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Original poster

Being on the PTA

40 replies

BocolateChiscuits · 28/06/2023 07:17

Does anyone want to talk about being on the PTA?

Clueless off the back of only seeing the school in covid times I volunteered for a specific "back-office" type role at the PTA. Over about 6 months this morphed into me and another parent organising everything. And now anoher 6 months later, we're working on opening things up, distributing work to more people, and spreading the load so my role is turning into being co-lead of a mini organisation. I'm planning to step down at the end of the next school year.

I feel so ambivalent about the situation. On the one hand, I enjoy being such an active part of the school community. I've got to know lots of people (I'm a bit socially awkward naturally). Many of the other parents are just amazing to work with and get to know. We've raised a lot of money for the school at a time when it's struggling with its budget. I've learnt lots of leadership and organisational skills that have helped me in my normal job. I've learnt about running a charity (the PTA is a charity).

On the other hand, it's such hard work. I've got a job, all the parents have got jobs, no-one's really got time to spend 3:30-5:30pm on a Tuesday running a cake sale or whatever. (I just about scrape by, with a fairly flexible office-based job and plenty of WFH time.) Everyone complains at you. They want things to be better organised, but they can't volunteer themselves. They come up with ideas of what to do, or how improve things that would take lots of volunteers and time, and then seem resentful if you don't implement them, or offended when you ask if it's something they have time to take on. They treat you as if you are employed in a medium sized well-resourced company.
Plus you seem to get a couple of tough going types get involved (by this I mean people who frankly aren't very nice), and you need to involve them, while containing their more negative impulses. Luckily the vast majority of parents are brilliant - it's just the odd one.
People expect you to be some sort of combination of cliquey queen bee/hectoring control-freak/holier than thou do-gooder/rich SAHP housewife. I don't feel like any of these things, not even remotely.
And I have a job and children and a life with hobbies and interests and things I'm trying to do and care about.

Eugh. Sorry for the rant. Anyways, if you're on the PTA, how do you feel about it? As conflicted as me?

OP posts:
00100001 · 28/06/2023 07:19

I'd quit tbh

HipHipWhoRay · 28/06/2023 07:29

Ours is fairly similar. There’s 4 who organise, all have full time jobs. I’ve stopped wondering why others don’t even volunteer an hour a term to do something to help but have these massive expectations from other volunteers, but also think you get out of life what you put in, we live in communities and volunteering sets good examples for your kids etc.

Feliciacat · 28/06/2023 07:30

Yeah fuck that. I’m not on a PTA but it sounds awful. I have previously volunteered as a gym receptionist and it was terrible. Everyone treated me like I was paid staff and I had to open up and close up by myself and people expected me to do first aid and inductions. I had absolutely zero training in any of this. The owners just wanted their gym to look friendly by having a receptionist. I got free classes but it wasn’t worth it cos people in the classes would complain to me that I wasn’t at ‘my post’! If I wasn’t on reception nobody was. I also had a full time job but the owners and staff always complained to me how hard their part time gym jobs were. I was a total dogsbody so I ghosted them and never looked back.

That wasn’t to derail your thread, it was to say that people will take you as far as you let them. It sounds like you’re wanting more for yourself; go and get it! Just quit at the end of this term. They’ll have all summer to get someone else. Either way, it’s not your problem. You sound unappreciated and you probably are!

Interested in this thread?

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ZenNudist · 28/06/2023 07:31

Well done for doing it but it doesn't sound like it's for you.

I work 4 days a week in a senior role in professional services and barely have time for pick up and after school activities a couple of days a week so PTA would be impossible.

People are busy and 2 jobs plus a host of extra curricular are the norm now so no wonder no one has time for the PTA.

I know people who don't work but still don't have time around activities after school to help the PTA .

JJJSchmidt · 28/06/2023 07:33

My 2 gripes for our PTA are:

  • school staff are way too over involved and the headteacher comes to very meeting and vetoes.most of our best ideas. He is a Co trol freak!
  • Other parents moaning about times, prices etc and then almost mocking me for using up my free time to do stuff, which benefits them and their children
SnapPop · 28/06/2023 07:34

My DC are at secondary school now, but I was on the PTA when they were younger. It didn't feel like as much of a burden as you're describing! Maybe you are organising too many activities - could you cut down a few? Also - repeat successful activities every year using the same blueprint.

Lightningstrikess · 28/06/2023 07:35

Ours is not inclusive at all. The volunteers are full of their own importance & won't let anyone volunteer if their face or address doesn't fit. Truth.

TeamSleep · 28/06/2023 07:47

I could have written that word for word OP! You are not alone. I stepped down from my role in the PTA last year as it was all getting too much for me. Not the role itself as that was fine but the characters, expectations etc. I’m just not that person and it was making me miserable trying to be something I’m not. I still help out and I get very frustrated with it all from the sidelines because it’s not very well organised but I know of I roll my sleeves up again and help organise things there is no appreciation and a tonne of agro. I really wish I could just quit it completely but my motivation to carry on is I want there to be fun things happening for the children and money raised for the school. I just wish it wasn’t so hard and I’m not quite sure why it has to be.

00100001 · 28/06/2023 07:57

I've been a guide leader and the kids and parents all wanted an event to happen but it meant the parents needed to be part of the adult ratios. We said it's 3hrs, we need another adult, so they can between the 25sets if parents get that covered.

No, everyone was too busy, and told me to my fave as my then 9yo stood next to me and the other leaders 3 kids (6,7 and 10)... Saying they can't help, because you know... they've got kids ...!

00100001 · 28/06/2023 07:57

We cancelled the event

InconvenientPeg · 28/06/2023 08:01

I did it for just over 2 years. I'd done volunteering stuff before, so expected it to be like that tbh. I was a bit ruthless and I'd cancel stuff last minute if we didn't get enough volunteers, and would then passively aggressively say how sad it was that things couldn't go ahead.

