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

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

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[quote=Anonymous]I made a decision not to join the PTA this year because their priorities do not align with mine.  It's not that I think the PTA should all of a sudden take up all of my favorite causes and ignore everyone else's, it's that their causes aren't even on my radar as being mildly important.  I also feel the burden of -- if you're not involved in the PTA you must not care about your children or their education.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I'm not sure how the myth that if you care about your children and their school you must join the PTA - got started.  In fact, I'm not even certain why my school's PTA is called the PTA (Parent Teacher Association).  The only event I have ever seen a teacher participate in was the Back to School Picnic, and my guess is that this was a requirement.  I have attended a few PTA meetings and there were only parents in attendance.  The same is true of Bingo Night, Movie Night and various other activities.  When another parent and I lead our school's chess club, it was the school's most popular club.  It only made money through a participation fee, and did not use any existing funds.  We didn't have enough volunteers to run the program each week.  The next year we talked about hiring someone with the funds from the previous year's club, in order to maintain the club for the kids.  The PTA, we discovered, plunged all of the chess club money into the general fund and the chess club line item in the budget sat at $0.  Chess club, a rather academic and brain building exercise, was also not supported by a single teacher.  Not once did a teacher volunteer to participate in the club.  But, one of the main spending line items in the PTA's budget is teacher professional development and teacher appreciation gifts  -- both monetary and other.  How is an association, completely devoid of teachers, called the PTA?  Our PTA anyway, seems to be an organization to donate supplies to teachers, celebrate teacher appreciation week, and give monetary gifts to teachers, but not actually partner with teachers and the school to create a better educational experience for our children.  I want to support our teachers and kids as much as anyone else, but really, is donating glue sticks or cookies really going to help my kid be prepared for the world ahead of them?  I have a pretty good feeling chess club would have been more helpful.  [/quote]

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