How do you cope with the PTA?

[GraspingforaClue]

Good morning —
I know this is a topic of legend, but I’m wondering how — oh, how — it gets so fraught when you try to help out at a child’s school. Feeling quite dejected by it all. Staff can be quite dismissive — downright rude — and seem to find dumping things onto a parent is acceptable. Simple questions you might ask a colleague like, “Can I leave it with you?” Or “how does that sound?” Or “Would that be okay?” are nowhere in the mix. Just a dump and run. By a professional — someone who teaches and does a bit of admin — who seems to think her time is worth more than mine, or really anyone else’s. Nothing very companionable about it, she really comes across as just entitled and bored of us all, like she’s got much more important things to do. Wrinkle is, she’s often just not got a clue. I spent 5 months chasing up a permit and a license and an auditor for our school lottery — going so far as to schedule a Zoom call with a lady who ran it for us as a parent volunteer 10 years ago — only to find that this woman, the professional in question, had received an email with all of the requisite info, methodically spelled out, two months before I even joined the PTA. As I was racking the brains of all involved, I got an abusive personal email from the woman (another mum) who was supposed to have been doing it the whole time. I forwarded this to our professional school contact. No response. I got the impression they were mates. Our contact afterward got very curt with me. Very matey with this other mum. But… I was doing all the work for all of us. Anyway. Turns out the mum who had the gig before I did had sent both of them a long, lovely, detailed email, with instructions, which both of them had just totally blanked. They both received it. I spent five months chasing up details and ticking boxes that really we could have sorted in a couple of days, had either of them merely read the email that was sent to them. It’s… that sort of thing. I took it all up with our head teacher who was equally dismissive and high-handed. Observed, of his own staff member, “this is the first time I’ve ever heard a complaint about M… and my view is that there is no case to answer here.” This was in response to a multi-page report I had drafted with great care of what labours I had performed (230 unpaid hours over the course of one academic year) and her piffling responses, buck passing, making us chase her for information, bad-mouthing other parents who volunteered (not subtly, really mean digs, disparaging comments). I think this is why there are currently no PTA members at this school. None. I did point this out to both of them. That if you want help, from parents, you have to be respectful and not take them for granted, respect their time and their emotional investment. You’re not paying us. Neither ever replied. I’m just putting this out there. We hear a lot about schools struggling with low funding and entitled parents’ antics and kids’ bad behaviour. My son has never been in trouble, he behaves well, he does his work, he participates in all manner of sports. And I have done everything I could. Until I just quit in disgust and anger. I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience? Very sorry for a massive post. But this was the situation — it felt like screaming in the wind. Why is this the way that some schools treat parents?

This was the issue — it can’t be done with one person. Trouble is, when I showed up for the introductory PTA meeting (having been shown a video of a large group of parents raving about their collective joy volunteering at the new parents’ night for year 7) I was the only one there. There were two other mums who had been running it who immediately announced that they were leaving. With immediate effect. I was told there was one other parent — a dad — who was not present, whom they all started bad-mouthing. Turns out he was absolutely lovely, always came through when needed, good attitude. I had a queasy feeling it was set to be a car crash but persevered because I thought their time & work was more limited (& important) than mine. But they were both disorganised & very unpleasant. Hence the multi page report to the head teacher. After which I resigned. Because I wanted so much to help, but you cannot help people who aren’t willing to accept help. They treat you as a nuisance. When you are cleaning up their mess. The PTA bank account was closed unilaterally by Barclays because my predecessor didn’t fill out basic KYC forms. We spent months getting it re-opened because we desperately wanted to do something for the kids. It’s that kind of thing. I’m not a drama llama. I’m not petty. I’m not power tripping. I put the hours in for the kids. Some of these replies are amazingly glib. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Did you do a recruitment campaign?
I would have tried that before doing anything else.

@GraspingforaClue sorry but who was treating you as a nuisance?

Yeah. I’m not being petty. Nice name calling. I put some effort into explaining the issues. To wit: the bank account we used mailed a cheque for £40,000 to a woman who had been a volunteer several years beforehand when they closed our account summarily b/c my predecessor had never bothered to update our contact info with the bank, despite multiple requests. That kind of th

@GraspingforaClue was the £40 000 returned?

I’m not being petty. The bank that we used sent a cheque for £40,000 to a woman who had volunteered with us years before when they shut down our account b/c my predecessor hadn’t filled in basic KYC forms. We were just lucky we got the money back. I sent a report to the head teacher b/c a faculty member was bad-mouthing parents — amongst mislaying all manner of financial info.

