I can understand all the pressure you are going thru. We have an all new board. Fortunately, we all get along. To those who want to complain (those who do not volunteer) smile and say "Thank you for your opinion" and walk away. They don't realize how much effort is put into PTO. As long as we do the best we can and learn from our misfortunes, we need to sleep well and be proud that we are helping our children. Can you imagine how miserable these people must be in life? Sad for them. You hang there and remember, that you are not alone. But if you give up, well, you are right, they have won. I'll bet they would complain if you gave everything to them on a golden platter.
Reminds me of a meeting last year when a teacher came in, sat through the meeting and then requested supplies she needed for the science fair in two weeks. She whipped out the school supply catalog and told us how much the supplies were. All I said was, I think I can get that exact thing for half the cost at Walmart and she said "I've been sitting here for two hours listening to you spend money on useless stuff and you can't give me this?, got up and walked out. Needless to say - we didn't laugh or buy the supplies. I would have a serious talk with the principal about manners 101 for picky eater teachers and think twice about adding an extra meal for them when I bet the volunteers would appreciate an extra meal instead
dts,
hang in there, there will ALWAYS be critics! Sometimes they have valid reasons to criticize us, and thats one sign of a good leader...to keep an open mind and see if those who criticize us have a valid reason. We are human and can at times have tunnel vision. God knows most of us have the same issue of very little help and participation in our schools, we are doing the very best we can.
But on the other side of the coin, lets be honest often times "those who can do, those who can't criticize!" All we can do it the best that we can do. We will never EVER make everyone happy.
For Example....
School hasn't even started for us yet (it starts tomorrow) but we (PTO) gave our teachers a back to school lunch this past Friday.....first time ever as we ususally do it on open house night (which we will still do, so they get fed an extra time by us) and ya know what.....they complained it was not hot catered lunch, just sandwichs and salads. (oh yeah I'm serious!)
Well, we could have taken it seriously and been upset, but instead we just laughed! It was so ridiculous! We do so an awful lot for our teachers, with a very an almost zero participation from them...regardless of the "T" in PTO, but we figure we would rather them focus on teaching our kids then doing PTO stuff. It has become a huge inside joke with us that we rarely get a Thank You from our teachers when we do stuff for them, because whats the alternative? We could be resentful that they don't appreciate what we do, but it would show in our work so we have turned it around to be something we just laugh about.
So, dts, just take what you need from the critics and leave the rest. Laugh where you can, and try your best to never ever give them the power to make your cry!
Viva la PTO!!
