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?

Yeah, most certainly a bit of a cultural wrinkle going on there.

@GraspingforaClue You are not really reading the responses on this thread are you? Or not wanting to hear them.

Maybe it is cultural, but writing a long report to the school is not something that is helpful to any PTA or any school.
People are criticising the missing paragraphs and / or bullet points because your OP, and, in truth your follow up posts, make it really difficult to understand what the actual issue is. (Yes, made a bit more difficult by you using lots of terms that I suspect most of us aren't familiar with - even though people haven't really pointed that out much).

Yeah, a bit of xenophobia always is apt to appear when you refer to the US. It’s inevitable and so predictable. Every time. Like reading the Fail. Is there some subtext that I’m missing? Really? Is it normal for a teacher to bad-mouth parents? No. I don’t think it is. This happened many times. Every time I spoke to this teacher she disparaged another dad who volunteered. does that count as normal? Hence I raised it with the head teacher. I think it’s worth raising. I think it’s bullying. I raised issues that had an impact on our financial integrity and our ability to put on events that helped the kids. Period. Because I was trying to help. But I should have known that was a lost cause here. Really? Why the negativity? I mean. Why?…. I hear so much about broken Britain, and actually I see lots of lovely people doing their best to help every day. Then there are the bullies and the nitpickers. And the snarkers. The snarkers are the worst. really.

The school I worked in had PFI contracts that covered absolutely everything IT related and we couldn't have used a third party provider.

Other schools in the area weren't part of the PFI group so they could use local companies for IT, but again they tended to use the same company for everything and had maintenance contracts to ensure prompt response times etc.

I can see from your perspective it was annoying that you have a skillset that the school could possibly have benefited from, but from the school's perspective, it could possibly have caused an issue somewhere down the line.

Was it a report or a complaint?

In either case I think that’s exactly what a lot of people do think- a multi page report wasn’t required here. I’d have either just chalked the bad handover up to experience or had a quiet word with the head, then if it carried on I’d just have resigned. Teachers are massively overstretched and don’t have time to get involved with the PTA unless someone is, say, doing something completely illegal.

I just don’t get what you were hoping to achieve via the report given that it sounded as though the useless people had all resigned already? You’re just creating a headache when the issue had resolved itself.

Can you put some paragraphs in so it's legible please?

And, just in case you were wondering, to me the difference is that a report might be, say, “this is what we did, this went well, this didn’t go well, here are some suggestions.” A complaint would be lots of problems/ issues and asking the decision maker to do something/ respond in writing etc.

Um, you just said Americans work harder than us, and then call us xenophobic? We're trying to understand the problem you have and how you tried to deal with it.

I asked some questions for clarity, very early on and they haven't been answered. PTAs are entirely separate entities to schools a lot of the time. The Chair of a PTA is not answerable to the head. If he/she was dismissive then that might have been why.

At the moment nobody has any spare time, all adult members of families are working unless they're caring or disabled. In my experience, the vast majority of PTAs are running on very low numbers of very dedicated people. Now, sometimes there's resentment about the workload, and especially knowing that them stepping back means it folds, because there's nobody else prepared to take it on.

It's not that we're culturally lazy, but that we're all run ragged between work and kids activities. Britain is broken, but not because we're not doing enough. We are doing more than ever, or so it feels.

You sound a bit upset by the whole thing. My suggestion is you resign if it’s too much for you.

I mean really? So rude.

Take a step back.
It’s the PTA and you sound very upset. I suggest you resign.

Quit with the strike through OP. Just say what you mean.

And stop with the ridiculous yarns of strike through text that makes it even more impossible to read!

Apologies if you thought I was being xenophobic
Part of my job is actually to integrate execs from overseas here, including cultural integration and a lot of my clients are from The US.
I am therefore, very very aware of how some aspects of US typical behaviour and personality doesn't always go down well here.
It was more a comment on The UK than The US really, I find it amusing more than anything else

I think you might be describing a particular individual (or two individuals) at a particular school, rather than all PTAs. It’s hard to tell if you’re U or not. The business about forwarding the step by step email sounds very annoying. But the multi page report by you sounds just as bad - that was never going to be needed or helpful.

