Do you attend? Why or why not? What percentage of parents would you guess attends? What percentage of staff?

By Trina~moderator on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 11:10 am:

I've never gone and don't plan to unless an issue that is important to us is up for voting. I don't go for several reasons: childcare issues, I HATE politics and I've heard these meetings are very long and BORING. Don't get me wrong, I do care what's going on in our school district and am a very active school volunteer, but I dislike the politics.

By Jann on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 11:26 am:

Are you talking district or individual school?
I go to my district meetings when something is 'up', but not just in general. I read their webpage at least twice a week to keep abreast of what is going on, and will email board members if I have something to say.
As to the individual school board meetings, yes and no. Our schools have board meetings and general meetings. I tend to go to the board meetings (1, cause I am usually on the board as a committee chair of some committee or 2, that's ususally where the stuff happens). General meetings are held once a quarter. I go if I have time.

By Melanie on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 12:38 pm:

At our school, Jann, those are one in the same. Our school is it's own school district. So for your question, I would say your individual school meetings.

I am just curious because until this year I only attended when something was up. This year I have been attending them every month (thanks to the fact that they now offer childcare). We typically have 4 of our 7 teachers there (two of those who don't attend are retiring at the end of this year). We usually have around 10 parents there (we have 160 students coming from about 100 families). I was just curious what is typical in other schools.

By Jann on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 01:08 pm:

Well, our board is huge cause it encompasses all the committees, so just having board members means we might have at least 50-60 people attending. As a rule, teachers don't tend to attend the board meetings, which are during the day btw. Our school is about 200 hundred. For general meetings, which are night time (one big one for budget in the fall, a science fair one and then something in the spring, usually long range planning) we probably draw 60% of the parents.

By Truestori on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 01:19 pm:

We have PTA meetings at my childrens school, and I don't attend. I have one friend who keeps asking me to attend but I just feel that these moms are set in their ways. The PTA moms are very clicky and unapproachable which makes for difficult reasoning! UUGGHH

By Trina~moderator on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 01:27 pm:

Truestori, our school has a PTO and that's totally different than school board. I've been to a few PTO meetings and stopped going because I also found them to be very gossipy and cliquish. Not my cup of tea. However, I do help out during all their fundraisers and activities and feel that's what really counts.

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 02:57 pm:

I never went to any PTA meetings or school board meetings. Although, I was on the list for baking treats, if necessary and did help out that way.

By Mommmie on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 07:57 pm:

Our district has 34,400 kids so the school board is pretty far removed from any individual parent. They will not hear any issue that involves specific individuals, only global issues. You can't for example go to the board to complain that your child's IEP isn't being followed.

I have attended a couple of meetings and most of the "good stuff" happens in committees so that the actual school board meetings are less than an hour and there are no surprises. Big issues are carried by the newspaper. You can sign up ahead of time to speak - name, relationship to district and issue and you get so many minutes, but no one ever did it at any of the meetings I sat through. There were very few people there at all. My son is in private school now though.

By Karen~moderator on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 08:32 pm:

Our individual schools had PTO meetings regularly. The school board covers all the schools in the entire parish, so most people don't normally go to the meetings unless there's an important issue at hand, or there's a serious complaint.

When my kids were young, I attended several school board meetings where policy was being discussed. I had issues with certain things, and believe me, when you attend and make yourself heard, it makes a difference, whether the issue is a positive thing or a negative thing.

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 09:04 pm:

My school district has about 10,000 kids, so they also oversee quite a group.

By Melanie on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 09:27 pm:

Wow...those school boards are overseeing a huge number of kids! What a difference from what we are currently involved with. Our school board consists of four parents and one community member. One member is one of my closest friends, Another has a son who is very good friends with my son and we chit-chat through baseball practices and games. The third I have known for five years and I serve on the school Site Council with his wife. The fourth I have know for 3 or 4 years and I serve on the School Foundation with his wife. As you can guess, our meetings, although carried out professionally, are not dry and boring since everyone knows everyone else very well! I have always liked that our school was small and our own district, but I don't think I ever realized just how big these school districts actually are!

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 09:32 pm:

We also have 1300 teachers! LOL! I got the info from their website.

By Melanie on Friday, April 22, 2005 - 10:54 am:

Wow Dawn!! That cracks me up when I compare it to our 7. Between the 4 parents on our board, their kids have been in the classrooms of all 7 teachers. There must be some real downfalls with that since it must be hard to be objective all the time (especially when talking about handing out pink slips, which happens to our lowest seniority teacher every year because it's so hard to project enrollment in this community), but I think there are real benefits to being so intimately involved. With 1300 teachers, the board surely stays objective, but they must also sometimes lose sight of the real consequences of some of their actions. Like everything else, there are benefits and drawbacks to each situation.

By Peggy13 on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 06:32 pm:

Our Board of Education oversees 4 schools in my town, 2 grammer, 1 middle and 1 high school - roughly about 2,500 students. Yes I try to attend the meetings - they meet twice a month - that way I know what's going on in the running of the schools. The people that complain and complain are the ones that don't attend and don't really know how the school is run. I think it's important. Not a big percentage of parents attend, usually only when something big is going on. It's too bad.