To wonder how to get school parents to volunteer to do anything?

[FishfingerFlinger]

I’m a somewhat reluctant volunteer for the school PTA - only reluctant because I have a full-on job (12hr+ days most of this week) another volunteer role and am frankly frazzled.

Trying to get volunteers to help do small tasks for the school fair and no one will do ANYTHING. Everyone wants the school fair to happen. Everyone moans if it doesn’t happen. But they think the magic fairies make it happen?

Some schools seem to have an abundance of volunteers making elaborate fairs happen. All I’m asking is for someone to man the bat the rat stall for half an hour and I can’t even get that.

What am i doing wrong here?

I organised our junior school discos. Quite elaborate affairs with different themes the kids chose (cowboys/girls, future and past, onesies, Hollywood etc). We would meet up for several weeks before hand making props etc, then on the night we had to cook the food and take everything down after.
It was the same ten -15 parents who volunteered, and the same lot who did the summer fair (the Christmas fair was run by the nursery to Y2 crowd).
Some people didn't work, some had flexible schedules. There were plenty of sahm that didn't volunteer ever. And would be the first to complain if they didn't think it was as good as the year before! I also volunteered at the second hand uniform shop.
Sadly change of head and she ended all that - no discos, no summer fair. Made it easy I guess but the kids sure missed it.

Not everyone has weekends off unfortunately

I did it for one event and there was nothing that would make me volunteer with the PTA ever again after that experience. It gets nasty, it’s like the school play ground all over again and not my thing at all. Friends have had the same experience at their children’s schools and it seems to be the thing that puts people off.

@TheTellTaleHeart we had loads of Dad volunteers in our PTA so it was hardly “wife work”.
Sometimes it was more Dads than Mums. Shocker.

@TheTellTaleHeart yes, there is the odd thing throughout the year but not that much? I find it's mostly just before summer/Christmas holidays.
I don't help at every single thing but genuinely don't think a couple of times a year is too much to ask. Obviously just my opinion. Plus, my kids like to see me there occasionally being involved with the school.

We have a lady on our PTA and she’s so intense I can’t think of anything worse than volunteering. She works and is a massive extrovert who is high on caffeine I swear.

lots of people avoid it for this reason!

The chocolates cost the parent money. They cost the school nothing. The school gets £1.00 for every ticket which people buy because they might get something that cost £4.99 when they only paid £1.00

We've definitely found that over the last decade the requests for funding from the school have shifted from Very Nice To Haves like iPads and big playground equipment to stuff that the school budget would previously have covered, like classroom consumables (pens, pencils, glue, scissors, art supplies), computers that aren't run by a hamster in a wheel and can actually deliver the ICT curriculum, reading books that aren't falling out of their covers, materials for DT lessons, etc.

So no, we're not paying for the energy or the teachers' salaries; we're helping to pay for the stuff that the school can no longer afford because the energy and the teachers' salaries have gone up but the budgets haven't. We've also created a hardship fund to help with uniforms, access to school trips, books at the book fair, other stuff that kids in tough situations would have to miss out on. We've got a really mixed catchment economically and the financial disparities can be quite large.

Get a group of friend mums to manage a stall between them.

Break down jobs to half an hour and do a parent and child Nan the stall.

Give all children of helpers free tickets to have a go on some stalls. Eg, free hook a duck, free bounce on castle.

Honestly hand on heart, yeah I'd be fine with just classroom learning and letting them run on the yard screaming for 40mins a day.

Harsh but true.

My kid hates school despite everything they try and do. I just tell him, you are there to learn, keep your head down for 6ish hours and you'll be alright. He's 9 🤷🏻‍♀️

And when I think back to my schooling in the 90's especially primary, I can't even remember most of it now that I'm in my 30's. So whatever you're putting cash and effort into now, will all be forgotten anyways. Seems thankless.

Just teach them to read, write and do arithmetic. They have the rest of their lives to live and have experiences if they want, but they won't get far without a basic education.

Get Year 5/6 kids to man some of the stalls. That was a great success at my daughter's primary school.

@Nesbi very well said. Our PTA have paid for so many great things. Recently one of the school year's put together a performance with the Scottish opera. It was excellent and the kids loved it. All paid for by the PTA.