I’m involved in the PTA in a low level way. I enjoy the bits I do (mainly sending out comms and volunteering at the events) but I don’t do alot. The people involved are mostly lovely as is the chair. There’s a bit of infighting - mainly people who want to tell everyone how it’s done when their kid is in reception before they’ve given up any of their time or effort, which is obviously going to put backs up. But mostly it’s nice.

I hated being parent governor though! Found that much more cliquey and that no one wanted to listen to views or make use of my actual expertise , but just wanted bits of work they thought were within my expertise but they weren’t, and an outside consultant was actually needed.

I did put in the effort. as I have stressed, in an effort to help my son’s school. No one else was stepping up and so I did. Let me set the record straight. British people seem to work very hard indeed but not ways that would help them necessarily. Productivity is 20% lower here than in Germany. FWIW. That has a huge knock on effect on affluence, efficiency, and cumulatively can be a tsunami. Think in decades. A lot of work here is about managing expectations, and other people’s egos. There is a lot of dancing on eggshells. Of talking round a point. a lot of effort here is mis-spent in chasing people for information, coddling them when things go wrong. It seems the HR instinct has taken over. And studies bear this out. HR has mushroomed as a field even as core areas of operational competency have withered. The NHS hires more administrators than doctors. There is so much talk. You even have extra words for talking. Wittering. Droning. Yammering. Banter. Waffling. There is — in the US and on the Continent, where I have also lived — a lot less talk. People just get on with it. If I had a penny for every person who talked up the PTA I’d be very well off indeed. It appears a whole society is broken. It isn’t. It’s full of lovely people doing their best. But they’re swimming against the tide. The US — despite electing Mango Mussolini — is a much easier place to work. People work hard. In fact, I think they work longer hours. But there are just fewer silly workarounds and faffs. There’s generally a more direct path between A and B. There’s more just basic efficiency. Sorry. A lot of the obstacles here are self-inflicted. Really.

Name change fail?

Honestly though I do not know how you’ve made the leap from a couple of flaky people on a PTA who didn’t forward an email to you, and maybe a teacher who was a bit indiscreet to damnation of the whole of UK society.

You sound incredibly judgmental, very patronising, you show a complete lack of self awareness and don’t seem at all open to challenge about your own approach to this.

Despite your updates I still don’t actually know really what the problem was or what you wanted to happen following the megacomplaint, how an earth you can accuse anyone else of not having a direct path between A and B when your own posts are so incoherent is beyond me.

One crappy experience with one PTA and OP decides the whole country is going to hell 😂

Right so you don't like a woman on the PTA and British productivity is the problem? OP, you don't seem willing to clarify the situation and there are so many tangents in this thread that, do you know what? If there were miscommunications between you and the PTA chair then I can fully understand why.

There is no PTA. Just a busybody who no one wants to deal with.

Yes, there is most certainly someone no one wants to deal with

Totally right. I don’t know one teacher or member of staff at a school that is busy, can be arsed and has too much on their plate. If it’s Opposite Day!

OP some of your answers are the reason you are getting responses you don’t like. Zero sympathy for implying anyone who works at a school isn’t ridiculously mind numbingly soul destroying busy.

There is so much about your post which is just wrong. I would try and respond but again brevity would have been your friend and I can’t be asked (according to yiu in this basis I must work in a school 😂).

As a teacher and former PTA member: PTAs are usually a handful of people who try to do their best to raise some money for school. There can be some personality clashes and drama. It is not a professional organisation, which might be a cultural difference.
Teachers are very, very busy people and want nothing to do with the PTA if they can avoid it, especially if this means managing a group of difficult personalities. (Sorry, parents!)

Excellent post.

I have to say, from your communication on this thread @GraspingforaClue (and @Graspingatwetleaves - presuming that is you under a name change fail?) I'm not surprised there have been problems. I doubt very much the difficulties were all coming from 'everyone else'.

I think that this thread could lead to an excellent Midsommer like murder plot.
Sleepy English school PTA pottering along nicely and the feisty American turns up to tell them where they are going wrong.
I'd watch it