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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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?

[/quote]

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? [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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"[/quote]

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