Also whenever anyone was critical, or made a suggestion, I'd heartily agree with whatever they said and tell them I was happy for them to organise the next one, and tell them the date that was planned.

It was a crappy job and was worth doing, but I'd had enough after 2 years. Now I do other volunteer roles for my hobby organisations, they don't tend to be as irritating, because (mostly) everyone is more motivated to do whatever is needed, rather than expecting everything to be done for them.

If you can't manage the entitlement anymore, just give it up. It's very likely that someone will step forward, because everyone always thinks they can do a better job that the incumbent! I resigned with no replacement, then one miraculously stepped up.

Dreambe · 28/06/2023 08:01

I volunteered for about 18 months but my face didn’t fit so I quit. I was excluded from social conversations, my ‘hello’ was ignored when we met for meetings, blanked if seen anywhere, spoken down to, ideas all shot down, and after one Zoom meeting when a raffle prize I suggested for our Christmas fair was sneered at I felt so humiliated it took all my might not to cry and disconnect the call. I quit and refuse to volunteer even as a helper but I do support by spending at fairs and activities etc. It’s a shame as I have extensive experience in fundraising through my job but I never even got to say that as I was treated dismissively from the very first meeting.

Some PTA’s are lucky if they have a group of open-minded, welcoming parents but unfortunately they also do have a reputation for being a haven for the stereotypical awful school mum cliques.

LadyofLansallos · 28/06/2023 08:01

I can’t help on the PTA because I’ve got kids is my favourite excuse ever. Gosh what an unusual position to be in at a school…

Choice4567 · 28/06/2023 08:04

Yup. I helped at a rainbows unit for a while, which included taking my 8 month old baby with me and trying to feed her mushed banana whilst running activities. Asked so many times for other parents to help but they couldn’t because they had children…

I had to stop in the end. Which meant the unit closed. And parents still tell me how sad and annoying it is that it closed and they had to go to the next village unit.

Feliciacat · 28/06/2023 08:07

@Choice4567 people will blame anyone but themselves. I don’t have children but these stories are making me almost feel glad. Other parents sound so entitled and I guess you can’t really cut ties if they’re at the same school as your child. I hope you held your head high.

wildworldtumes · 28/06/2023 08:08

I'm a Governor and I vastly prefer it to being on the PTA, very little grunt work, lots of meetings though.

weebarra · 28/06/2023 08:09

I absolutely hear you. I've enjoyed it in the whole - I think I started when one of the older primary kid's mums suggested it when we were in the pub one night.
When I first went I didn't really know anyone but they were welcoming and I helped out a bit.
That mum's son is now at uni and my oldest is 15.
My youngest is about to go into p6 and when she leaves primary, I will miss it but it has been hard work and stressful at times.
The school and pupils need the money raised more than ever - as well as organising fundraising events (where obviously the money comes from the school community) we also apply for grants.
The feeling of the PTA has changed over the years and I do feel we are much more approachable now.
We've also made it clear that people can dip in and out and helping at one thing doesn't mean you're tied for life!!

ssd · 28/06/2023 08:10

The best thing about getting old is never having to hear the words PTA again.

ssd · 28/06/2023 08:15

I remember a right madam tutting at me when i was VOLUNTEERING doing the tea and cake stall at the Christmas fair....she was AGHAST that the mince pies were from asda and not M&S.

I should have shoved a mince pie right up her skinny jacksie but i just smiled...

TeenDivided · 28/06/2023 08:17

I was on committee of primary PTA with one of the main 3 roles for 7 years.
Also on committee of secondary PTA as treasurer for 6 years.

My top rules:

Offer what you can do, say no to thing you can't.

Don't join and at the first meeting suggest a load of stuff 'other' people should be doing.
If you want to try something innovative, be willing to step up and take the lead.

Always be willing to cancel things if you can't resource them.

Get someone who is gregarious on the committee, it helps with getting volunteers in.

Lightningstrikess · 28/06/2023 08:37

Also just to add about my dc's schools pta not only are they full of bluster & their own importance, they would let you volunteer if your face doesn't fit but they are also doing it to advantage their own dc..
They don't like non pta kids getting chosen for anything!
This is my dc's school I know there are thousands of amazing ptas out there.

Lightningstrikess · 28/06/2023 08:57

Dreambe · 28/06/2023 08:01

I volunteered for about 18 months but my face didn’t fit so I quit. I was excluded from social conversations, my ‘hello’ was ignored when we met for meetings, blanked if seen anywhere, spoken down to, ideas all shot down, and after one Zoom meeting when a raffle prize I suggested for our Christmas fair was sneered at I felt so humiliated it took all my might not to cry and disconnect the call. I quit and refuse to volunteer even as a helper but I do support by spending at fairs and activities etc. It’s a shame as I have extensive experience in fundraising through my job but I never even got to say that as I was treated dismissively from the very first meeting.

Some PTA’s are lucky if they have a group of open-minded, welcoming parents but unfortunately they also do have a reputation for being a haven for the stereotypical awful school mum cliques.

My experience also, I felt like I was invisible even when I tried to put ideas forward.. My first meeting & I went to sit beside another mum, she very brusqely said "sorry that's seat saved for x, she'll be on her way shortly".. It was so cliquey & hasn't changed a bit.

BreathesOutSlowly · 28/06/2023 08:59

Why does every PTA thread ever turn into a PTA bashing thread?

Lightningstrikess · 28/06/2023 09:00

@BreathesOutSlowly people are talking from their own personal experiences.

ssd · 28/06/2023 09:09

BreathesOutSlowly · 28/06/2023 08:59

Why does every PTA thread ever turn into a PTA bashing thread?

Experience