Minnesota!
Shoeless in Minnesota
- Joined
- Sep 15, 1999
- Messages
- 14,119
That's an obnoxious comment, and there's really no excuse for that.
Having said that, as a teacher/administrator, I have mixed feelings about the PTA at most schools where I've worked. Sometimes, I've seen them do great work, and other times, I've seen them be very divisive elements in a school community, and allocate their funds in ways that are actually harmful.
To give you some examples: I used to work at a school for children with special needs that started a PTA. The new PTA worked hard for fundraising, and came up with an impressive amount of money. With no input from the teaching staff, they chose to spend it on beautiful glass display cabinets to house the student's artwork. Sounds great, but they put those beautiful cabinets in the one open space in the building. All that glass meant that it was no longer safe to use that space for indoor recess, team building activities, physical therapy etc . . . , because we were constantly worried about a child with coordination issues falling or running into all that glass. A space that had been used day in and day out, was turned to an unused "museum" type space. Meanwhile, as parents donated to the PTA, their donations to the school's (it was a private school) annual fund and capital campaigns fell. Things that we had been hoping to provide with that money had to be eliminated from the budget. Finally, the PTA had, as it often does, a very divisive impact on the parent body. Many parents felt obligated to attend the meeting because those who didn't were judged, but it made it hard to find field trip chaperones or field day volunteers, because parents had already used up so much time off on meetings. Other parents, who chose not to participate in the meetings were isolated and what had been a well knit community began to divide into cliques.
Is it always that bad? No, I've seen PTAs do good things too, but PTAs can be very mixed bags.
I will also say that those end of the year "teacher appreciation lunches" drive me nuts. They always come at a time when we're up to our eyeballs with work, and they expect everything to come to a stop so we can eat a few salads and listen to talks about how much we're appreciated. If you really appreciate the work I do, then let me do it. Serve a boxed lunch, if you want, or offer a buffet in the cafeteria that we can go and grab something from, but please don't take our precious work time to expect us to sit at decorated tables and listen to you tell us how important the work we aren't doing is.
I have many friends who are teachers and they all feel the exact same way!!!!!