OK--I've asked the teachers their thought on their PTA/PTO organizations, now I'd like to hear the mom perspectives.
Is your PTO helpful or full of too many tedious, time consuming activities and programs?
Our PTA does one large fundraising campaign per year (awesome) but then about a billion little things: fundraisers, spirit week, book fairs, collecting pennies, you name it. It's one or two things every week. As if school isn't enough for the kids. LOL
It's not the raising of money that is the issue. It's the level of hype and minutia that it adds to the school year.
So....what do you think about YOUR PTA/PTO?
This will my my first year of public school for my daughter. I will probably join the PTA, but only involve myself with events that I have time/money for. I will not spread myself too thin because it's too stressful. If they require too much time, I need to learn early how to say no.
Our PTO only did dances and a few fundraisers. The other organizations in the school did other fundraisers. Are you sure it's not other organizations who are benefitting from the additional fundraising? I found that the same 10 people who helped with the PTO stuff also helped with the other fundraisers -- because nobody else would help... Because "they work". sigh....
In Middle School it worked like this: The Library did the book fair... The Band did the peanuts... The school itself did the wrapping paper... the PTO did the dances... The Yearbook Staff did the yearbook sales... Each class had their own thing... It did seem never ending, but without additional funding, a lot of the fun things just can't happen.
YMMV
LBC
Hi, Denise:
Have you seen the budget for your PTA/PTO?
That's a good place to start to understand where the money
is being spent.
Just a thought.
D.
Hi denise-
I was never involved with the PTA/O that much per se...I cultivated a relationship with my own children's respective teachers...and volunteered in their classes...chaperoned field trips...helped 'proctor' during tests etc.
I am not much of a joiner I guess...and when I was in Northern Va, the members of PTA/O seemed kind of 'cliquish' to me...I had enough drama in my own life...so pretty much went it alone...and contributed in areas I felt I could.
Best Luck!
michele/cat
I'm on the PTO, and personally I hate all the little things. I'd rather not see any, but in this day and age with budget cuts, I understand it is a necessity. I think it is great if you can give parents an option of 2-3 things to "choose" from in a year to contribute to. Have at least 2 big functions that have mass appeal. For us it is a 2 mile fun run/walk. Then you are never bothered with any of the other little stuff.
What I have found difficult is explaining to my kids that we cannot participate in everything the school does as far as fundraisers. It's not financially possible. I'd be broke! They kinda understand, but still I see the disappointment on their faces when they know we won't go to eat at some restaurant for spirit night. And it drives me nuts when they send the kids home with a sticker on their shirts saying, "Don't forget your fundraiser $$$, spirit night is tonight",etc... Ugh. Talk about marketing and pulling at heartstrings...
Good luck!
I am involved in my children's schools PTA/PTO but we don't call it that and are our own separate organization. That being said, our dues are minimal ($2), we don't pay national dues and we don't have big daddy looking over our shoulder. We do several fundraisers throughout the year, such as BoxTops, ink cartridges, Campbell's soup labels, and recycling cell phones. We also sell organice Washington apples though it is not a big fundraiser. We have a bingo/raffle license so will do that for school groups but don't really make any money with that either. Our biggest fundraiser is we run concessions during HS volleyball and HS basketball. We put out good food and desserts and we charge a fair price. You can feed a family of 4 for under $20 easy. By running the concessions, we aren't just hitting our parent/students, but earning money from those outside our school family. There are two of us that do most of the concessions work and we rely on volunteers whether parents or students to help us staff the concession stand. The final fundraiser we do every year is to cater the Alumni Banquet every year. We are a very small K-12 school with O. campus. We do have a captive audience for our concessions since we are located in a small community out in the boonies. No place to stop before or after the game to eat.
As you will notice with any organization, it is basically the same people doing the work in everything they are involved with. Volunteer where you can and make yourself available to the classroom teachers. Our previous school had an opt out of fundraising option and I loved that. We could donate $150 and not have to participate in any fundraisers, period. The PTO got all the $ and I didn't have to buy junk.
Most of my involvement was when my daughter was in K - 6th. We did two fund raisers in the year, fall being the largest. These fund raisers pretty much covered and paid for our fall festival, family fun nights, book fair and special assemblies. I think the kids expected and really appreciated these.
The part that drove me absolutely and totally crazy was these moms (it was all moms) couldn't have an efficient meeting to save their life. I like to use my time as efficiently as possible but many of these moms used it as their entertainment, chit chat fest. Aghhhh!
As my daughter got older I limited my involvement on the PTA board and was able to judge science fairs and become more involved in team sports with my daughter.
My son starts K this year, and I'm afraid to join! I've heard so many stories of inefficient meetings, long discussions of minutia, feeling taken advantage of because others make it hard to say no, never ending fundraisers, etc. And not just on this site, but from my friends who have older kids.
I'll probably give it a try for O. meeting, because I do want to help make my son's school a better place if I can, and then decide if it has a place in our family life.
Our PTA is OKAY...it's gotten better over the last several years because we got some of the "hyper" parents out...the ones who wanted to do something EVERY week....
Now, our PTA does two BIG pushes during the school year - O. in late September (the Christmas paper Sally Foster or O. other O.) and then again in Spring - a "Fiesta" - where companies donate items to bid on....
We do the book drive - and like the teacher in the other post said - forces the kids to purchase overpriced books and other goodies...even though we support the school - we don't buy the books from there.
They also sell "spirit" clothes - drives me nuts because my kids are in ELEMENTARY school - we didn't do "spirit clothes" until I was in middle school and high school....urgh...
We do the Box Tops for Education throughout the year.
I was really surprised when the PTA pushed year books for the kids - that was just a HUGE shocker for me....
I'm like Cat, I don't participate. I do volunteer in my daughter's classroom and for field trips occasionally. I just stay out of any other meetings/fundraisers/events.
I love our PSO and joined this year, last year I had the job of school event photographer, this year I'm VP of volunteers, managing the list of committees for the ten or so events. We have two fundraisers, a walkathon and cookie dough sales. We have a family dance for fun, the book fair is run by the library, other events are staff appreciation lunch, a back to school ice cream social, end of year BBQ, etc. Some people are super involved, some not at all, I just couldn't not give back to my kids school. We only meet once a month and have our schoolwife meetings three times a year. It's not as bad as some people make it out to be!
At our previous school, I didn't think the panel of parents and school administration was really organized and wasted a lot of time in the meetings.. They would ramble on about non-issues and go into the night. Also, too many little fundraiser ideas that didn't bring in much money ... I like the idea of O. or two BIG ones and then stopp all the nonsense in between. I am about quality not quantity.. Let's do something nice and big and raise money.. people at our school got really tired of every other week having to do something and because of it, we didn't always get the full participation we needed for an event to take full flight.. We are hoping at my son's new school, this pto board will be different. Additionally, our last O. did not track any funds very well (that made me nervous)...... in my opinion, a school is a business and people need to track donations, money and whatever may matter..
