Parent volunteers who are nuts

[Anonymous]

Volunteering can be fun but it depends on the school and obviously the parents you are volunteering with. At my daughter’s school the parents are very chill about events and there is no drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is one problem we don’t have in my kids’ DC public school. The same small subset of nice parents volunteer for most stuff, but they also work, and we are all just kind of muddling thru to make enough pizza parties happen. It is one of my fave things about public school: the normal-ness. (We did have one gossip mom years ago who ran the events but then spent the whole time talking bad about teachers and other people’s kids… the fam eventually left for private school so she’s probably off somewhere making other people crazy, unfortunately…)

Consider yourself lucky - there are plenty of type A obnoxious parent volunteers at public schools in NW DC, Bethesda, Potomac, Rockville (and I'd bet McLean, Vienna) and surely more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is in high school these women are probably in their 50s which are the perimenopause years. This is me and i know many women (including on occasion my self) who are acting crazy in all sorts of ways. Best to just ignore this behavior. It too shall pass.

OP here. That's a really valid point!!!! Keeping my head down in real life. I was curious if this is an "everywhere thing" and I also wonder if Covid contributes in a "we can finally have nice things again way" but the social skills have taken a beating. So many consultants. So few followers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm generally quite lenient towards people who are visibly stressed and temporarily raise their voice, unless their words are really unacceptably nasty and personal. What matters is that there are no lasting animosities or rudeness when everyone has calmed down after each event.

It seems to me that if there was a particular person who was habitually and unpardonably rude, parents would have complained to the school administration and the PTA already, and efforts would have been made to exclude them from further volunteering.

We had such a person in our PTA, who turned out to be suffering from a psychotic break. She was promptly ousted, to rest and seek help.

If this is the case, then you need to get a group of parents to consult with the PTA President and Principal, for the good of the families who are coming behind you. Unless the person in question is also leaving the school this year, in which case it's a moot point.

OP here. I love this idea. I do (personally) get thrown off when people lose it. (My own issue.)

I mentioned to a friend who was recently told off by another volunteer that the rant sounded like what someone who is in conflict with others in their life would say. Maybe an ex, maybe their own kid, maybe their boss..... but it can be rough out there in the carpool line!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hell is other people.
The ninth circle of hell is for parent volunteers.

lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is in high school these women are probably in their 50s which are the perimenopause years. This is me and i know many women (including on occasion my self) who are acting crazy in all sorts of ways. Best to just ignore this behavior. It too shall pass.

OP here. That's a really valid point!!!! Keeping my head down in real life. I was curious if this is an "everywhere thing" and I also wonder if Covid contributes in a "we can finally have nice things again way" but the social skills have taken a beating. So many consultants. So few followers.

You nailed my experience with this description! I'm a longtime volunteer working to extract myself from my short-term commitments and responsibly wind down the longer-term ones. Everyone I volunteer with either has a million opinions but no desire to do actual work, or they want to do the work but don't have the ability or emotional intelligence to execute. And both types of volunteers are seeking attention and social capital in exchange for their contributions. It's exhausting and fruitless and leads to endless conflict. We probably have 5-6 functional volunteers in the entire school community, and it's both comical and concerning how many areas they end up involved in.

I've realized that our school has relied on volunteers to run critical functions of the school for too long and it has given too much access to the "wrong" parents as a result. The only way to fix this is with money, so I've been earmarking my donations to areas where paid staff or systems can be put in place to replace volunteers.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a problem for the board, or if there’s any sort of parent organization running the volunteering? Probably the board should spawn one and it should have enforceable guidelines.

[Anonymous]

I do a lot of parent volunteering at our co-op preschool and I have to say, everyone is really well-behaved and helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm generally quite lenient towards people who are visibly stressed and temporarily raise their voice, unless their words are really unacceptably nasty and personal. What matters is that there are no lasting animosities or rudeness when everyone has calmed down after each event.

It seems to me that if there was a particular person who was habitually and unpardonably rude, parents would have complained to the school administration and the PTA already, and efforts would have been made to exclude them from further volunteering.

We had such a person in our PTA, who turned out to be suffering from a psychotic break. She was promptly ousted, to rest and seek help.

If this is the case, then you need to get a group of parents to consult with the PTA President and Principal, for the good of the families who are coming behind you. Unless the person in question is also leaving the school this year, in which case it's a moot point.

OP here. I love this idea. I do (personally) get thrown off when people lose it. (My own issue.)

I mentioned to a friend who was recently told off by another volunteer that the rant sounded like what someone who is in conflict with others in their life would say. Maybe an ex, maybe their own kid, maybe their boss..... but it can be rough out there in the carpool line!!!!!

I can't imagine anyone telling off another parent in this scenario? Is this a real thing? What school is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The frequent attacks on the entire concept of volunteering at a school is one of the more surprising parts of DCUM.

In high school??? Goodness. No wonder kids are so unprepared for college.

