Does your child's ES do a class or school directory?
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Anonymous
| We just moved to the area and I'm so upset at the lack of communication about ANYTHING at my children's school. The school has a PTO but the PTO doesn't appear to have meetings that the general public are invited to. They have monthly private meetings. The PTO does not send out emails unless they are asking for money. The principal doesn't send out messages about the school, they are just the generic FCPS messages. There is no school directory. There are room parents, but again, they only send out requests asking for donations, so there's no class directory either. I'm just wondering - is this normal at FCPS elementary schools? We moved from a region where there was a ton of communication and community building (like a fall picnic, bingo night, spring fair, science fair, international night, etc., and our FCPSschool hasn't done anything like that at all, it doesn't have any clubs for the kids, nothing). I would love to join the PTO to make recommendations and volunteer to help, but again, they have private meetings, I wouldn't even know HOW to get involved! |
Anonymous
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Ugh I’m so sorry to hear that.
I am a PTA president. (PTO just means they aren’t part of the PTA organization and don’t pay state/local PTA membership dues.) I try so hard to have new families feel welcome and included. We have ~100 families join out of ~400 families total, but our meetings are online and open to everyone. We have a FB page where we put all the things we need to share with families and write items for the school’s weekly emailed newsletter. We do have a directory but it is opt-in so only about 1/2 the school has opted in. All this to say your school’s PTO sounds terrible! Can you reach out to one of your PTO officers and say you’d like to be a part of it? I am always so happy to have volunteers for anything and very appreciative when parents reach out. |
Anonymous
| A Directory is the most important thing, by far. Nothing else matters. imho |
Anonymous
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Your PTO sounds very lacking. Sorry that is the case.
Our PTA is amazing, involved, supportive of our awesome teachers/needs of the school, very active and our meetings are finally in-person this year. Our after-school activities are great and I’m always happy to volunteer at the many events. There is a close relationship with the PTA and principal, so even the school’s weekly newsletter has a blurb about the PTA events. (There is also a PTA newsletter that gets emailed to families, too.) Keep pushing for change/inclusion. That said, the PTA does not do a directory (that I am aware), but the class parents usually take care of one for each grade. |
Anonymous
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Same deal at our FCPS elementary. The directory that is "available" is only to people who have paid PTA dues and is a convoluted opt in process, so when I went to search there were only about 30 names in it out of the entire school. I get a TON of emails from the PTA, but it's just soliciting money or sending amazon wish lists.
It seems kind of pointless. |
Anonymous
| Our PTA is really good at organizing after school activities and clubs, teacher appreciation/getting teacher “favorite things” lists together for teacher gifts, and organizing school events like Bingo night and Halloween Trunk or Treat - although they have to beg for volunteers to help run them. But we do not have a school directory and, as far as I know, there are no room parents past K. I wish we had a directory because it would make things so much easier to contact other parents for play dates and such. But so far, no dice, and I’m not sure why. |
Anonymous
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PTA president PP here. After 2020 VA privacy laws changed so everyone has to opt in to the directory. Before that you could default to opting families in and only those who wanted to opt out could do so.
Getting opt ins from every family in the school is hard. A ton of families that I’m friends with didn’t respond, didn’t care, or thought they responded when they never did. |
Anonymous
But some is better than none. |
Anonymous
| Our ES has a ton of activities and we have a directory. It is OPT In, which I have noticed several families have not done so. Maybe you can reach out to the PTA and offer suggestions or offer to on the directory project yourself? |
Anonymous
| This highly depends on the school. Our school is great at sending out info, our PTO is awesome, and most classes have a class directory organized by room parents. |
Anonymous
To be fair, a few years ago FCPS really clamped down on PTAs publishing directories. The fact that room parents can even do it at all was a change from the initial policy (I want to say this was 2018 or 2019 that they set up policies around PTA communication and respecting privacy). It has to be organized by the room parents and class parents have to opt-in; room parents cannot just send out the list they get from the school and neither can the PTA. |
Anonymous
+1 Thank the crazy parents for the directory issue. |
Anonymous
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Have you checked to see if your school or PTO has a newsletter that you might not be signed up for?
https://www.fcps.edu/node/47432 |
Anonymous
| Yeah, I belong to our PTA and have done so for years. I've never seen a directory. If you want to reach other parents of kids in the class, write your cell on a note and have your kid give it to their kid and just hope it gets there. |
Anonymous
| No. Our PTA is supposed to do it but it essentially doesn't exist. |