My kid went to a poor and highly populated middle school. Our PTA fees was $12, and PTA roughly got $7 from that (the rest went to county, state and national PTA dues). Our biggest fundraisers were book-fairs and valentine days flower sales, mainly because there were several parents who took the lead on that and ran with it. Our budget was around 5K which was almost poverty level low for a school our size, but PTA was pretty good in organizing a lot of stuff for the entire school.

Most parents who were not PTA members, did not hesitate to donate food, goods and time to organize staff appreciation events - breakfasts, coffee, lunches, dinners. Different groups wanted to do their own food for the staff so we very often had "soul food". Latin food, Indian food, Chinese food etc for the staff. We also used to do several "healthy snack weeks" and parents used to donate grab and go snack packs of 100 calorie snacks. Sometimes we donated to a whole month of fruits for the staff room - apples, oranges and bananas, lots of pies for Pie Day, flowers for valentine's days. I think parents liked to give directly for teachers and their own classrooms more than anything. So our PTA mostly used their funds from bookfairs to fund in-school field trips for the whole school which were mostly cultural in nature.

I think if you don't want to join the PTA, you can skip, but donate directly to them for art and cultural events. You can always pick and choose what to give and when to be involved based on what you care for. The PTA does not mind if you are a member or not as long as you are volunteering.

Anonymous wrote:I join and give $ but don’t attend meetings. The assemblies they arranged for the school (before covid) were worth every penny. And the directory - priceless.

This is me and 90% of our school. I think our PTA does a great job. But even without it, the directory would be worth it for planning play dates, assembling birthday party invites, knowing where to pick your kid up or drop them off, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

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.

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.

I join and give $ but don’t attend meetings. The assemblies they arranged for the school (before covid) were worth every penny. And the directory - priceless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please join the PTA. They pay for so many things that you wouldn’t expect. And having the parent involvement with the administration is invaluable. So much advocacy and your PTA is the collective voice of the parents. They’re not perfect, but I can’t tell you how many times we pushed for really important initiatives when I was on the PTA board. Mold in portables, bullying, playground safety, etc.

You van still volunteer and be involved even of you dont contribute $ that will simoly end up in the hands of MCCPTA which, depending on who you are and what you value, will use that money to advocate against your best interests. Many MCCPTA officers openly support busing and it now looks like a few of them support teaching CRT in MCPS.

Omg is there some kind of campaign to eliminate MCPS bus services? Why?

Busing meaning redistricting.

As The Gipper used to say, There you go again!

Of course! Back in 2018, most MoCo parents didn't know that a dishonest element within the BOE was working on a busing plan. No public notice was sent about the changes to the boundary policy that would force future MCPS Bs of E to choose boundary options that sent kids to schools farther from home. One particularly underhanded BOE member did alert her Facebook followers about the changes and encouraged them to comment positively. How deceitful. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We, as The Who once sang, "wont get fooled again."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please join the PTA. They pay for so many things that you wouldn’t expect. And having the parent involvement with the administration is invaluable. So much advocacy and your PTA is the collective voice of the parents. They’re not perfect, but I can’t tell you how many times we pushed for really important initiatives when I was on the PTA board. Mold in portables, bullying, playground safety, etc.

You van still volunteer and be involved even of you dont contribute $ that will simoly end up in the hands of MCCPTA which, depending on who you are and what you value, will use that money to advocate against your best interests. Many MCCPTA officers openly support busing and it now looks like a few of them support teaching CRT in MCPS.

Omg is there some kind of campaign to eliminate MCPS bus services? Why?

Busing meaning redistricting.

As The Gipper used to say, There you go again!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please join the PTA. They pay for so many things that you wouldn’t expect. And having the parent involvement with the administration is invaluable. So much advocacy and your PTA is the collective voice of the parents. They’re not perfect, but I can’t tell you how many times we pushed for really important initiatives when I was on the PTA board. Mold in portables, bullying, playground safety, etc.

You van still volunteer and be involved even of you dont contribute $ that will simoly end up in the hands of MCCPTA which, depending on who you are and what you value, will use that money to advocate against your best interests. Many MCCPTA officers openly support busing and it now looks like a few of them support teaching CRT in MCPS.

Omg is there some kind of campaign to eliminate MCPS bus services? Why?

Busing meaning redistricting.

No, but our pta is terrible.

Anonymous wrote:We were sent information about PTA and I am curious if most families join their PTAs. There was a thread recently about how ineffective the PTAs are and I have no way of accessing whether ours is great or not. The events listed were 90% virtual, as expected. We are a COSA family and DH thought it would be a great way to connect with other families. I am just dubious if we would be able to do that due to covid.

Depends on PTA leadership style.. there are radio active PTAs where less than 10% join and there are some PTA's that are very active and engaging. You will see threads here about PTAs

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:You can go to the social events without joining but you should join because otherwise they don’t have money to plan the social events, which the kids really adore. Our PTA also does stuff like science fair and cultural assemblies in a regular year . It helps make public school a teensy bit more like private school.

It's true. All the extra night activities are through the PTA.

You can go to the social events without joining but you should join because otherwise they don’t have money to plan the social events, which the kids really adore. Our PTA also does stuff like science fair and cultural assemblies in a regular year . It helps make public school a teensy bit more like private school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please join the PTA. They pay for so many things that you wouldn’t expect. And having the parent involvement with the administration is invaluable. So much advocacy and your PTA is the collective voice of the parents. They’re not perfect, but I can’t tell you how many times we pushed for really important initiatives when I was on the PTA board. Mold in portables, bullying, playground safety, etc.

You van still volunteer and be involved even of you dont contribute $ that will simoly end up in the hands of MCCPTA which, depending on who you are and what you value, will use that money to advocate against your best interests. Many MCCPTA officers openly support busing and it now looks like a few of them support teaching CRT in MCPS.

OMG, who put a bee in your bonnet? PTA’s do so much good in their individual schools and support many things that most don’t even realize. And while yes, folks are welcome to volunteer to and contribute without financially joining, the reality is that activities and their related supplies cost money. It’s already hard enough for PTAs to function and thrive when they have a budget because people paid the fee. Now you’re trying to make it more difficult.

P.S. MCCPTA (the the Montgomery County Council of PTAs) put a bee in my boney when the president at the time (Lynne Harris) op3nly lobbied the BOE to start busing. This was after the body as a whole votes to not take a position on it. Many current officers also support busing and many now support CRT.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please join the PTA. They pay for so many things that you wouldn’t expect. And having the parent involvement with the administration is invaluable. So much advocacy and your PTA is the collective voice of the parents. They’re not perfect, but I can’t tell you how many times we pushed for really important initiatives when I was on the PTA board. Mold in portables, bullying, playground safety, etc.

You van still volunteer and be involved even of you dont contribute $ that will simoly end up in the hands of MCCPTA which, depending on who you are and what you value, will use that money to advocate against your best interests. Many MCCPTA officers openly support busing and it now looks like a few of them support teaching CRT in MCPS.

OMG, who put a bee in your bonnet? PTA’s do so much good in their individual schools and support many things that most don’t even realize. And while yes, folks are welcome to volunteer to and contribute without financially joining, the reality is that activities and their related supplies cost money. It’s already hard enough for PTAs to function and thrive when they have a budget because people paid the fee. Now you’re trying to make it more difficult.

I'm trying to prevent the funding of an organization that actively works against the wishes of many parents. Its better to join or start a school foundation outside the reach of MCCPTA.