There Needs to Be Enforced Equity Among PTA's

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:$1 per member goes to MoCo's MCCPTA. Maryland and National PTAs get $4.25 per member.

If you're curious, here's the MCCPTA IRS report from 2018 (the latest I could find):
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/526070569/12_2019_prefixes_48-54%2F526070569_201906_990EZ_2019122616976328

They have a budget of $40 or $50K a year to advocate for 160K students. That's about the salary of one (experienced) para. Seems a pretty good deal.

That's actually a pretty big budget and sadly, they don't advocate for all and are very exclusionary. Not all schools have a PTA or are welcomed in.

No, it's not a big budget for an organization its size. And any school's PTA in MCPS would be part of the MCCPTA as well as the state and national umbrella groups. Whether a school chooses to have a PTA is up to the school parents to organize. A ton of volunteer time is needed; not all schools have parents able or willing to invest that time.

MCCPTA has to agree for a school to be apart of them. They have not welcome all schools.

Name a school that followed the PTA process (it's a national organization with clear guidelines, not just MoCo) and was denied access.

Our school is not and several others as well. Look at the pta lust and figure it out. Our school was denied entry last year and we are a PTO instead.

Anonymous wrote:That's impressive. Most of MCPS are members:
https://www.mccpta.org/local-pt-s-a-units.html

So 194 of 210 MCPS schools are members. Try harder.

So, why are the other schools not included?

Ask them. Most likely no one picked up the baton or they haven't put their organization together properly yet.

Yes, our school did ask many times. They gave up and did a PTO. You must be MCCPTA.

What’s the benefit of being PTA? What’s the downside or upside of NOT being PTA? Is it like National versus local fraternities?

Upside is you get to keep all the money you fundraise. Downside is not getting the support or advocacy that MCCPTA does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So 194 of 210 MCPS schools are members. Try harder.

So, why are the other schools not included?
Ask them. Most likely no one picked up the baton or they haven't put their organization together properly yet.

Yes, our school did ask many times. They gave up and did a PTO. You must be MCCPTA.

Not currently MCCPTA, but have been peripherally involved, and again I call BS that MCCPTA refused membership to any school that followed the required regulations and was in compliance.

Name the school or it didn't happen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:In what world is a parent Association not a reflection of the quality of parents? It seems like a fools errand to prop up a group that
Can’t or won’t contribute themselves.

Exactly that's why diversity busing is the only viable solution.

That isn't a viable solution. You can't make rich parents go where they don't want to. All you can do is bus poor kids around. You can create carrot programs where rich, high achievers opt into and agree to be bussed to poorer schools which the county already does with the Magnet. But then the poor schools complain about the good stuff only going to the rich kids and demand they water down the selection requirements to allow poorer kids to access these carrot programs which defeats their original charter. At some point parents of lesser means will have to accept that the county can't endlessly supplement their kids to emulate an affluent upbringing. What next are the middle class parents going to have to pay for the poor kids to take the foreign travel trips in middle and high school, block the rich kids from driving their cars to school because not all the kids can afford them, force the back yard pool parties to invite the band kids? At what point are people responsible for their own arrangements and knowing that equality of outcome isn't a thing in the real world.

Actually, you can by creating fair boundaries that represent actual communities and put an end to the longterm gerrymandering that have created this culture of haves and have nots.

There is no good way to do it and you assume that the lower income school families WANT to be at the richer schools and want to go to those schools and some of us picked so our kids would not be in those schools.

Wrong! Lower-income communities exist near wealthier ones today and simply adjusting existing boundaries would greatly improve the socioeconomic diversity within MCPS

Exactly, the Wooton boundary is an excellent example of gerrymandering. 90% of those assigned to it are closer to another high-school and there's an island. It makes no sense geographically.

*this*

[Anonymous]

Np here who was involved in a high-FARMs school’s PTA.
I want to correct the notion that these PTAs are struggling because the families are poor. To be sure, the families don’t have huge amounts of disposable income to donate to their local PTA, but that isn’t the root of the matter, IMO.

