Re: Some PTA answers -- Discussion for Beatty Elementary School

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Date Posted: 16:52:14 06/03/02 Mon
Author: mod
Subject: Re: Some PTA answers
In reply to: Past PTA Board Member 's message, "Re: Some PTA answers" on 18:08:37 06/01/02 Sat

You are correct that I have never served as a PTA Board member, but have been a general member of the PTA at this school. For the past few years, there has been both a decline of parent participation and a lack of communication at the school-parent level. Our parent advocacy group is dedicated to finding out answers for topics that concern a large majority of the student and parent population.

This being said, there are major concerns with the way the PTA is being run now. In every PTA, there needs to be a budget. This would eliminate the need to vote on every item that comes up for purchase, especially the smaller, everyday items. I'm curious to how you, a former Beatty PTA board member, view the lack of a budget this year.

I agree that having only 15 people show up at General Meetings would be frustrating, but at least you held the meetings and were accountable for funds. I'm assuming you had financial reports and general votes at some of these meetings?

Being a PTA Board member is, as with any volunteer position in non-profit organizations, a huge commitment. For a few people to take responsibility for each and every event is too much. There is a wealth of information on how to increase your PTA membership, financial/budget help, training for Board Members after they are elected. The State PTA will help run meetings and with any other aspect of a PTA (except for volunteering, of course) for no fee.

Regarding the volunteer aspect... which came first, the chicken or the egg? Who is responsible for getting parents involved, parents themselves or the organization that needs the volunteers? We can debate this until the cows come home, but it won't solve the lack of parent participation at our school. "Volunteer" is such a broad word. If events were broken down by job descriptions/expectations, parents would have a better understanding of what is needed. For example, there is a difference between "We need help on Picture Day, Field Day, Put a check by the events you'd like to help" and "On Picture Day, parents are needed from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m." Parents would then know if they could help out at those specific times. Also, many of our parents work and can't make it in during the school day. Those parents could certainly help out in different ways (in charge of phone calls and, say, making a dish for Teacher Appreciation Day), they shouldn't be discounted because they can't come in during school hours.

We aren't trying to discount what the PTA has done for the school. There has to be accountability, though, otherwise the public's trust in an organization is lost. We are all members of the PTA, if we weren't interested we just wouldn't pay our dues.

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