I am not a facebook fan either. I signed up because my daughter was putting her baby's pictures on her account and I wanted to see my granddaughter! (and because I wanted to see what my high school son and his friends were talking about.)
I also have my security settings to "friends only" and am very choosy about who I put on my friends list. Most of them are family. (In fact, I wish facebook had a setting for "family only".)
If you have an account, you should be able to check the facebook pages for the school and the PTO by going to those pages. If you find and click the "like" button, or join the facebook group (it depends on how they set it up), then you can just go to your own page and it will tell you what has bee said on the school and PTO pages.
You should not need to "chat".
Facebook does have an annoying way of trying to get you to increase your time with them. (I think) They are constantly saying things like "these are friends of your friends. Do you want to "friend" them too?"