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?

Where does the idea come from that people work harder in the states. People I work with who have worked short time in the states say people arrive early but then go off and have breakfast and have all left by four pm. They make a lot of noise about what they are doing.
As for the pta - I tried getting involved a couple of times but it was so cliquey and brown nose to the awful headteacher I stepped away and used the time more productively.

I had noticed. If I do much as walk towards a teacher they turn and run. I've never actually asked them for anything either!

It always makes me laugh when people say the PTA are only there to gain favour with the teachers. It's quite the opposite. It's a bit like having a plague.

Our headteacher, the poor man, is a member of a PTA full of gobby parents who get shit done while swearing imaginatively and sometimes sneaking ponies past him which we forgot to mention on the meeting. It's not brown nosing, he is afraid of us a bit though.

How do you get on in your day to day job?

I would definitely watch it!

Queen Bee of the PTA of St Mary Midsommer primary gets murdered by a biro to the neck and is found in the PTA cupboard under the second hand school uniform by a group of year 1s looking for tennis balls. Turns out she and the US member were vying for the position of head girl 20 years ago and she got it over the other girl because she was having an affair with the head so the girl, now with new name and US accent has come back to wreak her revenge. The headteacher is later found bludgeoned to death with a rounders bat wearing a dunces cap.

And DD was never Mary either

Ok mine was, but it wasn't a traditional Nativity and there were better parts 😂

To be honest it would have been DDs worst nightmare to have a leading part and DS would have claimed he was up for it but then refused to sing or deliver his lines (been there)
There WAS a rumour that I never got fined for taking The DC on term time holidays that I can't possibly confirm or deny though

Ok. Let’s take that for xenophobia part deux. Really ugly stuff here. Did you read any of the previous posts that I wrote in response to others’ questions? Really. The PTA was not “pottering along nicely.” Just to set the record straight. The school that I’m talking about has about 3,000 kids enrolled. It’s in an affluent area and extremely well-ranked. We got lucky to get in. When I went to the initial meeting, I was one of 3 people there. Two others announced they were leaving with immediate effect. No one else stepped up all year. despite epic bouts of lip service. Except one dad, who had a great attitude and always came through when we needed a hand. Lovely guy. The teacher who was our logistical liaison for all things on campus routinely bad-mouthed him, as did my predecessor. A couple of weeks after I started, Barclays closed down our account and mailed a cheque for £40,000 to a total unknown — a woman who had volunteered years before — becuase no one had kept current with basic KYC requests from the bank. Then, the Council informed us we had been suspended from running our lottery — which generates hundreds of pounds a month online and at live events — because no one had filled out the requisite forms. Lotteries are regulated by the Gambling Act of 2005, as I discovered. So I sorted that out. I also I recruited several dozen people to join up for our new intake of Year 7s. Many of them got fed up before their kids even started full time, such was the disorganisation they witnessed when trying to cope with the school. But, right, let’s put it all down to my being a “feisty” American. Sexist and bigoted rubbish. I mean. Really…… and, no, I’m not condemning the whole of the society. Someone asked if this was the UK and I clarified — in response to the question — that yes, it is, but no, I’m not British. Just to be transparent. Hence the questions start to pile up. As always. Last post. I mean. ….do you ever wonder why things go wrong here that are perfectly straightforward elsewhere? Attitude is a huge component of productivity. Just a thought.

And they say Americans don't get British Humour

What goes wrong here that’s perfectly straightforward elsewhere?

No, we totally get your humour. That’s why like 75% of the revenues that were generated historically by British comedy groups and individuals are raised in America, contributed by grateful Americans. Jon Oliver is a local hero in every American household that has HBO. Monty Python has literally had families assembled round the living room, chortling together, in mercy and mirth, for decades. The only comedy that unites generations, three at a time, men, women, kiddies, grannies, all just crying in that wrinkly face way. Ditto Eddie Izzard, I could go on and on. We love your humour. It’s the only thing that keeps us sane as we watch our country disintegrate. It’s civilising. It makes it possible to get lighthearted and not angry and not cynical and not bitter. Which is a miracle, frankly. What we’re not here for is the banter. The obnoxious, would-be clever, pub landlord persona that is just nasty, posing as fun. Banterman. We’re not here for the pseudo-clever passive aggression. We don’t find that funny. The one-upmanship, the baiting, the bitching, that’s not fun at all. To answer another question — what’s complex here that’s simple elsewhere? Oh, lemme see….. stares at ceiling, blinks five times, takes a deep breath. First: please take this with love. I live here and not in the US because I love your culture, your humour, your history, your perspective, you attitude, your way of taking stock of things and taking a deep breath. And god do you need those qualities here. Cause it is dire. I don’t know how we managed this, with the people in charge in Mango Mussolini / cheetoh-Jesus land, but go figure. Somehow everything is easier elsewhere. But I’m not going to launder a whole list. Just the highlights. The Continent is the same, based on my experience having spent a few years in France and a couple in Italy. Just the highlights: the Post Office was not the tip of the ice berg. It was — as Gore Vidal remarked of the Nixon administration — the tip of a glacier. The NHS is struggling valiantly but we have always had private insurance here. Becuase — you just want to be on the safe side. You hear horror stories. You just don’t want it to be you. Housing? Planning? Infrastructure? The bat tunnel that soaked up over a hundred million pounds on the HS2? Let’s just say the HS2. The amputation of HS2. This is Monty python material. Sadly, it’s all true. Please take it all in good humour. But sometimes you have to get serious, otherwise you look up, as I did three minutes ago, and the entire bond market is dumping gilt. Why? Who knows. The state of the country’s finances is dire. Brexit? Jesus. Don’t get me started. Like watching a kid march out of his own house with a suitcase and his nose in the air, going, fine, I’ll do it on my own. Heroic. But sad. I mean. The thing is, we expect you to succeed where we fail. And somehow — you don’t. I guess it’s my fault, I thought I was leaving a land of crazy violent people and coming to a place of greater sanity. I still feel like that some days. Some days, it just feels like everybody is treading water. I hope it gets better. I really do.

Do you have to strike everything through, OP? It's making it impossible to follow.

If you talk like you write no wonder no one wanted to be in a PTA with you.
Sorry 🙁

Reading your replies and seeing your approach, I think it was a cultural/personality mismatch.

PTAs are complex social structures and best run by someone with a lot of social capital who is able to draw people in and pass the buck. I don't think a 'worker bee' running it works, because unless you have the charisma or know where the bodies are buried, people may not listen.

Few people really want to turn out to the Christmas fair two weeks before Christmas, wrap presents for Santas grotto, make bloody cupcakes that will be sold for a 20th of the cost of the ingredients. I honestly think everyone would be happier if each parent stuck £10 in an envelope and gave it a miss.

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.

But you're not in America . Why would you not sit back and watch how we do it here and influence using a style that won't antagonise?

I can't even be arsed reading all that.
I am going to assume its The Uk is shit etc etc etc

Wow, you latest post really reiterates why no-one wanted to work with you on the PTA.