Reply to Do most families join PTA?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You can also donate to the library or the field trip fund or the book fair if you would rather not give to the PA for whatever reason.[/quote]

Just donate directly to the cause and be involved. You don't need to join PTA. I was a PTA board member for 2 years and I don't think you need to join PTA to be involved.

Also during covid, I am not sure how much PTA activities will be.[/quote]

After being on the board and seeing how they wasted money and very little went to the school, this is what I do.  I will buy things directly for the school, teachers or donate to a field trip, etc. [/quote]

Serious question:  If you were on the board, didn't you have more power to prevent waste?

I ask because I'm coming from a very active, wealthy PTSA at Cabin John that paid for a ton of stuff, to a lower income high school (we moved) where PTSA purchases for the school REALLY matter.   Unlike at Cabin John, where it was nice, but not necessary.  Pooling money through a PTSA mechanism is more efficient for funding things than individual parents donating when they feel like it.   So an effective PTSA is in everyone's best interests.  But it's disheartening to hear they waste money.[/quote]

I very much tried to.  I worked really hard to cut out the waste and get resource for free elsewhere but sadly the other board members worked against me at every chance.  We didn't even need parent donations as I got so many donations but they felt it wasn't appropriate to get community donations.  I think necessary is subjective.  We were a very low budget PTA so every dollar mattered.  The one problem is it takes time to do many things and our board wanted the easiest way to do things to make them look good vs. putting the time into it.  They also heavily discouraged parents from volunteering when they'd reach out to volunteer despite saying they wanted input and volunteers.  I regularly voted no to things that weren't appropriate and it caused a lot of conflict.  I wanted to raise money to do bigger projects so we'd have things other schools had.  I wanted to get donations for some of those things too because we couldn't easily raise the money other PTA's could.  They are in it for their interests and the complements to themselves on social media were entertaining given how little they actually did.[/quote]

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