Many kids in these schools have parents who weren’t born in the US, and did not have anything like a PTA in their own childhood. (My friend whose parents were immigrant engineers —and heavily invested in their kids’ academic success—said that this was the case for her parents back in the 70s, too.) The PTAs (including local and state/national) also do very little, if anything, to explain to these new-American families why the PTA is something they should care about or join. It’s an American “institution”, if you will, which is why US-raised parents join their PTAs when their kids start school.
So PTAs suffer from a lack of buy-in/membership. Since the body of members evolves annually as kids enter/leave the school, there is a huge potential for moderately active PTAs to become less active PTAs as the prior officers move on. And for less-active PTAs to hang on by a shoestring (eg, enough members to actually do stuff), and from there become defunct. It’s a lot easier to step into an active PTA and play a role than it is to restart a PTA, especially if staff/teacher involvement has also not been strong.
With active members, PTAs could do various things even without deep-pocketed members. They can organize activities and promote school spirit, and encourage more involvement. They can fundraise from local or regional businesses. And they can have enough people to vote wisely on spending decisions so that any funds aren’t frittered away just because one member wants to use them for his/her own priority.
I’ll add that the absence of a strong PTA at the ES level is also a key reason why the middle school’s PTA may be weak. If parents do not see a PTA in action at the ES level, they will have little reason to understand the value of joining at the middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So 194 of 210 MCPS schools are members. Try harder.

So, why are the other schools not included?

Ask them. Most likely no one picked up the baton or they haven't put their organization together properly yet.

Yes, our school did ask many times. They gave up and did a PTO. You must be MCCPTA.

Not currently MCCPTA, but have been peripherally involved, and again I call BS that MCCPTA refused membership to any school that followed the required regulations and was in compliance.

Name the school or it didn't happen

You should really pay more attention and you’d know. Our school tried and was told no. Clearly paperwork was not an issue if a few took the time to form a pto.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Np here who was involved in a high-FARMs school’s PTA.
I want to correct the notion that these PTAs are struggling because the families are poor. To be sure, the families don’t have huge amounts of disposable income to donate to their local PTA, but that isn’t the root of the matter, IMO.

Many kids in these schools have parents who weren’t born in the US, and did not have anything like a PTA in their own childhood. (My friend whose parents were immigrant engineers —and heavily invested in their kids’ academic success—said that this was the case for her parents back in the 70s, too.) The PTAs (including local and state/national) also do very little, if anything, to explain to these new-American families why the PTA is something they should care about or join. It’s an American “institution”, if you will, which is why US-raised parents join their PTAs when their kids start school.
So PTAs suffer from a lack of buy-in/membership. Since the body of members evolves annually as kids enter/leave the school, there is a huge potential for moderately active PTAs to become less active PTAs as the prior officers move on. And for less-active PTAs to hang on by a shoestring (eg, enough members to actually do stuff), and from there become defunct. It’s a lot easier to step into an active PTA and play a role than it is to restart a PTA, especially if staff/teacher involvement has also not been strong.
With active members, PTAs could do various things even without deep-pocketed members. They can organize activities and promote school spirit, and encourage more involvement. They can fundraise from local or regional businesses. And they can have enough people to vote wisely on spending decisions so that any funds aren’t frittered away just because one member wants to use them for his/her own priority.
I’ll add that the absence of a strong PTA at the ES level is also a key reason why the middle school’s PTA may be weak. If parents do not see a PTA in action at the ES level, they will have little reason to understand the value of joining at the middle school.

This sums it up very nicely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If only we could find a way to keep wealthier families from supplementing their children’s education at home and over the summer, that would do wonders for promoting equity, too.

Lol. Good point.

[Anonymous]

My school is on this list and there is no active PTA. There has been limited participation. And several key positions have to be filled in order to officially form the PTA and there hasn’t been enough interest to fill all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1 per member goes to MoCo's MCCPTA. Maryland and National PTAs get $4.25 per member.

If you're curious, here's the MCCPTA IRS report from 2018 (the latest I could find):
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/526070569/12_2019_prefixes_48-54%2F526070569_201906_990EZ_2019122616976328

They have a budget of $40 or $50K a year to advocate for 160K students. That's about the salary of one (experienced) para. Seems a pretty good deal.

That's actually a pretty big budget and sadly, they don't advocate for all and are very exclusionary. Not all schools have a PTA or are welcomed in.

No, it's not a big budget for an organization its size. And any school's PTA in MCPS would be part of the MCCPTA as well as the state and national umbrella groups. Whether a school chooses to have a PTA is up to the school parents to organize. A ton of volunteer time is needed; not all schools have parents able or willing to invest that time.

MCCPTA has to agree for a school to be apart of them. They have not welcome all schools.

Name a school that followed the PTA process (it's a national organization with clear guidelines, not just MoCo) and was denied access.

Our school is not and several others as well. Look at the pta lust and figure it out. Our school was denied entry last year and we are a PTO instead.

Anonymous wrote:That's impressive. Most of MCPS are members:
https://www.mccpta.org/local-pt-s-a-units.html

So 194 of 210 MCPS schools are members. Try harder.

