Why do you hate the PTA?

Being annoyed with people who make an effort to help your child’s school and banging on about cliques is so ridiculous.

People who volunteer for their community, to help run run events for children, make friends with each other - shocker!

Honestly, either join in or don’t. But don’t keep wanging on about how terrible other people are just because you don’t want to join in. It’s childish and pathetic.

(Agreeing with you here btw @user97463!)

There you go op. Non-PTA parents are labelled as ‘lazy fuckers’ by the PTA. This is part of the problem.

Honestly I see them as well meaning but sometimes tone deaf. They are all very well off (at my kids school) and assume everyone is. We are pretty well off (by my standards, not MN standards lol) but I remember being the broke kid who couldn’t go on the trips.

Thankfully my kids are well beyond PTA now but the primary school PTA was a fucking nightmare. The school itself had a catchment area that included a large proportion of families who were of a faith that forbids alcohol and had dietary requirements. This is relevant.

PTA events almpst always included alcohol. Think cutesy twee prosecco type stuff. Immediately that excluded a large proportion of parents who wouldnt come if alcohol was being served. Christmas fair? Yep there was a prosecco and wine bar. PTA AGM. More bloody prosecco.

Christmas fair wasn't a fair. It was more of a MLM pyramid selling scam fest. Not helped by the fact that the PTA queen bee herself was one of the business boss babies. Even the flaming PTA Facebook page once had a post congratulating her for reaching the super shiny gold star level

The PTA controlled what the ££ was spent on. And it was very much what they wanted. Did the library really need sodding Cath Kidston style soft furnishings 'for the aesthetics' when the washing machine in the parent hub had broken and the school couldn't afford to replace it?

The final straw was the PTA BBQ-gate. The PTA were selling tickets to and heavily pushing an 'end of year' bbq after school. With guess what? A bloody prosecco bar. However the main issue was that the PTA refused to have 2 bbqs, one standard meat and one cultural dietary laws meat. Despite parents asking if this could be done. Initially there was some nonsense about only having one bbq and they could use seperate sides. Then it turned into a huge (and borderline racist) furore. The local kebab place who's owner had his kids in the school even offered to run one of the bbq's. Nope, not good enough because there would be ONE bbq only and if parents didnt like it then they didnt need to come. Essentially telling half the school they were not welcome. Anyway the head finally said no to the PTA because it was exclusionary. Cue massive offence from the PTA queen bee and mega stropping.

It wasn't all bad though. The kebab shop owner opened his shop early on the day of the proposed BBQ and did a special one off £1 burger and chips for any child wearing the school uniform. Too damn right my kids had burger and chips that night. As did most of the school community judging by the size of the queue. This was about 15 years ago by the way so not a recent event incase the gutter press come trawling.

The TLDR is that you dont need fucking alcohol at every event, keep MLM out of schools please, spend the fundraised ££ on what the schools actually want, and consider your entire school community when planning events.

I honestly think hating the PTA is a bit "I'm not like other Mums, I'm a cool Mum,". But these are the first parents to complain when something can't happen due to lack of funding.

Most schools now ask for donations but the vast majority of parents don't actually randomly donate. Even if all the parents donated £50 quid a year, then that wouldn't provide school discos or fairs which children enjoy and make the school a community. Teachers don't have time to organise these things. Lots of Mum's on the PTA actually also work full time.

Also I'm a teacher and on the pta of my DC school (different schools) and teachers don't pay any attention to whose children are on the pta for parts in plays etc. We are honestly too busy.

This is our PTA! They raise hundreds of thousands for our primary school and pay for several additional staff members. I think they front load their ask so really only ask for money twice a year in a big way and then there are a few very voluntary asks later on. They do a lot of great events and I am super grateful for the extra aides etc that they fund. We’re not in the UK though and I don’t think people really hate on the PTA here. We’re also in a pretty wealthy area so asking for £1000/student is pretty normal (still feels super gross that they have to for state school but all the state schools near us do to help close the gap for what the district funds). Before everyone hates on the US, my DC’s class sizes are 21 before the extra support staff so I’m not complaining…

Awful of me but I have no desire to join any of it

I cant stand the playground culture. My face never fits and my kids doesn’t either, I pick her up and drop her off, will arrange play dates with her friends but that’s it. I’ll always donate stuff to the school but I’m not about to join any cliquey mum clubs.

@NeedmorelegoI'm not sure about the registered charity thing.
Eventually the HT called a meeting and asked them what was the point of raising money if they wouldn't let us spend it. After some rather heated exchanges they resigned en masse and a new committee was set up.

At the start of each year thy asked us for a wish list and worked their way through it each time they had an event.

I expressed interest once but was shut down. Only the cliquey mums were doing it and they were weird with me offering. I left them to it!

Were they registered as a charity?
If yes they should be reported to whatever body monitors charities.
If I was the Head I would have sent a letter to parents saying something like "The supposed PTA isn't giving and money to the school so the school cannot be associated with them any longer. If you are asked for donations please be aware the school doesn't receive any of these donations".

This. Our school has asked for money in this way and they have had donations but also people complained about it. They can’t win.

Ours are great, kids love the fairs and discos etc it’s raised money for fun equipment for the kids and has made their playtime a lot more interesting.

Some kids will only get a grotto visit at a Xmas fair. Or get to get a Mother’s Day present or Easter egg via these type of events.

