Private School Parent Association
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Anonymous
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How do the PAs at your schools work? My child recently started at a new school in order to be a grade rep or involved in anything you have to be invited. For instance, if you want to be a grade rep, you have to be nominated however people who don't wanna do it are nominated, and elected and pressured into doing it while people who volunteered are passed over.
My past experience was everyone could come to meetings, show up and raise their hand if they want to be a grade rep or involved in the auction everybody was able to do what they thought their talents would be best utilized for. The result is, there's no parent community at this new school and parents are actively kept out of the Parent Association. If you feel comfortable mentioning your name, I would appreciate that. Please tell me how the PTA works at your school. |
Anonymous
| Obviously, it's late and I was asking for the name of your school and not your actual legal name. |
Anonymous
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I have found that people are welcome at all levels to volunteer at the school and that more often than not the same people end up volunteering over and over again because some people like to/are able to donate time and some don’t care to/can’t. The PA makes a concerted effort to pull in new people and also the roles go quickly. Very rarely someone volunteers who is not really going to be a great fit for the job and are passed over but that’s really on them I think. People want to work with people they can get along with. If you’re a shit stirrer then that’s not helpful.
I have found that there are official PA jobs and then there are an enormous number of volunteer opportunities throughout the year. If you want to be involved you can be. It’s a great way to meet people you would not normally meet. It’s been extremely rewarding for my time at school and just being new to a school should preclude anyone from doing stuff! |
Anonymous
Start with telling us your school! |
Anonymous
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Our school practically begs people to volunteer. While there is a "nomination" process, it really isn't a nomination. The job of the nomination committee is to get people to volunteer, and literally everyone can volunteer. Are you sure you are being too literally about the term nominate? Did you volunteer and they said no thanks?
I can't imagine turning anyone away, unless there were just too many who wanted to be rep for a given class while other positions were unfilled. In that case you'd want one of the people volunteering for class rep to take one of the other positions instead. You don't really need more than one or two for a class rep. |
Anonymous
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I was told to be a class rep you needed to be nominated by a board member or someone in admin. Although I knew that was BS, I did both. The board member who nominated me wrote a lovely letter. His wife, a good friend, had no interest but was invited to be 1 of 3 reps. She called and told me. Seems like they don't take volunteers. Instead people nominate people they think would be good and then guilt them into accepting. The result is reps that don't tell you about an event until the day before... and there are only one or two events per grade per year.
I knew the president of the PA as well. I have gotten her into organizations. I was just up at school last week and the HOS spent a couple of hours with us and asked us to consider making a large multi year gift to the school. Would you be a major donor at a school that won't allow you to be part of the community? |
Anonymous
| Not sure about all schools but at ours you can nominate yourself or someone else can nominate you, and then the committee reaches out to see if you are interested. No pressure to say yes, as it's just an email. At our K-8, the principal asked for volunteers in a back to school email. Most people do not want that responsibility, so it's more a sense of taking your turn. There are also a ton of events to chair, and since the same people step up every time, most schools would be so happy to help you find a good fit! |
Anonymous
| Been at two schools. One school has a small nomination committee - all friends and in the same social circle that keep a very tight control over who is in leadership roles at the school. They will throw in a token diverse person on a gala or event committee on occasion for appearances but then that person gets shut out and regrets doing it. |
Anonymous
This is a leadership dynamic that gets talked a lot about on DCUM and appears a lot of places. A friend group forms in some leadership organization (parent association, PTA, PTO, sports league board of directors, whatever). On some level they want more people involved because they are all overcommitted and doing too much. But on another level they like having just their friends around and they know they can trust each other to get a job done - mostly, or at least all the jobs they as a group value. They don't know if they will like or be able to trust some new person in a role. So they just don't let knew people in. Usually they do this while griping that no one volunteers. It happens over...and over...and over. I don't think the people who do it even see what they are doing. |
Anonymous
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Our current school has a similar closed dynamic. Our school is also very insular, it's very common in the elementary grades that half the students are children of alums. And something like 40% of the faculty are alums, too.
So for those of us who aren't alums, it's very hard to break into those circles. Worse, some people seem to like to make sure us non-alum families know we're viewed as "lesser." A very unpleasant environment, and one of the main reasons we are going elsewhere next year. |
Anonymous
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Yikes those sound awful. Kid is in 9-12 HS now and the parents' groups are extremely open and welcoming. There are separate Mom and Dad's groups. Anyone can go to the meetings/socials/events and volunteer for anything they want to do. They actively recruit volunteers. HS so no "room parent" positions. My kid is an incoming 9th grader and I've already volunteered twice.
The K-8th grade he just finished was a bit more closed off but they still encouraged people to volunteer. I do remember requests for volunteers for room parents several years. |
Anonymous
| While our school has a nomination process, everyone who wants a role will get one. It's often harder to ensure all the roles are filled because there are so many of them and sadly, it's usually the same parents who volunteer over and over again - despite those of us desperately wanting others to help. But I also get it - PA leadership is a lot of work and there are so many volunteer opportunities that just volunteering can get a bit overwhelming. |
Anonymous
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In our small private, all volunteers typically get a role.
In the last few years, because of the pandemic, parents who volunteer for PA roles (President, Vice President, Treasurer), have gotten roles. And essentially they have held the roles for the past few years. No voting or nominations. Administration would ask if you’re interested, or PA leadership would try to recruit you for a PA role. For room parents / grade reps, parents can volunteer by asking the teachers if they need a rep, and they usually get the role. Our DS’ class of 14 kids had 4 grade reps one year; typically each class has 2 reps. |
Anonymous
| I don't quite understand ours. There doesn't seem to be any regular meetings. The DEI committee had one or two meeting that had a speaker/book talk but no regular here's what's going on type meetings. They just emailed out a slate of new officers and voting was by google doc. I have no idea how these people were picked - I don't even remember a call for interested people. I would not have volunteered to be an officer so I guess its fine. Our school likes to talk about how great and strong the community is but we haven't really seen it in our 3 years there. |
Anonymous
This screams NCS. |