I just had to share this tidbit. We had registration yesterday and the Membership V.P. and I had put together a survey asking opinions on everything from whether the meetings were at a good time to what kind of family night activities parents would like to see. I was just going through some of the returned surveys and found one where the parent circled disagree next to the "I regularly attend PTO meetings" and "I regularly volunteer for school activities". Under these questions, there was a line to write why you disagreed...she put "because I don't want to". I don't know whether to admire her brutal honesty or cry for her children.

Well done Rhonda...a true example of "you gotta do whatcha gotta do".
--If I hear "you should have called" one more time!! It was worse during my pregnacy!

I came into the PTO Forum with a question to post and found the same question already being talked about. We also have a low membership and volunteer count at our PTM meetings. I took over Presidency last January from a wonderful mother who had illnessed in her family and could not do the PTM Presidency anymore. I learned right off the bat that the gossip about all aspects of the school is tremendous.

1. Teachers are god and of course nothing is done without their sayso for their kids but they do not have to volunteer or come to any meetings but they have the right to veto anything PTM comes up with if they dont like it.

1a. I found out that the teachers do not like change. They dont want someone coming in and messing with their time with their kids even though we as parents are in this position to help each and every one of the children to them its stepping on toes. But If I just go thru with the ideas I had and make sure its not on their time they have come to like the idea anyway.

The teachers and staff had a Staff meeting with the Superitendant and I found out that the teachers stated and I quote " Why do we have to come to the meetings why dont they come to ours we shouldnt have to go to theirs we just dont have the time"

I decided to implement this into next years doings. Each class teacher gets a room mom or dad respectively. I thought it would be good to get a room volunteer liason for our PTM that would come to our meetings relay back to the teachers and help us keep track of the volunteers that have been called by having a call list for their classroom and marking when they volunteered. This person is not the room mom or dad its a separate individual.

I also heard that people just dont like to volunteer. It wasnt until the end of last year when i called a lot of people that I found out most didnt even know about PTM's stuff or meetings or agendas and that they would love to volunteer and take their names down for next year.

Unfortunately Gossip is the worst kind of Parent Involvement killer in any school especially ours. I make my own decisions about everyone based on my involvement with them. And as a lot of youhave said The reason we are here is for the kids and their smiles are reward enough.

I would appreciate any comments and suggestions since technically I am still a Prez newbie

AuntieSheba

As I begin my 5th year as PTO President, I have moved on and let go of asking "where are the parents?". I have to agree with luvmikids and the way in which parents "are" involved. Our PTO board has been working(throughout this summer) on a way to involve more parents with our numerous activities. We have not experienced burnout and would like to avoid this road. With each activity, like our Pumpkin Painting in October, we have put a "how to" booklet together. These booklets will be posted with signup sheets at our upcoming PTO ice cream social when school begins. There was some concern on "what if it isn't done like in the past & fails?" Well my thought is, if someone is willing to take on the activity with directions, as I did 5 years ago without any directions & not knowing what the "past" was, they will be successful. Our goal here is to maintain the success of current activities & involve parents. We decided to try this route as most comments received from parents are, "you should have called me", or "I didn't know about..". We do publicize all activities & send home volunteer sheets, but we realize some parents are quite busy with work, home, coaching,etc. and miss chances to volunteer.

Unfortunatly I have seen an expampe of an "F" parent first hand this past year and it breaks the heart to see a child have to live through it.

THe child is my neighbor's son and the happy ending here is he lives with his Dad (my neighbor)now and gets to be the little boy his was denied. This woman barely got the boy to school let alone lunch etc. It was at his dad's he was able to be in football, soccer, play with the neighborhood kids, ...eat... His dad thinks I'm a nut for all I am involved with at school but the fact that he FOUGHT for this little boy is more than I could ever accomplish as a PTO Prez...God Bless him...

When I was talking about the F grades (and that was a grade just in terms of involvement, not in terms of them as a person, etc.), I was referring to folks that aren't involved in their children's lives at all. Never mind attending a PTO meeting.

I think the parents you guys described who care deeply about their kids and strive to provide them the best (but who for whatever reason don't/can't get really into the school functions) are great. Those aren't the folks I put in the F category for the purposes of this discussion.

Tim