Anonymous wrote:I am a PTA president, about to start my second year as president because we couldn't convince anyone to take the job on. I don't believe in arm-twisting someone into a volunteer role. My motivation is to support my kids' school and because I think I have the organizational skills to stay on top of all the pieces of the job. But it is a no joke job, year-round. And I can't neatly compartmentalize it into the 4 hours I'd like to spend on it per week - there are daytime meetings, emails all the time, night events, weekend events, Board meetings, regular PTA meetings... the list goes on and on.

Our Board has a mix of moms and dads, but moms (many of whom also have full-time paid employment) do the vast, vast majority of uncompensated PTA labor in our school. One of my goals for the upcoming year is to talk more about this inequity and to scale back on some of the labor-intensive activities the PTA does and try to focus on work that our community values the most and that requires less of us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be the Change folks, be the change.

Each year almost 6 of our 15 positions are new K parents eager to get going. It's great.

+1 this. If you don't like what your PTA board does and think they're unfriendly/disorganized, etc then run for a board position and be super friendly and organized next year. The PTA board is just parents who spend lots of their time taking on an inpatient second job. They're not in the customer service industry and sometimes they might be worn out or disorganized. If you don't like the way it's done, be productive and do it differently instead of just complaining about people.

"run for the board"? I have literally never been in a school where the PTA runs an open election. The nominating committee picks a slate of candidates who are presented unopposed for the positions and the parents are asked to vote them in on a voice vote. I have never been given a paper ballot to vote in a PTA election. The idea that it's an open election is ludicrous. It's just a bunch of cliquey parents self-perpetuating.

Anonymous wrote:I was a PTA president and I think that MCCPTA is a big part of the problem. We came from a system where the home school was not part of the bureaucratic National / MD / Montgomery County PTA. It was so much easier!

MCCPTA has way too many rules and makes it more complicated. As president, you spend too much time guiding people through the maze os SoCa requirements, membership reporting, paying dues up to MCCPTA, and heaven help you if you need to update your bylaws. Even if you are changing nothing in your bylaws, the update process is ridiculous. The Reflections art program is not worth the level of complexity that MCCPTA has created. The training is bad and MCCPTA officers have given out bad accounting practice advice or said contradictory things before which sends officers into a state of confusion. The kicker to all this is that MCCPTA often has problems filling its own positions. The year I was president MCCPTA's treasurer was AWOL half the time and useless in helping our treasurer,

The second problem is that too many parents get stuck thinking if its been done in the past then it must be done again. It doesn't. It really doesn't. If no one wants to run an event, its OK not to have that event for that year. If you don't raise enough money for something, it doesn't get bought. There is often too much pressure from the principals to fill up their slush funds and too many parents who crumble at any passive aggressive guilt.

The third problem is what others have touched on by parents who volunteer having a bad experience. Some of this is on the parent volunteering. Some parents see this as a way to make friends and have fun, while others just see it as a chance to help out. The ones that don't have any expectations to get something out of it other than helping out usually stick around and aren't disappointed. The ones who are dying to let their inner Martha Stewart loose, make a new set of BFFs for life at one event, or want to play CEO are often annoyed and aggravate the other volunteers who run for the hills.

The fourth problem is that you are often left with a small handful of capable parents and a large amount of crazies who couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. As president, its important to be nice to everyone and encourage everyone to take a role they are comfortable accepting but boy some people are really just idiots or obnoxious.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be the Change folks, be the change.

Each year almost 6 of our 15 positions are new K parents eager to get going. It's great.

+1 this. If you don't like what your PTA board does and think they're unfriendly/disorganized, etc then run for a board position and be super friendly and organized next year. The PTA board is just parents who spend lots of their time taking on an inpatient second job. They're not in the customer service industry and sometimes they might be worn out or disorganized. If you don't like the way it's done, be productive and do it differently instead of just complaining about people.

"run for the board"? I have literally never been in a school where the PTA runs an open election. The nominating committee picks a slate of candidates who are presented unopposed for the positions and the parents are asked to vote them in on a voice vote. I have never been given a paper ballot to vote in a PTA election. The idea that it's an open election is ludicrous. It's just a bunch of cliquey parents self-perpetuating.

There are supposed to be nominations open to the floor. A voice vote needs to be voted on before the actual vote. Sounds like your school isn't following their bylaws. But also, who are these crazy people who want to be on the PTA board for years and years???

Anonymous wrote:

Parents randomly running for various positions either have super skills to do any job, or simply not suitable for being a leader.

The person who did this and was unsuccessful at Rustin is the former; the person who did this and was successful at Rustin is the latter. I hope that parents will be able to work around that but it will make for a tough first year for the PTA.

Parents randomly running for various positions either have super skills to do any job, or simply not suitable for being a leader.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See if a few will sign up for part of the year - three people to do president, for example, switching every few months.
Send out a letter to community to remind them of what will be lost if they do not have PTA. Reach out to potential K parents directly.
Also, some schools combine PTA withother schools.

This..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who is the Rustin principal that everyone loves? What school did she come from?

She came from Piney Branch ES, where she was widely beloved.

Anonymous wrote:Who is the Rustin principal that everyone loves? What school did she come from?

Anonymous wrote:Who is the Rustin principal that everyone loves? What school did she come from?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will also say this: Rustin is the exception, not the rule.

Parents are very engaged because it is a brand new school and a new opportunity to start over fresh. The principal is AWESOME and people want to be connected with her. I hope the high level of engagement continues, and I feel very lucky to be part of it. But I also won't be shocked if it goes the way of so many other PTAs in a few years.

I agree that it's due to being an new school. Entire Rustin board is without experience , except a delegate coming from Beall. I suspect they won't be able to sustain a decent level of activities for the next school year and enthusiasm will die down. I didn't like the fact that there were few parents , including elected president, ran for more than one position. It simply shows that those parents were simply desperate to get into PTA board and wanted to maximize their chance to get elected for one or another position.

Everyone should pick one position what they feel comfortable with and have skills in the area. Just run for one best suited position even though by laws allows to run for multiple positions. Parents randomly running for various positions either have super skills to do any job, or simply not suitable for being a leader. Hopefully, board can do a good job otherwise all this new enthusiasm will quickly turned into a big disappointment.

Positions having many contestant is a great , but the same parent running for multiple position tells you something else. Hopefully, it works out great for sake of enthusiastic community.

I'm surprised that MCPTA allows people to run for multiple board positions. They have a rule against everything. I was impressed when the post was originally made that Rustin actually had multiple people running for positions. Now I know, it's because there are some crazies. Beware Rustin community, this is not typical.