To think the school only has itself to blame for nobody joining the PTA

[JandamiHash]

my DS’s primary has put a bit of a begging message in this week’s newsletter about “Do you enjoy the new playground markings, and community events, and a well stocked school library? This is all thanks to the efforts of our PTA! However, we don’t have nearly enough members to sustain it so if you don’t want to lose the benefits for your children, parents need to step up and join the committee so we can keep it going! We are looking for one parent from each class to do the right thing and volunteer.”

I have done PTA work in the past (and then became way too much to commit to) and I get it’s valuable. I always go to events and spend money too.

However, even if I had the time, I’d be disinclined to join because the school SLT seem to have gone down a road of patronising parents constantly. The newsletter every week congratulates all the children with 100% attendance for that term and says “Well done to those children!”. They also tell us which class has “won” at school attendance every fortnight. Nobody cares though. It’s probably a sore point because I have a disabled son who has been off school with hospital stays on a number of occasion. He’s only had 1 day off this term though thankfully. I hate the idea of congratulating only healthy and/or NT children for not being off sick.

Other annoying/patronising messages include:

• “We would like to see less junk and more fruit in lunchboxes! Why not make the effort and replace that chocolate bar with a banana this week”
• “We would like to remind parents that pencil cases should be small - we can’t be expected to magic a fat pencil case into a thin school drawer”
• ”It’s pumpkin making competition in 6 hours time, and we are telling you now [they don’t actually say that but they do give v short notice]. It can be a wonderful opportunity to put the phones and iPads down and spend some much needed craft time with your little ones.
• ”We know holidays can be fun, but what’s not fun is depriving a child of an education. Taking your child in term time, even for a cheaper holiday, is unacceptable and we do not authorise absences for this reason. There are plenty of places that are budget friendly in the school holidays, and your child’s education should take priority.”

Parents are sick of it. I have lots of parents who are friends and everyone moans about the newsletter content, they do at drop off and pick up too. Absolutely nobody is checking to see if their class has “won” good absence rates.

AIBU to think the school can’t patronise parents constantly then expect everyone to jump up to volunteer with the school? I know PTA is largely parent run and it’s for the benefit of the children, but I don’t feel like partnering with a place that seems hell bent on arsey (often ableist) messages and making the ND/disabled kids feel like shit for not being healthy enough for their liking.

Im actually half tempted to say this to the school.

I don’t get this “there’s always an excuse” business. The word “excuse” should only be used in the context where someone is obliged to do something or has promised to do something, and hasn’t. There is no “giving excuses” for not joining the PTA. You’re not owed an excuse or reason. It’s like saying “People always have an excuse as to why they won’t join my charity choir/brass band/morris dancing group”. As much good as PTAs do, it’s a volunteer position for those with the time, inclination, lifestyle and expenses.

It doesn't cost anything to be on a PTA, so discard expenses from your list. Some people join the PTA because they know they can only contribute time, not money. I'm also not sure what you mean by lifestyle.

No-one has asked you for an excuse or a reason. You came onto a public forum to announce it to the world. I get that the message in the newsletter was guilt-trippy and rude, but just like the attendance messages, they're given to all parents and not targeted at you. They didn't invite you in and ask you to explain why you're not on the PTA.

As you highlighted, the reason you're not on the PTA is that you don't have the time or inclination. That's fine. Don't tell people it's because of newsletters because that's not accurate.

I completely agree BUT
I was PTA Chair for many years and I never expected anyone to do anything, help was always gratefully recieved. What was really annoying was when someone would unprompted give us a load of reasons why they couldn't help, we didn't need "excuses" we needed to people to help or not complain thats all.
There was no obligation so why waste our time listing the reasons you can't help? Its fine, we didn't sit around slagging people off who didn't help us or making lists of who hadn't bought raffle tickets, we were far too busy trying to rasise money for the kids.

My post about excuses was in response to people on this thread, not the PTA IRL. I haven’t told people it’s because of a newsletter. My point is the school only have themselves to blame for lack of volunteers if they actively alienate parents.

I disagree about it not costing anything - when I have volunteered for the PTA I ended up spending £200 on food, i said I’d pick some up pre-ordered hot food from a supplier before the event and hadn’t realised it wasn’t pre-paid for until they got the card machine out. I got it back but it took 3 weeks and I did think that not everyone has £200 to lend out for almost a month.

By lifestyle I mean someone with the time, who can have someone to look after the kids whilst they attend meeting and organise events, people who have the ability to be able to be away from time with their kids on the days of these events - wether that’s having another parent to look after them or having kids that don’t mind that their parents won’t be with them (another reason I stopped volunteering BTW). Having the skills to be a help rather than a hindrance.

Actually I’m of the view that if you send your child to a state school and you want the benefits of fundraising to be used for your child, people are obligated to volunteer

now the volunteering doesn't mean necessarily joining the PTA formally but pretty much everyone (I accept there are a few people who really can’t) can do something to help, ether it be volunteering 1 hour at the school fair to helping organise the event.

no one should have to give excuses, they should just have to say this is what I can commit to and leave at that. But in my view, not inclined, can’t be bothered, doesn’t fit my lifestyle are crappy selfish reasons.

my experience was the people with the full time jobs were the people who did the most.

I'm afraid some parents need have more things drummed into them, than their kids.

