Monday, June 04, 2007

Monday Musings - PTAhhhhhh

I am member of my daughters School Council, I am in fact the Secretary. My job being to take all the minutes and distribute them and check and sort the mail. We have a meeting tonight, in an hour in fact. The girls are at Yia Yia's house so I am supposed to be eating dinner (bowl of cereal so far) and getting ready for the meeting. I am getting ready and normally while I wouldn't say I look forward to these meetings I usually don't mind going. The members are all nice people and the teachers too, the Principal is fine too. And, even if they weren't I'd never tell, I have discovered I have a real fear of Principal's in general...even if they are not mine. Ours is rather dour and not much fun and tries very hard to make all the meetings morose and even though I am all grown-up there is the way this person looks at me that makes me all want to blurt out, "I am the one who pulled the alarm!"

I got involved when Papoosie Girl was in JK, keener that I am. I wanted to help! Be involved and make a difference! The truth is we have a school population of just over 400 kids and we have a bare bones Council with five of us in positions and about four more who attend fairly regularly and help when there are events. As part of the mandate there are also two teachers who attend and are members and the Principal, there is a binder about 12 inches thick with all the rules and guidelines the Council must follow. The Board takes this very seriously, no mocking allowed at all. Not even if your comments are the tiniest bit funny.

I have no more time to give than anyone else, but I feel very strongly that in order to have a say you have to be willing to put in a bit of effort. Several of my friends are on Councils that are vibrant there are actually so many people who want positions they vote them in, and they make a huge impact on the school and greater community. While our Council is small we are mighty and we make our fund-raising dollars stretch to include, community outreach, charities here and elsewhere, relief for disasters, the school library, new AV equipment for the gym, supply teachers so the teacher/coaches can accompany their teams, graduation, confirmation and the list goes on.

So why I am I blogging with an obvious point I need to make? One of the members of Council is not attending because their son has his first soccer game tonight and they have not forwarded the pertinent information we need to make this meeting matter. We have known about the meeting for weeks so in my opinion there is no excuse. We all make an effort to attend the meetings and be prepared, how rude to waste our time when we can't make any decisions tonight based on one person's thoughtlessness.

I think I am done now. I am sure many of you have much worse PTA stories to tell. I just get very annoyed when everyone is making a concerted effort to attend these meetings and a few key players are not holding up their end of the deal.

I am off now to eat my real dinner, yummy chicken drumsticks all sticky and gooey from the oven with some rice. Yum. The cereal was my appetizer because I just could not wait a single second longer to eat, I get like that when I am hungry - all shaky and crazy and need to eat NOW.

Off to school now for the meeting, my head is already running several nicer versions of the above to share with the Council, we all need to play nice in the sandbox.

12 comments:

N. said...

I could've written this post - only with me it would be about those large buildings which loan out reading materials to the public.

Only instead of a the Principal it would be the Mayor who thinks she is incharge of all decisions and uses our committee and our budget for political grandstanding and leverage.

My experience has been so intensely bad that I decided to NOT join the PTA next year. I'll need some time to get over the emotional scars from this voluntary torture experience.

(I'm going to press my luck now and try to publish - wish me luck because the last three posts I've tried to leave here have been eaten up.)

N. said...

PS - did you know Bub&Pie tagged you for a meme? Get on it, woman.

Christine said...

Hope it goes ok tonight. Update us, please.

And I understand that person wanting to go to the game, but it seems like it was indeed rude not to make arrangements for you guys to have the necessary materials.

Some people. . .

Melanie D. said...

Your comments on principals made me giggle. My hubs is an asst principal at a local high school. I laugh, trying to imagine him getting all hardcore about discipline. Not that I can't imagine it, it's just such a grown-up job!

I'm glad you're willing to play nice in the sandbox, but feel free to vent here. Vent on sister!

Jenifer said...

Alpha DogMa-You know I have not blogged about the Council on purpose up until now. It really has not been a fun experience thus far so I have chosen not to speak about it, here anyway. I really try hard to remember it is about the kids and that is why I am there...

I have started the meme, I'm working on it - slave driver.

Christine-I totally respect missing the meeting for your child (for any reason really) just give us what we need so we can carry on with the meeting, exactly what you were saying.

Omaha Mama-Oh how I want to vent. My fear of being outed - not that anyone on the Council knows about my blog, but it is known where I live and all that, so it might not be too hard to put it all together. - which I seriously doubt, but am too chicken anyway. I have a friend on another Council and she frequently laughs in shock and horror at my stories.

------------------------

The big news is our Principal is retiring! So maybe some new blood and new ideas will prevail and our little Council will not only be a lot happier, but a lot more effective.

Blog said...

That would drive me BONKERS...! So annoying.

Now, let's talk some more about that chicken. Sounds deelish!

Beck said...

I have to join the parent's council next year even though the very thought of it puts me into a near-coma - EVERYONE on the board is very middle-class and they keep making decisions that are hurting a large number of kids in our extremely low-income school. So I guess I get to be the Loud, Strident Voice of The Oppressed now. Lucky me.

Mimi said...

Gah. I have so little patience with bureaucracies of any sort. I admire your tolerance greatly. And this was but the mildest of ventgs. You are a prince among PTA members, surely.

Pendullum said...

I just hate going to the Parent Council meetings as our Prinicpalis antagonistic at best, and it always ends with a voice being raised... I have even surprised myself by raising my voice,for something that would not affect my child but hundreds of others...
Good luck with your meeting..

OhTheJoys said...

I hope the meeting went well... and ... are you Greek?

Jenifer said...

Joy-Hubby is Greek. It is kind of like My Big Fat Greek Wedding in reverse. I have been meaning to post about it, and on my birthday the year the movie came out he doctored up the photo from the DVD box to include our heads instead and I have promised Alpha DogMa I will post it one of these days.

Mike Minzes said...
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