What does it mean when your parent-teacher association collapses?

[Fiona2011231]

Could you pls advise?

In my child's school, there is a parent-teacher association. They say they arean active group which organise coffee mornings, quizzes, bingo and race nights. They also support outside charities. To be honest, my child has been at the school for two years, but I have never been to any meeting of this association.

Now suddenly I receive a leaflet saying the association is at a 'crisis point' and will finish without further support. It said one can contact the school office if one can help to save it.

Do you have a similar assocation at your child's school? If such a group faces collapse, does it indicate that the school itself is not good enough?

Thank you

No, it means the parents aren't!

No, it indicates that not enough parents are showing an interest and getting involved. It's a plea for help.

Have you not been to any of the social events?

There will always be a periodic crisis in a PTA as children leave the school and their parents move on too, and/or the same parents get fed up of doing everything for 5 years, and/or the head teacher changes and the relationship between the chair of Friends and the head teacher alters.

I wouldn't like to have a child at a school that had no PTA at all, but they don't have to be super-active. Maybe the current ones have burned out a bit.

Are you going to help out?

I don't think it means the school is in crisis. Just that there aren't enough parents prepared and/or able to volunteer their time to help. So the PTA will collapse. I would've hated this to happen at DD's primary, as the PTA organised fun events for children, parents and families. Things like the Christmas and Summer fairs, Christmas disco for the kids, fireworks party, leavers disco, quiz night for parents etc. My DD enjoyed the events aimed at her.

If you have any time at all, please do give the school office a ring.

As others have said, doesn't really reflect on the school at all. More likely (if there's been a very active PTA in the last 2 years) that there have been a solid group running everything and they've now had enough/ are leaving the school and that ther aren't enough parents (ie people like you!) coming forwards to take those roles on.

Situation normal, every few years they can't find a chair and they send out panic letters and call a EGM.

Always gets sorted out at the 11th hour.

Meanwhile, I just face paint and make posters.

A good PTA, and despite the brinkmanship, ours is a very good PTA injects a bit of fun and a bit of community spirit in to a primary school.

Far less important at secondary, where there are too many people to involve the whole school in an event.

no it means that the poor souls running the PTA have got fed up with being the only ones doing it basically, don't want to put all the effort in on their own anymore and want some of the other parents who don't do anything to help out to take on some of the roles to give them a break.

Agree with everyone else - all it means is that the current folk have done their bit, and there's not a queue of people ready to take on the baton. As you say yourself, you've been there 2 years and never supported anything, let alone organised it. Multiple that by all the parents in your dc's year group, and you've got a PTA about to collapse because no-one comes forward.
No reflection on the school though. Some schools have them, some don't.

Ours disbanded a couple of years ago, it doesn't seem to have made much difference. How ever, this letter might be a way of getting more people involved.

Totally normal! The PTA are volunteers. If not enough people volunteer, they can't form a committee and can't run events. If everyone got involved and did a little, the PTA would be just fine!

So have you or your dc never been to a PTA event - no race night, Xmas fair, summer fair, book sale etc?

There should be plenty of info to all parents about the PTA, when they meet and what they do.. Why not go along?

Ps our PTA raises about £10,000 every year for the school, so makes a huge difference to school trips and resources etc.

Our PTA raised in excess of £18k last year which funded all school trips, books, new sports equipment and clothing, easter eggs and Christmas presents for each child.

Our PTA collapsed a few years ago and has just restarted with a completely new committee.

There was no Xmas fair last year, or Halloween party, or Easter Egg hunt, which were always big events in our school calendar, which was sad, but the people who complained loudest are the ones that never help at anything.

It doesn't make any difference to the running of the school, but there may be less money for extras.

No reflection on the school whatsoever, but maybe a sign of a problem elsewhere. In our school we had 1 very strong willed, slightly patronising martyr type who wheedled her way in to way too many important positions and basically blocked anyone else who had an opinion or idea over several years. She now works for the school, but has upset and alienated so many people that we might not even have a PTA as of next months AGM.....but apparently that's everyone else's fault. Isn't it always?;-)

In our school it means there was a very cliquey group that didn't make anyone else welcome, and then had more babies so they didn't have the time to give to the pta.

New head is planning to start a new pta.