@GraspingforaClue you keep saying "we" but also say it was just one person (you).
Which was it?

Yeah, sorry, I hit post too early. We did get it back. By luck. I never met this lady. I asked my actual predecessor for help many many times. She was just flaky, glib, & never available. Took months to get basic financial stuff transferred. And all manner of other logistics. Really. I’m not inventing it.

We had an accountant. And she was doing the books. As a volunteer. But not any events.

Our faculty liaison.

@GraspingforaClue the thing is the PTA are volunteers not professionals so the person before you might not have had a clue how and what needed to be done.
You got the money back so that's good.
But did you attempt to recruit more members?

yes, and people responded enthusiastically. Until they realised what a sh*tshow it was as our faculty liaison routinely scrambled logistics, then they dipped. Lots quiet quit. Some not so quiet.

@GraspingforaClue it all sounds confusing.
Unfortunately not all PTAs work well.
Personally I would have arranged the money to go to the school and start completely a new PTA fresh with no fundraising until there was a proper team of volunteers sorted.
If no other parents joined I would have given up.
Although that's a bit late for that advice now.

I work in a school. We are too small to have a PTA, but we do have a fundraising account, formerly held with Barclays. They are an absolute nightmare to deal with and despite filling out all the change of signatory forms several times they kept losing our paperwork and eventually closed our account.

Being on a PTA and school fundraising IS a thankless task. But it's hugely possible that these people you are badmouthing have done nothing wrong. Barclays are notorious for servicing fundraising accounts poorly.

School leadership have little to do with fundraising and PTA aside from approving projects for the money to be spent on and allowing access to school premises. The head really won't be interested in your grumbles about how things are run.

I Haven’t read your full post but I’ve had a bad experience with a PTA as Secretary and this isn’t uncommon. PTAs contain many decent people but also some control freaks and bullies. If you’re face doesn’t fit you may have a hard time.
They say they are desperate for help with a school fair etc but when you turn up to help everything’s been done and your left standing around like a lemon.
I’ve turned up and taken minutes in the proper way at committee meetings 2 hours long then got hate mail for interfering or trying to “take over”.
Suggest you resign at the earliest opportunity. Sounds like you’ve tried your best.

I’m guessing that nobody read the multiple page report because they couldn’t be arsed were really, really busy.

How do I deal with the pta?

I make a large donation at the beginning of each year.

if they ask for volunteers and actually describe the task required and it is something I can accomplish, I volunteer. Most of the time the requests are incredibly vague and I don’t know if I can do them with my disability.
If they were more precise I would probably be able to volunteer more often.

otherwise I ignore them.

Is this UK?

Absolutely walk away if you don't want the aggravation.

But maybe a slight issue which I have noticed in your posts is that your communication style is a bit wordy. As a result I've only really skimmed your posts, but I find if I need someone to so something it helps to bullet the request in one sentence with a bolded date beside it. Just a thought.

I am not — repeat not — badmouthing anyone. The people I worked with — our faculty liaison and my PTA predecessor, another mum — frequently badmouthed other people — other parent volunteers and other employees at the school. I did not. Please don’t engage in DARVO. Really. That is not cool.

See, this is the part where I laugh out loud. First, yes, they couldn’t be arsed. I can tell you that right off the bat. And I don’t even take it personally. But they are also genuinely busy. The problem is, they hide behind “busy” when they can’t be arsed. That’s the problem for me.

Yes, this is UK but I am from the US. And here is where I find a wee cultural wrinkle: americans tend not to pay a lot of lip service to stuff without actually following through. If they don’t want to be involved, they just don’t volunteer, period. But if they do they come to WORK. We don’t waste time with the team building because the work is the team building. I try to get right down to it. I don’t need to sit in a circle and talk about my feelings. I express them by getting stuff done. Plenty of people were happy to show up to events and help but there is a huge amount of planning and logistics and coordination and financial / insurance / safeguarding stuff. No matter how many people show up at an event, it’s like an iceberg — 9/10 of it is the planning. And that is what never got done.

Bullets and brevity may have been your friend OP.

I’m amazed by the responses here. I don’t get how a PA works? Really? I think I do. Like there’s some secret circle with arcane knowledge? Some inside ring? No. There’s planning, logistics, budgets, schedules, audits, recruitment, minutes, outreach. Did all that. That is so utterly patronising. I mean. Really. Why bother commenting?

And — amazing use of “” marks. Quotes. As if a report was not called for under the circumstances. I mean. Really? So dismissive.