We are very fortunate to have an entire room for our PTA to use. We use it for meetings, storing supplies and important records, and overall, our room is highly used by parent volunteers. We have dozens of parents volunteering in our school every day and feel the room is really utilized. Sometimes, teachers will ask to have meetings in there, too. We always tell them to feel free to use it, anytime! Sometimes the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts groups want a small space afterschool and we are happy to let them use the space, as long as they don't use our supplies and they clean up. We have countertops, a computer and printer that the school corp. gave us to use, a scanner, two large cabinets for storage, a floor unit for mail and paperwork for every committee person, a large conference table for 10 for meetings, a chalkboard. We also store on open shelves all of the ArtSmart supplies that our parent volunteers use for art lessons. We even have a huge corkboard. In addition, we have 100% use of a bulletin board in the hallway just outside of our room. We also have 100% use of a big glass display case in the main hallway...I'm thinking we are spoiled after reading the other posts.
Our wonderful Principal gave us a room when we opened the school. It's a decent sized room - we keep lots of junk in it! Not to mention the all important file cabinet - you know the one - filled with old papers, and other misc. things that no-one wants to read! We also have our mailboxes in there. And all our supplies for parties, etc. Not to mention the cabinet full of Spirit T's, koozies, and other misc. things that we sell. We're hoping to fix some shelves to the wall so that it looks a little more organized. All the kids who peek in there always laugh at us and say that we're way too messy!
It's something I couldn't do without, especially since I was finally able to steal a chair to sit in! And occassionally sleep in!
We have the entire basement for our parents. Alas, it is never used. The only thing it is used for now is storage, which in itself is good. We disbanded our parent room because of lack of involvement.
Gotta tell you, I'm feeling a bit sad about the space we have. At my last school, the PTA had it's own kitchen, four filing cabinets and a closet.
At our new school, we have one filing cabinet in the teacher's lounge. I'm hoping to help change that but I'm trying not to be too much of the "new person, Council President, wants to change everything" It's really hard!!! [img]smile.gif[/img]
OMG...I would LOVE to have a closet even....we had to Fight to get space for a filing cabinet!
It's not that they don't Want us to have a space..just that we are over-crowed and they don't have anywhere to put us right now!
We are in line to get a new High School built but the Superintendent we have now is against it so--who knows when that will happen. Even though the land was purchased and the school approved BEFORE he was elected to office....and he was elected again...so we have him for another term.
We were fortunate enough to get some space this year that we don't have to make sure no one else is using. We share our area with the afterschool program, which only uses their 1/4 after 3pm and the other half is used as misc. storage by the custodial group. I love our area. It's mostly to be used for storage but there are a few tables we can set up to count fundraisers or whatnot. I bring my son in when I work there which I have never been able to do before, making it so great for this stay at home mom.
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