Our PTA is brilliant but relies on people to help. They raise 10 k plus a year which goes on new equipment and resources. Loads of kids events and the school wouldn't be the same without it

my DC's old infant school PTA has just collapsed due to lack of members.

When my DC were there we had about 10 active parents. None of us were friends outside of the PTA, and we were very welcoming and non-cliquey. Any offer of help was greeted with open arms.

Since the time I joined the PTA, absolutely no new parents have joined. Only 2 of the original parents still have DC in the school and they can't manage it by themselves.

No. It means that the tiny group of people who did everything have had enough/are leaving the school and nobody can be arsed to volunteer to take over.

Actually, in my experience over the years there tends to be a bit of a cycle in these things. If a PTA collapses, well then that can encourage a bunch of parents to get together to do something about it. They then form a "core group" who are there for a while, then they move on....and the cycle repeats.

If there is no PTA there probably won't be a Christmas Fair, won't be funding raised to subsidise a trip to a panto or similar. Our PTA also pay for the Year 3 to have recorder lessons and Year 4 to go swimming for a term. Without the PTAs funding those things, along with the Christmas Craft morning, which PTA buys all the stuff for wouldn't happen. Over 6 years they also raised money for the Trim Trail, claiming play equipment stuff.

As others have said, the PTA is not the school itself, but no PTA means a parent body who are not very interested and involved with the school. Hard to say exactly what the effect is (beyond the funding of things mentioned above and provision of some fun activities) but I think it says a lot about the parent body, and probably the level of support for the school and education.

PTAs often have these crises of committees. The same few do all the work and then get sick of it and understandably stand down. If no one comes forward it will shut down. I think the existing members should be able to stand down if they want to and not feel they have to keep going because others haven't come forward. If there is a period without cone, hopefully a new one will emerge within a couple of years. often it needs a small group to volunteer together...perhaps several new keen Reception mums, who take it on together, rather than individuals.

Hope the letter gets lots of people to think about volunteering. What about you, even if not as a full committee member.

Totally agree that is signifies a general lack of support and respect for the school

I think it can mean a lot of employed parents.

Our chair has turned down a paying job ( fortunate to be financially able to do so) because the pta takes up so much time. PTAs rely heavily on SAHPs and part-timers to be available at events, or to do shopping or setting up or wrapping or whatever. Events can't run without that kind of daytime preparation, regardless of how many full time working parents turn up with a tenner on the day.

True, often the most 'professionally' run (although not necessarily the best) PTAs are in schools with lots of SAHP who previously had high flying careers and now turn their attentions and considerable skills to the PTA.

In affluent areas, there are often lots of SAHMs, but also lots of working Mums too. In deprived areas, there are also lots of SAHMs too, with the time to be involved. However in deprived areas, parents often lack the confidence to get involved or don't have the expectation that being involved can be a good thing.

Some areas do have more working parents than others, which clearly will make running a PTA harder and I can see that this doesn't mean they are not interested in education. Often though, it is the working parents who really put themselves out to get involved, although it is difficult for them. They are often so keen that their children don't miss out through them working (and that they do t miss out too) that they move heaven and earth to get involved. If you want something done, ask a busy woman ........
Agree though, that full time workers do t usually become the PTA Chair.

mrshathaway yes, employed single parents aren't going to be part of the PTA. They always ask me to help but I've got the DC's every evening and weekend. One PTA member seemed surprised when I said I couldn't take them with me to meetings. DD would run riot!

My contribution is spending huge amounts of money at every summer / xmas fair .

we just got an A4 closely typed sheet of guilt-tripping about how our primary school PTA is in crisis (and won't anybody think of the children missing out).

At the risk of being a bitch - I think they need to reign in the martyrdom a bit. We have:

• Half termly second hand uniform sales (useful - but always a bit chaotic)
• Half termly cake sales (PITA - I don't want to be guilt tripped into queueing for 20 minutes for a cake)
• Termly 'Fair' - which are jaw-droppingly professional (think 50% of the stalls taken by commercial companies, professional entertainers invited to do sideshows (for extra charge) & so on. I've stopped going because I can't afford it!

plus other stuff I can't remember. Honestly - it is too much. Our nice little middle class DC aren't really a charity - however much they might enjoy the extra glockenspiels or special away-match football strips or whatever.