Question: Parents in our Community seeking big change, to disolve all area PTAs

Hi! I live in a rural area, just recently moved here from city. The parents at the schools here are wanting to disolve the PTAs at all 4 county schools and form a Student Schools Community Coalition. There are concerns that there is not enough involvement, the high school currently has no PTA at all. Planners are thinking this will spread the support to all schools. I had already agreed to be nominated for President for next year. I am being asked to take a side to support the plan or not. I am not one to hamper imaginative ideas for support, I am just unsure and have a lot of questions as to how this would be successful. Is this something that has been done before? If so , was it successful? Your response is much appreciated, Thank you!

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
I'm interested to know exactly what the Student Schools Community Coalition is going to be. Is it basically a districtwide PTO? That's not an unusual setup in rural areas. If you do go that way, however, you'll need a strong presence in each school. Typically, these groups have a board member from each school and some kind of committee that is in charge of organizing activities for that school. The good thing about a districtwide PTO is that you can act in a more coordinated way -- make sure fundraisers don't overlap, share resources among schools (ie buy one popcorn machine instead of four), and organize larger events that include more than one school. The issue is that people are more likely to get involved to support the school their children attend -- in other words, it's easier to build parent involvement at the school level than at the community level. If you don't continue to have a strong presence at each school, involvement may very well decrease rather than increase. Please keep us informed about how this goes. I would definitely like to hear more about it, and I'm sure other would as well.

Community Advice

Countrygirl writes:
Craig, I am from a small school and our current PTO does the preschool and middle and high school along with the elementary school. They have told me that involvement is very low this is the first year in several years that parents have shown up at a meeting. Just wanted to comment.