Reply to Why do so many SAHMs insist on PTA or activity meetings during the school day?

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Why do so many SAHMs insist on PTA or activity meetings during the school day?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At my kids’ elementary, they tried evening meetings and not many came. They switched meetings to 8AM (school start time of 8AM) and had much better attendance. Working parents who wanted to attend would just start work late that day, and most SAHPs preferred it. They also live-streamed the meetings.

I didn’t have any say in scheduling, just saying how it worked at our school. [/quote]

+1. This is how our school does it too. Working moms who have the bandwidth to volunteer with the PTA usually also have the flexibility to start work at 9:30am one day a month. [/quote]

This reflects a selection bias. Another way to express the same data is that you are only interested in working mothers whose jobs afford them the flexibility to arrive at work at 9:30– no shift workers, no care workers, no one with international calls etc.

And so, anyone who falls into that category should correctly conclude that you’re not interested in them and not take the PTA requests particularly seriously.[/quote]

Have you been to a PTA meeting? I haven’t attended one in 3 years. I still volunteer as needed on an ad-hoc basis. What more does anyone really need? [b]This focus on the PTA meeting time is a distraction[/b].[/quote]

I disagree. The meetings are when the agenda is set— when they decide we need a $10,000 teacher appreciation week fundraiser but no free after school activities. I’m happy to spend time volunteering to support the kids I'm not interested in volunteering to serve breakfast. [/quote]

Do you think the PTA has an open vote? Usually they just rubber stamp a decision that has already been made outside the general meeting.[/quote]

This was my experience (and I was on the board for a few years). The Principal also had very significant input- as she/he would need to approve and figure out logistics for things like “free after school activities”. These things were more or less decided before any general meeting or vote. [/quote]

Agreed. It’s just the way it is. In an ideal world, it would be great if all 500 members could weigh in on decisions, but given the number of projects our PTA does, it would be extremely inefficient and nothing would get accomplished. This is why we elect a board to work on the plans in cooperation with the principal. That said, we use surveys to solicit member feedback and ideas on everything from our programming to staff appreciation to meeting format/time, and we try to respond, as we have a responsibility to do so. We also have members who come to us with ideas for implementing new projects or clubs, and we do our best to partner with them to make these things happen.

On meeting times: Yes, any time during the school day would most definitely be the most convenient time for me, but I recognize that that timing would definitely shut out a large number of our parents. We do 7pm, which is equally inconvenient to everyone, ha ha. And I think that’s the key. It’s not inconvenient to just one group.

-Current elementary PTA board member[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics