income homes do not need to worry about paying field trip expenses. We do some pretty good trips too, to places like Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, the National Zoo in Washington, etc. (Teachers decide where they'll go, not the PTO.) We also need money to pay for program expenses. We also give each teacher a $100 grant in the fall in order to buy school supplies. (Many teachers must pay for supplies out of their own pockets.) We have two fundraisers: a direct appeal in the fall--basically we just ask for donations--and a "Spring Fling" in May which is a traditional, old fashioned family carnival, with a cake walk and face painting and pony rides, etc.

[lauren]

That sounds great! How can we import this approach to all our schools?

[EFmom]

Ours is all fund raising, all the time. It is run by soccer mom types and is extremely clique-y. We loathe the many, many, many fund raisers they do. I refuse to have my children peddle overpriced crap so that corporate America can make 98% of the money and the school get the other 2%. On the other hand, we are more than happy to contribute to supplement the school budget.

My dh attended one meeting. He asked whether they had ever considered sending out a solicitation letter, in lieu of some of the fund raisers. (I can't belive that we are the only people in the district who are willing to give the school financial support, yet aren't hot to strongarm our relatives into buying $15 frozen pies.) The Soccer Moms In Charge looked at him like he had three heads. They made it obvious that they like organizing all these activities as it gives them something to do and makes them feel important.

[daylily]

I agree, EFMom, about not wanting to have my kids peddle crap. Maybe your dh could tell the soccer moms that at our first direct appeal fundraiser, we raised $6,000.

[lauren]

Ditto here, our PTO does a direct appeal every fall and they raise about 6,000 also. They may want to poll other PTO's before looking at your husband that way!

[bestjob]

I don't know if a direct appeal would work very well for a lot of the parents around here, but at my daughter's public school there is only one fundraiser per year. It is a magazine sales campaign, and although I am not a huge fan of the way it is done, it is certainly better than selling chocolate covered almonds or wrapping paper. The magazine campaign makes many thousands of dollars. I would say that critical comments about the magazine campaign are few and far between and they would definitely not be well received.

As for paying to join or being voted into a position on the board, that is unheard of around here. Anyone who is willing to help (though not necessarily criticize) is welcomed with open arms.

[mojomom]

I see some of you are callimg yours PTO our school has a PTA, I am wondering if there is a difference. The membership dues was not established by the school itself but the National PTA. Anyone can come to PTA meetings but you can only vote if you are a member. Voting of president and other officers I am under the impression is pretty common with PTAs. You dont have to be voted into being part of the PTA only if you want to hold office. When my dd was in preschool the school had a PTO, no dues or voting of officers actually they did have a parent represenitive that was nominated. With the elementary they have PTA and we have a membership card that says we are members of the National PTA and that is where the $3.75 goes to the National PTA. So know I am curious as to if there is a difference:

Also I am curious if your PTO's have presidents and vice presidents, secretary and treasurer, if they are not voted in then who decides who gets to hold this positions?

[daylily]

I never really thought about the difference between PTA/PTO, Mojomom. I always thought the name of the school's group was a matter of personal preference. When I was a kid, we had the HSA, or Home-School Association.

I'm not a big fan of the National PTA because they recieve support from or are in league with the National Cable Television organization, or something similar, I can't remember the exact name of the group. That gives them a big thumb's down from me, because I see this association leading to more ads and more TV exposure in school.

[Irishmommy]

I've been on our school council for 4 years now. I find it informative, but we don't have a heck of a lot of power. We have subcommittees (fundraising, for instance) and that just reports back to us. The fundraising committee only has one council member on it, the rest are non members.

We don't have to pay dues. They have enough trouble getting council members. :

[alexa07]

A PTO is a local orginaztion without any national support (versus a PTA which collects dues set by the national org and gives part of the dues to the national. The national org lobbies in Washington for things of interest to the PTA.).

My school has a PTO. You do have to pay to join: $15. Ours is a very wealthy school district. But we do have a significant minority of low income families. The PTO pays the dues for any family who asks us to do so based on need.

