Great Falls PTA suggests an annual family contribution of $200. To join the PTA is $20 (I think) adn that basically gets you the student directory and the droid/iphone app.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The OP left me with the impression that someone might be real estate shopping. Therefore Spring Hill is totally relevant. You can have minimal or NO PTA donations. Nobody cares. Most join the PTA and few go to meetings unless there is something going on like school boundary stuff.

The reason I ask is that I am coming from DC where our local public school's (affluent neighborhood west of Rock Creek, so school is excellent) PTA has family's put in $1000 per family. I guess folks in DC don't balk at that because we are so used to Sidwell etc. costing over $27,000 per year, per child! The extra $1000 per family provides extra teaching assistants in all the classrooms. The DC school district has *the* highest per child expenditure in the country, so this is on top of that. Because Fairfax is facing budget cuts, and considering McLean/Great Falls are similarly affluent areas where people care about their children's education, I wanted to know if similar things happen.

I am disappointed to hear that PTAs at some of the schools are not that active.

The PTA's are active but a few are officers and NO cash goes to salaries and benefits for FCPS employees or supplemental employees in classrooms. A PTA could pay a non-employee or employee for an afterschool club. There are a lot of PTA related [or PTO in the case of Colvin Run and Spring Hill] events and volunteer opportunities. Most activity is social or fund raising ---but the vast majority of the general membership rarely if ever attend PTA meetings. Big decisions are usually made by the boards not votes of the general membership.

Anonymous wrote:

The OP left me with the impression that someone might be real estate shopping. Therefore Spring Hill is totally relevant. You can have minimal or NO PTA donations. Nobody cares. Most join the PTA and few go to meetings unless there is something going on like school boundary stuff.

The reason I ask is that I am coming from DC where our local public school's (affluent neighborhood west of Rock Creek, so school is excellent) PTA has family's put in $1000 per family. I guess folks in DC don't balk at that because we are so used to Sidwell etc. costing over $27,000 per year, per child! The extra $1000 per family provides extra teaching assistants in all the classrooms. The DC school district has *the* highest per child expenditure in the country, so this is on top of that. Because Fairfax is facing budget cuts, and considering McLean/Great Falls are similarly affluent areas where people care about their children's education, I wanted to know if similar things happen.

I am disappointed to hear that PTAs at some of the schools are not that active.

The Churchill Road PTA in McLean asked for a little more than $100 per family. There is no push to raise extra money beyond that (that was in lieu of the annual fundraiser). And there is no push to build up large reserves. They do well within their budget. There are various optional efforts throughout the year for charity, such as Coins for Haiti, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP - I can see why people challenged you. A poster asked for advice about Great Falls and you hijacked the thread by advising them they should look at Spring Hill instead. The OP probably lost interest a long time ago.

OP here! I didn't lose interest. This is all quite informative. Thanks! It's good to see that this board is becoming more active.
Question: How much on average to parents in McLean and Great Falls contribute to the PTA? Does the PTA ask for large donations?

The OP left me with the impression that someone might be real estate shopping. Therefore Spring Hill is totally relevant. You can have minimal or NO PTA donations. Nobody cares. Most join the PTA and few go to meetings unless there is something going on like school boundary stuff.

Anonymous wrote:PP - I can see why people challenged you. A poster asked for advice about Great Falls and you hijacked the thread by advising them they should look at Spring Hill instead. The OP probably lost interest a long time ago.

OP here! I didn't lose interest. This is all quite informative. Thanks! It's good to see that this board is becoming more active.
Question: How much on average to parents in McLean and Great Falls contribute to the PTA? Does the PTA ask for large donations?

I never advised anyone to look at SH instead of GF or anywhere else, just responded to someone else's broad-brush characterization with a personal experience. The hijacking took place when that wasn't what that person wanted to hear.

Mea culpa. Never meant for the thread to be hijacked.

PP - I can see why people challenged you. A poster asked for advice about Great Falls and you hijacked the thread by advising them they should look at Spring Hill instead. The OP probably lost interest a long time ago.

Nope, not defensive at all. I shared my personal experiences of a community feel at my child's school in order to illustrate the point that the SIZE of a school is just one factor to consider.

A small school won't guarantee you personalized attention, likewise a large school doesn't preclude it.

How that was twisted into my having an overinflated opinion of how "memorable" my child is or my feelings about any other school is beyond me.

If the other poster has such grave concerns about her kids being lost at a school the size of SH, then he/she made the right choice in sending them elsewhere. I've found the best part of SH (besides the teachers and the diversity) has been the involvement of the parents.

I did not make the "snark much" comment, but I don't disagree with it. I had simply offered evidence that apparently clashed with PP's preconcieved notions of a large school and for some reason he/she didn't like it. There was no reason for the snark in response.

We seem to have some very defensive Spring Hill parents who feel that everyone needs to think their school is the best. Why so defensive? If you're happy with the school, does it matter if someone else doesn't agree with you? Are you at Spring Hill because you think it's a good school, or are you at Spring Hill because you thought everyone else thinks Spring Hill is so great?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses, I simply posted about my own personal experiences with the school. The only time I was concerned about the size was when they had to add an extra kindergarten right before school started -- apparently the economy caused a lot of people to re-evaluate paying for private K -- but the school handled it as well as they could.

As the PP asked, "Do you have a child at Spring Hill or did you pull a child out because of the size?" If not, then I'm not sure you know what you're talking about.

Do you have a child at Great Falls or Kilmer? If not, I'm not sure YOU have any basis to recommend Spring Hill or Longfellow, according to your own logic.

I investigated the schools thoroughly and knew I did not want to send my child to a 1000-student elementary school. I'm happy for you that your child is so memorable that lots of people at SH know her name, but you can't convince me that the odds of this being the case for most students would not be greater at a smaller school.

Snark much?