I guess we can go back and forth on this topic. In terms of people not stepping up, all I can do is shake my head. Does anyone on this board who has replied thus far teach? The reason why I'm asking is because maybe you can honestly see where I am coming from. I am also a parent, so again, I can understand...to a small degree. Anytime a parent can make a 1-day shoe sale has no excuse making their child's no more than hour long meeting or taking time to go up to the school for various functions. Sometimes we put our priorities in the wrong order.

All I'm hearing on this board is excuses. These are excuses to me. My children are very important to me; therefore I will do what I have to do to be active in their lives; regardless of what it may entail. If I have to take off work, then that's what I have to do! Children grow up so fast and these are their important years. My motto is "There is no progress without struggle. (Frederick Douglass)" This quote holds true for so many things. It may be a struggle to make it to the meetings, but your voice can't be heard until you show up (kinda like voting).

Yea, but too many parents don't take that step towards being involved in their kids education. they think once they leave in the morning to when they get home it all falls onto the teachers hands. Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan of bribing parents either or kids for that matter but when you might not have a PTO cause parents can't step up for a few hrs each month you gotta do what you know brings them in and unfortunetly bribing brings our parents in. Like I said I know parents are busy and involved in other activites or whatnot but we have a school of 593 kids and only having 7 parents is pretty weak. Granted before I did fundraising the PTO didn't do anything fun for the kids besides a carnival. No family fun nights period. I've done all that praying that parents will see and come to meetings OR call and say "hey I can't come to the meetings but when you guys need help call me" but we don't even get that. We are pretty much at the end of the rope on ideas on how to get parents involved.

Metzy you don't have to apologize for being harsh, I didn't take you as harsh [img]smile.gif[/img] I know you are a straight forward type person based on your posts so actually what you said was better comming from you then maybe somone else...again you don't have to apologize because I really appriciate your post and point of view. I probably am coming across as harsh at this point of year (you know telling it like it is sometimes you don't realize that you sound harsh, even when its not the intention) Hopefully the start of next year we'll have a lot more parent involvement. I think the top 10 is a great idea and will definately come up with a list to hand out to parents at the beginning of the year. I absolutely love humor, basically live off it. If i can turn something into humor I do it......cause by now with the way the world is I would have already fallen off the face of the earth without being able to laugh. Great idea of involving humor (now to get the rest of the PTO on board, they are um "very mature" for lack of better wording type people) Again no need to apologize for something that I didn't take as being rude, I took it as a different point of view which I really do like to hear because it makes you think of things in a different light. lol matter of fact if you ever see something of mine you disagree with feel free to post and let me know hahaha

I agree with you on that aspect Kathie. First and foremost, again I want to thank you all for your comments and suggestions. As a 13-year veteran teacher, I have a problem with "bribing parents with food or prizes." I am 34 years old and my parents were divorced, however, they managed to work in the day and be active in all of our PTA meetings, teacher conferences, and other school functions my sister and I had. With all these "rewards," to offer parents, we are making them lazier. Do parents need food/gifts to be active in their "child's learning?" Again, I am totally against feeding a parent so they can learn more information about their child and what's going on in the school. Some parents don't realize that it's their child that they need to show attention to. I'm not just speaking PTO/PTA meetings at this time, I am speaking all school functions. As a teacher, the only time I see certain parents (I hate to say) is when their child stated to the parent that the teacher may have mistreated them; but in terms of parent/teacher conferences, PTA meetings, and other school functions, attendance is skim. From teaching all the grade levels, I can surely say attendance is greater in the elementary schools. It's a shame, but it's the truth.

I am not trying to demean stay-at-home parents or anyone else for that matter, so if offense is taken, it wasn't intended to. I am speaking to those parents who are not active in their child's education. I also consider those parents who may not be able to understand what's going on in the school (due to lack of education and even language barrier, but at our school, we offer many parenting classes and have someone who can interpret for those parents who may speak another language.) We, my school makes it all possible for everyone to attend and the atmosphere is warm. It still takes that village to raise children, but it must start at home. Too many of our kids are being neglected. With emphasis on the "No Child Left Behind Law," we need to rethink on certain issues and as a teacher and parent, I strongly feel that the responsibility still needs to fall on the parent.

We, my school, have tried many of the strategies that were suggested. We have tried surveys, door prizes, spaghetti dinners, etc. I must admit our attendance increases when their child is performing in a PTA meeting; however, if there is no performance that night, attendance is low. We do thank the parents at each meeting, because we realize that sometimes, it is a hardship (I have two children who have had a meeting or two that coincided in times), but I manage to participate in both.

In conclusion, parents must take back the responsibility for their child. We, as teachers, do not need to have that sole responsibility; it is a team effort. The team being the teacher, administrators, community, and most importantly, the parent.

The last post from pwalther made me want to comment some more about meeting attendance. A pet peeve of mine is when "working parents" complain about not being able to make our pta meetings during the day. Here's why we have our meetings when we do: We work-at-home Moms can make day time meetings and we're the ones that do 90% of the work. We do schedule a couple of evening meetings during the school year and sometimes get two different peopleto attend those meetings who, because they work, can't help out in-school anyway. We do point out on the volunteer sign up sheet what jobs can be done at home.
Our meetings are short and to the point. We don't give stuff away and there are not usually refreshments unless we have chocolate samples from a fundraising rep. We get our committee reports from active committes, talk about any events coming up and get a Principals' report. We give out the meeting minutes to every family, PTA or not as well as the upcoming agenda. I think on the whole, our committees have a fun reputation and there are not many that are not filled by many different people. So what if they don't come to the meetings? If there was something to complain about, you can bet they would be there!

Here are a couple of questions/observations:

we hold our meetings on Thursday evenings. we have a babysitter next door and usually some kind of refreshments. We are a year round school so out of 11 meetings so far we only had non-board members at 3 meetings and 2 other meetings we didn't even have a quorum. As far as I know they have always been held in the evenings so that working parents could attend. So what is the best time to have a meeting??

We also do not really have committees. Over the years our board has added positions so we are up to 12 board members. Every month is a business meeting which drags on forever and if we do have non-board memebers in attendance they get bored and don't come back. I think this is a big factor for us.

We send out our volunteer forms with our membership forms. We compile the info and then give lists to the person in charge of each event. However, for exaample when I call the volunteers for the Used Book Sale in the next few weeks (I think there were 12 on the list) I probably won't get even one who can help. Simply because it has been so long since they signed up and things have changed. So either they work different hours, got a job, etc...This is another area that we struggle with.

We also have someone at Kinder orientation and we all try to attend each others Back to School Night (we have 2- 2 tracks each). But I feel that we don't really make any effort to recruit at any of these things. I think we are simply showing our face and some board members feel that is enough. We need an all out campaign to really promote and concentrate on volunteers.

Some of this may seem off track but for us it applies to this thread.