This is almost the same situation we have at our school. Parents aren't involved, teacher involvement is little to none. It places a tremendous burden on the principal, assistant principal and PTO to do the work of after school activities, etc.
Our task this year has been to work on things. Even though many of parents can not or will not volunteer, we have chosen to increase communication. We place signs in the car rider area for parents to see in the a.m. and p.m., post notices on the large school sign out front, send home announcements, use the phone call and e-mail system to leave messages for parents. We try not to overwhelm our parents, but sending notes via students just doesn't work as well. Our parents are beginning, just beginning to respond.
The problem can sometimes be that you hear lots of complaining, but people tend to like to complain rather than solve the issue. Next time you hear a complaint, Shortie, maybe ask "What would you suggest to solve the problem?" Then listen to the response and ask, "When will you do that?" It puts the ball in their court.
In dealing with the staff issue, we simply communicated (again, that word), to our principal that as a PTO board, we were not happy or feeling appreciated. We were in turn, thinking of not participating in a Teacher Appreciation Week, as we usually do and that we were talking to other parents about their opinions on teacher involvement. That got the ball rolling. Our principal communicated that to teachers, and we seemed to have started a revolution!
