I don't do nuthin....nuthin I tell you but this PTO stuff...
dlf - from your posts, we can tell you are totally absorbed in PTO right now. But don't exaggerate. Of course you do other things. I'll bet you SLEEP 4 or 5 hours a night sometime. AND don't forget chauffering those kids, helping with homework, maybe a day job, some glamorous housework or yardwork thrown in. See - you do many other things! It's not 100% PTO - problably no more than 80% of life has been taken over by your parent group obsession. Silly PTOer!
Seriously....I well remember those days. I work full-time, and when I was pres of elementary PTO, I spent 20-40 hours per week just on PTO. It often felt like a second job. At that time, I did almost none of these other committees. As I moved into my most favorite PTO role of "Past President" (the board position where you still get to have a life!!) was when I decided to focus more to these committees.
I wear many hats that fall under the PTO umbrella, such as Cash for Trash and Magazine Sale chair. I coordinate four bookfairs in two schools for the librarian. I am on the school improvement committee for lower el and also sit on our School-Age Multi-Organization Committee. I coordinate our district's back to school Bash. I tried to expand outside of the school when asked to be on an adhoc committee for our county library. That worked because it was short term.
My son is just entering fourth grade and I can't wait until I can join up with our athletic boosters and maybe the band too, if that's what he wants.
I have always been sort of restrained on what committees I could serve on as the building principal(s) always felt that I give so much as leader of the parent group that they don't want me burning out. Sounds good huh??
I have served on site base which is our shared decision making team, I was on that for three years before I stepped down due to scheduling conflicts. We had a parent involvement team that I started and ran for two years, this team consisted of different stakeholders and we scored our school on all areas and led us to our weak areas.
I am now on our Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports(PBIS) team which the parent groups works very well with. I had done alot of signs, school store managing/ordering, line volunteers up, special events and attended meetings but was never on the team until this summer...it became a running joke that I was there, did alot of work but wasnt a team member. after four years they asked!
Even though I am not on the committee I did write the parent involvement piece for our school improvement team last year, I also helped spear head our district parent involvement compact was updated.
At this time the asst superintendent wants me to get involved with the High School Parent group as well as she is starting a parent advisory team district wide. Like you guys alot of this does go hand and hand. I also see where the more experience the more you can truly offer and truly understand things....well DUH I mean you can be more valuable! I have the tendency to invite myself when I need to!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Because of my contacts developed in 10+ years of PTO work, I am now involved in several activities at the district-level (as a volunteer). My most ambitious is a new initiative to develop and promote district spirit across all the schools and out into the community at large. Our individual schools have great internal spirit, but we're trying to build a sense of pride all the way up from the earliest grades thru graduation. My son is also an athlete so I am involved in the booster club, but as an active volunteer, not as a leader.
I definately apply the skills and experiences I gathered in all those PTO committees and exec boards to these new ventures. And much of what I gathered in my PTO "life" started with ideas and information collected from this website and magazine.
