I think it's great that teachers want to be that involved with the Parent-Teacher Organization.
Bravo to all of you who participate whether you are a PARENT or a TEACHER because involvement in anyway, whether it be the lead or the support shows that those individuals care!
I think that whether a Teacher or a Parent was elected to the top position those individuals should be supported completely during their tenure as President!
I am our PTO president, and I am a full time employee of our school. I am a teachers aide (we are fortunate enough to have one full time aide per classroom!). I think the only draw back to this is that some of the parents see the teachers as a "clique", and we have to work hard to NOT present ourselves that way. We are gradually building our parent participation, but our PTO has definitely been more "T" than "P"! I am glad to know that our school isn't the only one with that situation!
I am in a rather unique position I think in that I am the president of our PTO but I am the school nurse. I have two children who are students at our school. As a staff member (but not a teacher) and a parent, I guess I see both sides of the issue, and I think there are plusses and minuses to both. I am not at the school full time but travel between 5 schools. Our other officers this year are a mix of teachers and parents, including an officer who, like myself, is a staff member with a child at our school. In the past we have had mostly parent officers. I think one of the minuses we have had with having a lot of teacher officers at any one given time is that when it comes to having special events during the day at school, the teacher officers are not able to help out as much because they have classes all day, and as a working mother, I know I have had to take time off from work to do day events like our Fun Day. Some of the issues we have had with all parent officers is a lack of organization and problems with money management. Our teachers are far more involved than our parents; in fact it is rare for there to be more than 1 or 2 faculty members missing at any PTO meeting and until this year we have had mostly the same faithful handful of parents show up for the meetings. I have been working hard at changing this since I took over as president in April of last spring. I guess my feeling would be that if you have parents who are willing and able to be effective officers then that would be the best scenario, but again, there are numerous advantages and disadvantages to both sides of the coin.
Kristassia-
I LOVE DEDICATED TEACHERS!! Good for you for taking so much of your own time to make sure these kids have support! Your students and school are lucky to have you!
Our goal is to hopefully have a parent as president or in a higher position, but the past three years we haven't had any willing parents. Our PTO meetings are very sad, with maybe 10 parents show up. We never had anyone in charge who was willing to actually do anything for our school. Their idea of PTO activities is Santa Pictures and Easter Bunny Pictures. I have hundreds of ideas for this school year to include ALL the families. I am using all the resources and ideas I find on this website to make our PTO successful. (Sock Hops, Reading Night, Science Night, etc.) I work in a lower income community and the parents don't understand the importance of education and parent involvement. That's one of the main reasons we have trouble finding parent support in PTO. I don't even live in the community I work in, I live 45 min. away, along with many of the other teachers. We are major role models in our student's lives, and we take great pride in doing more for our school. I am sorry for those other PTOs that do not have the teacher involvement or who have experience, what I would call selfish Teacher requests (cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc.) We hve a few of those, but for the most part, we all want what's best for the students.