There are posts in our school.letter asking for volunteers to join the pta, but these are at the request of the pta. The school takes no part in recruitment for the pta.

What, like pencil case size? If schools like this didn't bombard parents with constant trivial stuff and excessive requests, parents might be a bit more inclined to take notice of the important messages.

The food messages I always find pointless and usually deeply hypocritical. What matters is the child's whole diet all day every day, not the one chocolate bar in their lunch box. Parents are unlikely to change their habits due to sonething in the newsletter. It's galling to be lectured about healthy eating when school meals are often very unhealthy and they are constantly having bake sales etc.

Parents are now not even allowed to join our schools PTA. It’s ran by one teaching assistant who knows best and decides on everything. None of the “events” are actually particularly aimed at the kids doing anything fun or exciting for the kids to enjoy raising money for school. I tried joining but was told there was no space left. I then found out that there were actually no parents in it…

That can't be a PTA then.
P = Parents.

Hard disagree. You’re no more obliged to the PTA than you are to volunteer for emergency services because you use them. You’re only obliged to send your child into school when they are able to go in

And yet the T stands for something.

Yes it stands for teachers as you know. We do see the teachers and they will also volunteer to staff discos etc. but they still pay no part in recruitment. They also have no say in how the money is spent. They can send funding requests but it's down to the parent volunteers what we spend the money on.

To be honest these days most PTAs are mostly called "Friends of Schoolname" rather than "PTA".
They are usually registered charities and could be run by anyone in the community - they don't even have to have children who attend the school.
Schools tend to use the phrase "PTA" as shorthand because people don't understand what "Friends of" means.
They are run separate to the school so most of the teachers have nothing to do with it (but there would need to be a staff member as liaison so events can be coordinated).

As they say, if you want something doing, ask a busy person! I agree that many people don’t realise how much a PTA adds to their child’s school experience, but are quick to complain when the annual discount, fair or school trip doesn’t happen, or they’re asked to pay full price for a school trip, leaver’s hoodies, etc.

The best thing our school did was to do away with the PTA and organise the fundraising themselves. Staff stepped up and the head & smt organised it.

Previously the PTA consisted of a couple of power hungry parents and a bunch of other parents who complained and bitched about each other.

Since the school took over the events have been much more popular, parents and staff volunteer to help at events and the money raised has trebled.

As a pta mum the ota and school tend to be seperate. Ours raises money for school but is run by us mums separately from the school.

I'm the Treasurer for our PTA - very minimal teacher involvement. It's all parents. We are a completely separate charity as are most PTAs so please help them out. I have a full-time job, I'm a single parent with two kids I do more than my bit - as do the 10 parents who do everything despite the kind of begging messages you are seeing for just an hour of anyone time. We raise £1,000s every year for things like books and equipment and putting on events the kids love. The two things are separate issues as a PTA we stay out of any school politics. If your issue is with school messaging tell the school and leave the knackered PTA parents out of it.

I was a member of a PTA for many years and sometimes they can be cliquey but do valuable work , I found that we raised 1,000s of pounds but the the chairwoman was always pushing for more and parents got fed up . PTAs seem to struggle for people to help because they know they will end up doing everything with very little thanks .

We don't have a pta we have a PA no teacher involvement.

Op I agree I'd have no time for those patronising passive aggressive memos in the newsletter. They sound so negative and judgy. Hope they don't take the same tone with the kids

PTAs make a huge difference to school but bullying parents into it never helps! Is there someone in the school you can speak to about these messages from them? Perhaps they'll change their approach if they know the tone isn't right!

The most miserable volunteering experience for me has been with PTAs. I do another weekly gig with a totally non child related organisation (recycling reuse type local org) and it's soooo much better. Parents are not as fun. They are aloof, suspicous of each other but at the ssame time always looking to network and sort of grudging whilst volunteers who are maybe semi-retired in other volunteer places can be fun. I find there's never enough volunteers to make light work and then I get guilted into doing more because I don't want to see events cancelled but at the same time stretching myself by doing things I don't want to do then bam I stuff something up and I get in trouble and being the PTA of course it's always a public humilitation. Meanwhile everyone else has an excuse not to be there to make sure things don't get stuffed up. Anyway lots of stick and very little carrot. So far teachers in my experience are at least grateful for the support and at least when I'm sitting around helping at events they might chat to me unlike cliquey parents although because of my own unresolved trauma around hating school I feel awkward around teachers but I know they are not the same generation of teachers so should probably just get over that.

Fundamentally, the OP is clearly just pissed off about the attendance awards. This comes up regularly on MN and I can never understand why it makes people so cross. The school is essentially saying 'the goal is for children to come to school every day. This group of children has done this. Well done them'. That's it. If they were getting valuable or significant rewards that would be a different thing. But they don't. They get some acknowledgment and perhaps a certificate. What's wrong with that?

If your child has health conditions that mean they can't get it, well, they will probably be able to go for the best speller, or the kindest friend, or the highest maths test score, or the fastest 50m run, or the best recorder playing of London's Burning, or any of the million other opportunities schools take to celebrate children's achievements.

If we shouldn't have attendance awards because some children can't get them, should we then also not have any of those other things because not all children will be talented enough in that particular area to have a chance of achieving that award? Back to 'all must have prizes' which means that no one's achievements must be recognised above anyone else's....everyone's equal, no one shines, bit sad.