[Anonymous]

Our PTA has minimal involvement. It's a high farms school and the meeting times are hard for many families. Also, I get the sense that the principal is hard to work with and she and the staff dominate the meetings. There are not enough interested people to run and I also get the sense that it was never a priority of the principal because zero flyers have been sent home, we get a link to the meeting very last minute, etc. At the start of last year, over 80 people joined in on the initial meeting but because there was no organization and most of the positions were unfilled from last year, at the next meeting only 20 attended and by the next one there were maybe 12 with most of that being staff members.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our PTA has minimal involvement. It's a high farms school and the meeting times are hard for many families. Also, I get the sense that the principal is hard to work with and she and the staff dominate the meetings. There are not enough interested people to run and I also get the sense that it was never a priority of the principal because zero flyers have been sent home, we get a link to the meeting very last minute, etc. At the start of last year, over 80 people joined in on the initial meeting but because there was no organization and most of the positions were unfilled from last year, at the next meeting only 20 attended and by the next one there were maybe 12 with most of that being staff members.

Communication with families is a huge issue. We cannot communicate without the school sending emails/text and often it doesn't get done nor does anything get advertised so even though several people are trying, it normally is pretty low attendance. Ours is mostly staff too.

[Anonymous]

This whole thread is silly. The premise of this argument is that it’s not fair that people who have more than you, continue to have more than you. Rich kids have rich PTAs. Surprise.

[Anonymous]

MCPS should mandate reporting of PTA and other external funding for schools, and use that info for budget planning. Parents are welcome to spend their money on their kids private education, but public schooling is not fee-for-service. Allocate the funds district wide or don't use the funds in the district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
So 194 of 210 MCPS schools are members. Try harder.

So, why are the other schools not included?

Ask them. Most likely no one picked up the baton or they haven't put their organization together properly yet.

Yes, our school did ask many times. They gave up and did a PTO. You must be MCCPTA.

Not currently MCCPTA, but have been peripherally involved, and again I call BS that MCCPTA refused membership to any school that followed the required regulations and was in compliance.

Name the school or it didn't happen

You should really pay more attention and you’d know. Our school tried and was told no. Clearly paperwork was not an issue if a few took the time to form a pto.

Virtual academy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If only we could find a way to keep wealthier families from supplementing their children’s education at home and over the summer, that would do wonders for promoting equity, too.

Here's a more likely scenario.

Forget any PTA issues. Parents will just stop contributing to PTA's altogether. Instead, when they have complaints, the ones who can afford it will just hire lawyers and sue or file with Maryland IG / DoE OCR more. Schools will go ivory tower more than they already are, which will tick parents off even more. MCPS may think that's a good thing, up until they start getting their budgets cut.

MCPS tries to promote "equity" over "equality" of services, so the parents that can afford to pull their kids out into private schools. The parents that can't afford to pull out will lobby politicians to gerrymander even more or, worse, cut MCPS' budget by giving out vouchers. MCPS becomes like many other state's Public School systems and stops offering the quality services it was known for, which increases the slide. DC seems to have a lot of Charter Schools and the Public School systems in the South / Southeast are where parents are happy when kids get into any College or Community College at all.

Until MCPS leadership realizes that "equity" is inherently discriminatory, and merit-based and need-based "equality" of services is the way to go - I don't think anything at MCPS will change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS giving teachers money is completely separate from the PTA issue. MCPS should give teachers money, and do give a small amount in ordering, but more would be nice.

However, some of it is the PTA. Our PTA president the past few years did very little nor would let anyone else do anything but a few of her friends. There was a reason why things weren't getting done.

But, the teachers getting gift cards probably didn't get from the PTA but parents. If you have 30 kids giving $20 each, that adds up.

The point is MCPS should prohibit PTA from giving funds to any teachers. If all teachers dont have this access, none should. It's really not difficult to understand that classrooms in Bethesda don't look like classrooms in Gaithersburg. Parents in Bethesda supply teachers with more than they could ever dream of while other schools don't even have basic supplies. Again, MCPS is about equity. We aren't ALLOWED to ask parents to bring supplies, meanwhile, it is encouraged at other schools.

Why don't you figure out a system where everyone gets funds instead of stomping on the teachers that do?

Who is stomping on anyone? I'm more than happy for them. It isn't fair for the rest of the county which is the entire point of this post. No where in these posts did I degrade the teachers who are receiving things. It'd be nice if DCUM people could...read...with comprehension.

Life until fair. Wealthier schools will figure out other ways to get around your rule. Figure our a way to help the students at your school instead of taking away.