We didn’t have a PTA as such but there were class parent reps. What was annoying was they’d present things to the school that were their agenda, not necessarily what the major of parents were concerned about. The form was before a meeting the class rep would send out a WhatsApp asking for any issues that needed raising, but of course they had to prioritise as time was limited, and the issues they did raise were definitely their pet issues! The winter and summer fairs were organised separately
(I organised the class discos) and I know it’s the same small group that volunteer to do this sort of thing but the class reps did seem to hold themselves as more important despite being fairly ineffective. We didn’t do find raising - that was done through mufti days or house bake sales (all students were divided into four houses).

I remember one day coming out of my dds classroom and was walking towards the exit when a (pushy) woman (head of the pta) stopped me to ask for money for a voucher for the class teacher at the end of the school year

'You can donate as little as £5!'

What she didn't realise,was i was a single mum on a very tight budget-every single penny was allotted

I didn't have 5p let alone 5 pounds to spare-(£15 if id paid for my other dcs teachers as well)

If Id paid,something would have had to come off the food shop and it was going to be a small shop that week,no treats,just basics

This was a very middle class/high flying careers/sahm sort of school

I mumbled something about not having cash on me only to be told I could pay by card so I asked if I could pay later and was told they needed the money by the end of the day so they could buy the bloody voucher

I've never felt so embarrassed in my life

I think I did shove some coins into her envelope and shuffled off to her making a snorting noise behind me

Come the end of year talent show that the pta had set up to raise funds for (i think) blinds for the classrooms,the kids who's parents had paid the most/where on the pta got a place and the rest where told to try again the following year

Mine didn't and I'm convinced that was why (they where heartbroken but could see it for what it was)

If I'd had the money,she could have had it-i swear I'm generous but I really didn't at that moment

If I'd had a few days/a weeks notice rather than being put on the spot,I would have sorted something out

I know I wasn't the only one who felt like they where taking the piss putting us on the spot like that

It was handled the wrong way and I've never felt so small in my life

My experience of being on the PTA years ago is that most parents are lazy fuckers who don't want to do anything to help the school, but then love to whinge about how there's no decent play equipment etc. In order to the justify not doing anything, they then have to disparage the PTA.

Yes. It just sat in the bank account! So infuriating as we were desperate for stuff.

I am from a family of community spirited volunteers; my wife isn't. When the little one started school, she took the opportunity to join our family tradition and volunteer. I had no idea how people (women) hate the PTA.

I was standing in the queue for an event when my wife was selling raffle tickets and heard about 4 women slagging her off. Was quite hilarious how the Mum guilt was rife, saying she obviously didn't work, and how the other Mums were just too busy (shed took the day off work to do it)

Anyway, read another PTA thread on MN about the comity all wearing Boden; it really ticked me, so I bought her a nice Boden dress to wear at the next event that no doubt got her slagged off even more. Very proud of the work she does for all the children, and she is my hot little Boden bitch lol.

Go for it OP; haters always gonna hate!!

Yes i would buy something from a wishlist if it were essential for the school.

Absolutely. Though somethings like a new swing or veg patch won't be on amazon so still need to also be able to donate.

Christ. I only made the comment based on my own experience of many kids finding it quite awkward. I suppose it depends on the set up. A lot of it is just stalls with crap to sell. Other schools may have more exciting stuff apparently.

That depends on the school and the PTA.

Ours raises a lot, and one of the things they pay for is all the coaches for any school trips. They do not get any say over what the school trips are. But it means that it’s not unusual for a trip to be free (if the activity is something free like a museum) or if not then pretty cheap, because the coach is often the expensive part. They always say on the letter “the coaches are being funded by the PTA” so parents can see a real benefit to the money raised. The school does a fair few trips because of this - my DD in year 2 has done 3 this year and it’s not been expensive for us at all.

Our PTA is close to folding as the chair person and treasurer have stepped down. I’m thinking about volunteering but I just don’t get on with the HT so not sure I’m the best person to take it on!!!

On a more important point, those of you who said you’d rather pay money once a year and not do anything. How about an Amazon wishlist? Would anyone take it upon themselves to buy something from there to save the amount of fundraising the pta would need to do?

I would say just asking for a contribution at the beginning of the year isn’t ideal though. Throughout the year may be more effective. Optional £1 on non-uniform day could be more effective as an alternative to bringing something in for a raffle.

sadly, every school I have seen who TRIED to raise money that way - by a voluntary contribution at the beginning of the year , completely failed. Parents always say they would prefer paying, but they usually don't.

Movie nights, disco, fairs are not only to raise money either, they bring something extra for the kids.

Sorry to have singled that out specifically, just more generally a lot of the comments are of the ‘just help out’ or ‘give time or money’ variety and so many families in our area could do neither and I feel they shouldn’t be looked down on for that.

Hear you on ‘I’m far too busy with my important job’ crowd - for me it’s usually I’m far too disorganised and have a terrible memory. Thinking of constructive feedback to the OP maybe a good tip would be to look for lots of ways people can help - time, money, even just spreading the word an event is happening.

That reminds me of the last school fete I helped out at. Spent about an hour sorting the second hand uniform (which was in piles/bags), hanging it all up on hangers etc. then someone from the PTA came over and started barking orders. Why didn’t you just do it yourself or tell me what you wanted BEFORE I started this.

Then one of the nice members told me and another helper to help myself to an ice cream, so we did, then someone else moaned at us for it. Sigh…