What does this have to do with the kids being prepared for college? High school PTAs are basically fund raising machines for the school and host events for families to socialize at the school (which is connected to fundraising).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My youngest is about to graduate from HS, and this month, about half a dozen parents have reached out to ask for advice/vent about other parent volunteers (Queen Bees) who have screamed at them, made them cry, returned their work for editing, gone rogue (we aren't doing snacks for the kids anymore-there is an obesity problem in this country and our kids are soft so let's not provide them or the opposite...let's have half-time catered....), and things of that nature. I've seen some texts and emails. Blown away by how people will say things to other parents (or within earshot of kids) that they would get fired for at work (or promoted if they work in a toxic environment).

Do your schools have any kind of training or guidelines or hierarchy for volunteering?

Parents have told me they plan to call the school faculty to complain about their negative experiences volunteering and it seems like a complete and utter waste of school resources to have the adults whose programs they want to support to mediate conflicts among 40, 50 and 60-year olds.

I assume a lot of you volunteer with people who are used to being the decision-maker or who delegate down a lot.
What have your experiences been?

Been at two different schools - one school admin selects parent volunteers carefully and other one allows the parents to self select themselves and their friends. Guess which one has a smoother nicer experience?

The group of friends. Because they are all just going to agree. The group of carefully selected randoms are going to try to "shake things up" and do it all differently and re-invent the wheel and infighting and disagreement will ensue. What should take 15 minutes will take 3 hours because everyone will have an opinion.

Not really. Normal civilized parents and adults should be able to work together. Why should parents that want to be involved in their community get shut out because they are not friends with the Queen Bees? That is ridiculous and not really accepted in well run schools.

Well according to some here you must be an underemployed and undereducated SAHM to want to spend so much time and energy planning some ridiculous PTA event. Just write the check to support the school and either attend the events or don't. Nobody needs you to drone on and on about your visions at a PTA meeting.

Nope. I just send a check. Have zero interest in planning anything but I do think for those that WANT to help out they should be able to to do so.

You know there are only so many roles and there can be too many cooks in the kitchen which causes headaches for everyone. Those people who WANT to be involved are also not going to be happy being a help in any way they can. You know they want to be in charge bossing everyone else around. You need to start small, show up, help out as needed and from there it should be easy to take on a bigger role next time. But you can't just roll in, want to call all the shots, then leave in a huff when people don't respond well.

A lot of the time if an unfamiliar face shows up the queen bees won't give them any sort of job out of fear of losing control. "You might do this wrong so I'll just do it. You can go home...or go fetch us coffee"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The frequent attacks on the entire concept of volunteering at a school is one of the more surprising parts of DCUM.

DCUM has a wildly disproportionate number of Very Online people with significant challenges dealing with others face to face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people have entirely too much time and entirely too little other meaningful things in their lives.

+1. Kind of sad, really. Could make for decent reality TV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The frequent attacks on the entire concept of volunteering at a school is one of the more surprising parts of DCUM.

Especially given the correlation between parent volunteering and child academic/life success.

I find this difficult to believe. Surely parental education level and income matters more? And highly educated, highly employed parents are not volunteering as much as SAHMs with a BA or even less.

I did say correlation for a reason. It may be that families that are likely to volunteer are also likely to be highly involved in their child's academics in general and even if you just took out the part where the parents showed up and did something at school, the kids would still do as well. Nevertheless, the data is there (meta analysis: https://psycnet.apa.org/manuscript/2019-38879-001.pdf)

For example, school-based involvement, such as participation in parent-teacher conferences, open houses, and other school events, had a positive impact on academics in preschool, middle school, and high school, but the size of the impact was much lower in high school than in preschool. That may be because parents have fewer opportunities to be involved in the high school environment than in younger students’ classrooms where parents might volunteer.
....
Parent involvement has led to higher academic outcomes both for children from low and higher socioeconomic status families.

(https://www.edweek.org/leadership/does-parent-involvement-really-help-students-heres-what-the-research-says/2023/07)

There's also a bit in that EdWeek article about how being an involved parent helps you have social capital at school to navigate challenges. If you have other ways to build that social capital, then there's less need to be on-hand for PTO events.

I don't know that "being highly involved in their child's academics" is ideal, either, especially in high school. What happens when they move away to college and have to do it on their own?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The frequent attacks on the entire concept of volunteering at a school is one of the more surprising parts of DCUM.

Especially given the correlation between parent volunteering and child academic/life success.

I find this difficult to believe. Surely parental education level and income matters more? And highly educated, highly employed parents are not volunteering as much as SAHMs with a BA or even less.

You sound ridiculous. Most of the SAHMs I know have masters, law, or doctorate degrees. They are actually successful and wealthy enough to afford to stay home. I am one of these parents. I worked when younger but am wealthy enough to be able to stay at home with my kids in my late 30's and on as I always wanted to do. Most of the moms I know still working in their 50's and 60's can not afford to stay home.

Man, your over-the-top frantic defensiveness is wild. There was nothing that the PP said that warranted a response like this. Incredible.

Not defensive in the least just correcting the pp with their incorrect statements. That is all. They specifically stated that SAHMs tend to be less educated and I am correcting them. Now move along.

i

That’s not the case in my close-in Bethesda neighborhood. The SAHMs are just SAHMs, not former lawyers, etc. It seems they married spouses with lucrative careers or have family money. They are educated but didn’t have remarkable careers before kids.