PTSA Meetings
Nov. 15th, 2005 09:39 amLast night I went to the PTSA meeting at Yamaarashi-chan's elementary school. I found a school that was terribly underfunded, a PTSA staff that cannot spell, and and school district that was too worried about reaching down to those students who aren't achieving that it does not have (and admits it does not have) the time, resources or interest in boosting those students who are exceeding expectations.
For all that, I found the volunteers there to be reasonable, open-minded people who are working hard to provide the best for all of the children in the school system and who do have their act together.
Yes, the president of the PTSA doesn't understand that "et. al." isn't spelled "et all" (and Strunk & White tells us to "always abbreviate" that phrase), and the treasurer notes "discressionary" spending, but they really do have a working pattern of fund raising and plans to put together a total annual income of nearly $70,000 throughout the school year. I was pleasantly surprised with the effective quality of their work.
The school is hip-deep into the box tops and soup labels programs that General Mills, Kraft, Campbell's, and other corporations run in the hopes of generating brand name penetration and consumer loyalty. But Omaha and I simply don't buy any of the brands with the boxtops they want: we don't eat much General Mills cereals, and we make our own soups most of the time. I felt a moment of guilt at not being part of the herd until I realized that that's what those corporations want me to feel. I will not be fnorded into buying crap.
I noticed that part of the budget contains a faint whiff of social promotion: The school buys the most popular children's books in audiobook format as well as on paper, so those students who can't read won't feel left out because they haven't had a chance to get the story.
(As a side note, the page on the web where I found the "et. al." reference is from a public high school which has its own quality control problems: one glossary entry reads "see parenthetical reference". There is no such entry: there is one labeled "parenthetical citation".)
For all that, I found the volunteers there to be reasonable, open-minded people who are working hard to provide the best for all of the children in the school system and who do have their act together.
Yes, the president of the PTSA doesn't understand that "et. al." isn't spelled "et all" (and Strunk & White tells us to "always abbreviate" that phrase), and the treasurer notes "discressionary" spending, but they really do have a working pattern of fund raising and plans to put together a total annual income of nearly $70,000 throughout the school year. I was pleasantly surprised with the effective quality of their work.
The school is hip-deep into the box tops and soup labels programs that General Mills, Kraft, Campbell's, and other corporations run in the hopes of generating brand name penetration and consumer loyalty. But Omaha and I simply don't buy any of the brands with the boxtops they want: we don't eat much General Mills cereals, and we make our own soups most of the time. I felt a moment of guilt at not being part of the herd until I realized that that's what those corporations want me to feel. I will not be fnorded into buying crap.
I noticed that part of the budget contains a faint whiff of social promotion: The school buys the most popular children's books in audiobook format as well as on paper, so those students who can't read won't feel left out because they haven't had a chance to get the story.
(As a side note, the page on the web where I found the "et. al." reference is from a public high school which has its own quality control problems: one glossary entry reads "see parenthetical reference". There is no such entry: there is one labeled "parenthetical citation".)
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