If you don't join and/or volunteer in your school's PTA, please explain why

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a PTA gripe that hasn't been mentioned yet. At my DD/DS school, kids of the 'PTA' parents get the best teachers. I'm kind of a math geek, so I did an analysis of the likelihood that kids of parents on the PTA leadership (about 30 families) could have all managed to get 2 particular teachers purely by chance. The probabilty of this happening if each child had an equal chance of getting these teachers was under 10%.

I wish they would post a price list for the 'good' teachers. Something like 1 year as head of a time-consuming commitee gets you 2 teacher picks, PTA head gets you a lifetime of picks, etc.

The outcome is that kids from families that are struggling financially and don't have enough time to volunteer have a smaller chance at getting the good teachers.

OMG! You must be at our school! I swear this happens!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a PTA gripe that hasn't been mentioned yet. At my DD/DS school, kids of the 'PTA' parents get the best teachers. I'm kind of a math geek, so I did an analysis of the likelihood that kids of parents on the PTA leadership (about 30 families) could have all managed to get 2 particular teachers purely by chance. The probabilty of this happening if each child had an equal chance of getting these teachers was under 10%.

I wish they would post a price list for the 'good' teachers. Something like 1 year as head of a time-consuming commitee gets you 2 teacher picks, PTA head gets you a lifetime of picks, etc.

The outcome is that kids from families that are struggling financially and don't have enough time to volunteer have a smaller chance at getting the good teachers.

OMG! You must be at our school! I swear this happens!!!

I've been a PTA officer for a few years now, and it hasn't bought me any influence with school administrators at all. That's not why I do the PTA (I do it because nobody at our school wants to do it)-but our principal isn't a warm and fuzzy kind and it doesn't impress her at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't like volunteering at the school. Basically, b/c every time I do it, I run into some other parent who "turns me off" to the whole process. There was the mom who badgered me about what math class my DS was in (so as to compare her son); there was the mom who helped the teacher grade quizes so she could see how the other kids performed; there was the mom who told me that so-and-so is a "troubled" child from a "bad family." Yuck! Each time I left the school with a bad feeling, so I haven't been back. As usual, the parents are a big part of the problem.

That mom type is all over our PTA. It has pretty much ruined the PTA. I write the check and avoid the activities like the plague.

Also all over our PTA, Foundation, Classrooms as a Room Parent and stands by the Main Doors every day at pick up trashing all of the other children and moms she's learned about in her various roles. In our case it's one person with a severe Queen Bee/Marie Antionette complex who is just destroying it for the rest of us.