That said I didn't go near the PTA for years because it was quite cliquey and a closed shop. I volunteered for the occasional slot at the fairs and that was about it. There was a big clear out of PTA parents and it's much more relaxed and open now, seems to attract more volunteers and better turnover of people on the PTA committee. I totally get how the people running the PTA can put people off.

And also I'll add, if you need money for hardship funds, books, ICT, just set up a go fund me page or something, you'll do better. People can chuck a tenner or so in anonymously and get on with their lives.

We do that as well! We don't make nearly as much money from donations (either general or for specific purposes) than we do from the events we run. I think it's under 5% of our total fundraising.

People like to talk a good game on this but the follow through just isn't there in reality.

@HereComesMaleficent I am sorry to hear your child hates school. My daughter actually suffers from Anxiety Based School Refusal so has been through many stages and times of hating school. But it can sometimes be just one experience, one go at doing something different that can grab a child’s attention and enthusiasm. If children don’t get to experience many different things when they are children - they probably will never ever experience some of those things in life.
I hope your son manages to find his “thing” he enjoys in school and is happy. I mean that in a genuine way 💐

Well the solution is just stop doing the "nice things" and when the parents complain just say "well we don't have the funding and nobody has contributed to the fundraising page unfortunately"

Yeah the kids will "suffer" but they will get over it. No kid ever had some sort of earth shattering event from not visiting the local museum or putting on a play.

Just use the money you have for the hardship and materials.

Perhaps it will make the parents think about how the government funds education and it can be a "thought provoking" moment about how important voting and politics is.

I am fully aware I'm a cold hearted cow though. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

@HereComesMaleficent one more thing (having just seen your newer post) it’s not just about the money though. A Xmas Fair (for example )is also about the experience. Meeting Father Christmas, singing some carols as part of the school choir, trying a mince pie, making a Christmas decoration etc.
It raises money - but is a life experience at the same time.

I organised our junior school discos. Quite elaborate affairs with different themes the kids chose (cowboys/girls, future and past, onesies, Hollywood etc). We would meet up for several weeks before hand making props etc, then on the night we had to cook the food and take everything down after.

I have to say, this seems like part of the problem for me. Apologies for saying so, because I imagine you got a lot out of doing this role and felt you were doing it well and meaningfully, but I can’t think of anything worse than an “elaborate” junior school disco that requires 2?5?10? people to spend several weeks making themed props and cooking food. Asking someone to come along and staff a door for an hour - easy. Asking someone to spend many hours week after week planning and making cowboy themed decorations for a primary school disco - dear god why? Your time is worth something. Even if each of you is “worth” minimum wage that is hundreds of pounds.

But it tends to be those who offer least who moan and complain the most in any volunteering situation, not just schools.

That's often the case, I've organised raffles, bought many of the prizes etc., it would have been easy to put £40 in the pot and forget the raffle.

As in "you've been allocated 14:00-14:30 on Saturday. We'll see you there!"?

And that worked??

Yeah, I don't think you read my post. A lot of our cash now goes on the basics, the direct donations wouldn't touch the sides of that. They wouldn't even cover the needs of the hardship fund. What I'm trying to say is - the people who don't volunteer and say that they'd be happy just to donate directly and not get involved, don't generally donate directly either.

But like I said, we now have a decent number of volunteers so we're able to run the events that bring in a lot more cash (and we generally get good feedback on them - lots of free activities included in ticket price at the fairs, we've been able to put discos on again for the kids this year at last, that sort of thing.

Why wouldn't we run the events? We've got the people to do them, they can be quite stressful and time-consuming and I don't think there's any member of the PTA who doesn't work, but the results are great. Right now, this is where I'm putting my volunteering time, when the kids are older I'll probably revert to being a trustee of something else. I'm pretty sure I can impart lessons to my kids about democracy and voting while still ensuring they can have computing lessons...

Ah thank you that's very kind of you.

I don't think anything will change his mind. He's rather vocal about his dislike of school. To me, the multiple classroom teachers he has had and the head mistress. But he's not rude about it, he just simply states "I don't like being here". But he quietly gets on with it.

He walks in to school, sits down does the work and comes home, no fuss in school. He often wins star of the week or the respect cup, but then comes home and has a 30 minute moan about how awful the place is 😂

He's a mix of a grumpy old man and an employee trapped in a 9-5 they hate 😳

But needs must lol