It looked like one of those PTO meetings to grumble about. Then the parents gave the Independent’s schoolteacher- diarist a new perspective on what they face.
Oct. 19, 2005
Last night, I went to the PTO meeting. It was my second meeting in two years. Shortly after the first meeting last year, I got the job at the restaurant, effectively ruining all my chances to be involved with school in the evenings. So last night was a refreshing return to my professional responsibilities.
The evening started off slow, and I was embarrassed at the lack of participation from the parents and families of our students. The meeting began at 5:30; by 6, only two families had shown up. (Likewise for the faculty — There were only three teachers.) It was a potluck dinner; it appeared that the two families present had brought enough food for the 12 or 13 people who we thought would never show up. A couple teachers milled about, starting up awkward conversations with each other and with the parents there, but that was it.
Our guidance counselor had planned to have a guest speaker at the meeting. He wanted parents to have access to college planning through the PTO, so he invited Tyrone Black from Quinnipiac University to talk about the process. At 6:30, it looked as if Tyrone would be speaking to only a few teachers and the three parents present. I felt terrible.
There’s something to be said for a strong PTO. The more parent involvement a school can have, the better off a school is going to be, I think. I welcome parents in my classroom; I make phone calls home to at least five families a week. I love to have parents call me to find out how their children are doing in my class. It means they’re involved in the child’s academic life; it means they value education as a means of having a good life.
We don’t have a high rate of direct parent involvement in our school, though I’m sure because we’re a small school, our contact with families is more frequent than at large schools. Nonetheless, our PTO is still very small. So I was bummed when I saw the turnout and made a silent commitment to myself to attend PTO meetings on a regular basis.
The evening changed, though. Parents —” only mothers —” started trickling in. Some were loaded down with food, others with small children. Most of them were still in their work clothes, and all of them looked tired.
When Tyrone started speaking about the college process, I read the mothers’ faces. They listened attentively to the tips Tyrone gave them. They took notes, asked questions. But all of them wore a look of concern. Tyrone threw out numbers like the fact that Quinnipiac University gets 15,000 applications for 1,300 spots. He said tuition is up in the $35,000 range at most schools around the country. And as the numbers kept coming, these mothers’ faces showed more and more concern.
“Don’t let the pricetag stop you,” Tyrone said about schools. “Don’t think a school is too expensive to look at when you’re looking around at schools. Just go there and see it and see if you like it.”
I can’t know exactly what was going through their minds, but I imagine these mothers were concerned, just as mine was, about what to do if their children did want to attend those high-priced schools. I know these mothers wouldn’t want to stand in the way of their children’s dreams. But what will happen if a price tag really does get in the way?