We also use the money raised in the many fundraisers to make sure that the low income children get to do the same things at school as the wealthy kids. For example, our PTO has "Fun Food Days" once per week as a fundraiser. We charge $5 per meal for a meal such as pizza, carrots, and ice-cream. For our wealthy families this is not a big deal. The PTO pays for the low income kids to have these meals. The PTO also pays for the low-income kids to have the same school supplies as the other kids and for them to have the same "school-logo" T-shirt the other kids wear on School Spirit day, which cost $15.

BTY, this is a public school.

[mojomom]

Alexa, Thank you for posting that info. I figured there had to be some difference on a national scale.

[mommy22]

I am a member of our PTO. Our focus is not only on fundraising. We try to stay involved in most aspects of the school. We feel we are a kind of liason between the parents and the school staff.

If more parents would attend these meetings, there would be a better understanding of what the PTO is all about.

As far a being 'cliquish', that could be because it's the same people everytime that attend these meetings. They're bound to become friendly and interact both inside and outside of the school.

I talk to parents on a regular basis, almost daily, and am forever being asked questions that were covered during our meetings and in our monthly newsletters. If parents would take 1 hour out of their day, a few times each year, it would solve alot of issues.

BTW...we do not charge dues.

PTO members work very hard. We recently spent over 200 combined hours putting together our annual auction. There are 6 members of the PTO. And this was time devoted solely to the auction. That does not count the other countless hours devoted to other school issues.

[applejuice]

When my dear children were in elementary school, I and a few parents decided to start a PTA, since there had not been one for years and whenever we asked about having a PTA, we were politely put off.

We started one anyway, and we got no cooperation whatsoever from the administration or from the school district. We would plan a summer or fall festival, and the school principal would cancel them at the last minute, giving the reason that another festival as Hispanic month would take the place of the fall festival and that CInco De Mayo would take the place of the May or Dance or Spring festival. The summer festival was preempted by a corn and family festival, and the Halloween festival was preempted by the day of the Dead festival. All sponsored by the school district.

Most of these festivals, especially the Day of the Dead I thought were religious holidays...why was the school district sponsoring it?

When my children left the school, there was no PTA, the same as when they began at the school.
Our children graduated and there never was a PTA established at that school.

[OnTheFence]

OMG, I paid $25.00 to join the PTO.

[anythingelse]

When my oldest was in private elem school i was the ptc pres and vice pres for a couple yrs. Our dues were up there also but they paid for a monthly newsletter and also the school calendar/directory. I enjoyed ptc meetings a lot, but definately there was always somemone wanting to gripe and it would drag on if you let some of the parents get the floor to speak. Things went quickly/smoothly when we had an agenda for the meeting and stuck to it, also it was a pc way to get parents to be quiet and cut them off, you had to request in writing if you wanted time to speak ahead of time, no one was ever denied, it cut way back on windy arguements cause you had x amounts of minutes and even if you were talking the secretary would turn off the mic and move on with the meeting.
It does get cliquish quickly mainly because sometimes parents would say they would help with something and then crap out, so you got where you would ask certain parents first that you could count on. Plus if you are going to spend an hour stapling something together, it is nice to be friends with the other mom. When I was in the ptc , I spent at least 3 hours a week on the phone in the school office and twice a month had one hour meetings with staff & other board members. I was at the school always three afternoons a week for about 5 hours each time. It was almost a fulltime job and fairly thankless. At my sons school we required the parents to attend one ptc meeting a year or they could not belong and participate in events. The next yr we moved and went to public school, I tried to volunteer but was constantly turned down by my sons teacher and the other moms that were a tight knit clique, I would ask if I could be part of a committee and they would simply say no, we are full. I was pregnant and actually cried from the rejection feelings.
That was the last year any of my younger kids went to school, we homeschool now and I am the perm. President of our PTC and Dean lol now I am also the librarian of our homeschool group too
mom of 4