Giving You the Best of School

I know this late week post is usually light with pictures of fun to be had, but today I have a different purpose. I read A Call to Moms! We Make Schools Better blog earlier in the week and felt a need to act. The blog is assisting the Mom Congress and Parenting.com in raising awareness about parent involvement in our schools. They are asking mom bloggers to write and open letter to their kids telling them what they will be doing to help them get the best education possible.

Dear Bean and Chicken;

There is so much out there to learn and experience; and school is a huge part of that beginning process. School is where you will develop the foundations of learning that hopefully will take you to wherever you want to go.  School is where you spend a huge portion of your day, and will for years to come.  School should be a place of adventure and curiosity, a place where there is always enough paste to go around and enough adult attention to get your questions answered. 

Right now you may not know that your school is lacking, and I want to keep it that way. I want you to know that even though our state may not be making an investment in you, we are. The parents and teachers at your school are committed to you and your future. I will again make our families annual tax deductible donation to the PTA, and though it may not be as special as lunch with you it is important in it's own way. It buys the supplies that are lacking in the art room, the books that are needed in the library. The money donated and raised helps, maybe not in a way you can see, but hopefully in a way your teachers see and need. 

There are nights that I leave you with Dad to run to a PTA Meeting or set up an event, I do that because of you. No matter how busy my schedule I will make the time to volunteer in some capacity at your school. Your school is where one of the first sense of community will come from, where not everyone will think the same.  It is important to me that you have the chance to experience that community and sense of self there.

I want your teachers and principal to know me, and if they think of me as 'that mom', sorry I love you too much to not be.  I commit to being at all the parent teacher meetings, to raise my concerns and ensure your education is what you deserve and need.  This doesn't mean I won't have to email your teachers a million times to figure out the class homework, or forget the paper you are suppose to take back, I will.   When my nerves are frazzled from too many spelling words I will remember my commitments to you and strive to get through one more spelling assignment.  You are my light and my smile and to me there is nothing more important than ensuring I am helping to give you the best education possible.

LOVE
MOM

First Day of School 2011

My PTA Peeps

I was doing the happy dance around the house last night, my PTA commitments for the year have been met, or as met as they are going to get.

I wanted to be involved in my children’s school experience and I wanted to contribute to the greater community of our school, but I had concerns. I was really afraid of the moms that were running the PTA ship at the start. These women were organized, focused and ran the PTA activities with either extreme planning or by the seat of their pants and ALL the activities were amazing. There were a lot of personal fears about being judged because I wasn’t taking care of my kids and family the right way or having people think critical of me. Also, there are a lot of personalities in the PTA ship and dealing with a bunch of crazies at work, why would I volunteer to deal with that craziness in my free time.

In January of Thing Ones kindergarten year I received a phone call from the volunteer coordinator at the school telling me that another mom was wondering if I would be a co-chair with her for the cookie dough fundraiser at the school. I was really intimidated by this, could I find the time, would I totally screw this up. It worked out great, I met a lot of great moms and the mom who co-chaired with me backed me up and supported me so that I could participate fully. After cookie dough went off with so few issues the PTA president started talking to my co-chair about the possibility of ‘doing more’ next year. The Co-Chair and I talked, she committed to helping me do this even though I was working and couldn’t always be there, and I committed to doing everything I could and making the time to being her Co-Chair and being on the PTA Board. It worked, I ended up with an amazing new friend, whose family is a huge support to my family, and we ended up with two crazy years of looking for new fun ways to raise money and laughing a lot more than crying.

After the last two years of only being able to make every other board meeting and frustrated looks from people when I had no idea what was going on because I couldn’t make the meeting at 11am, I am retiring from the PTA board and fundraising Co-Chair. I want to make sure that the quality activities that the PTA provides are quality and I just can’t keep as focused on PTA as I once did. This does not mean I am done with PTA, I am already nosing around looking for the thing that I really want to do for next year. In the last few years I have learned a lot about what I like and don’t like what I do well and don’t do well. I am a worker bee an organizer; I will not arrive at an event and wait around until someone tells me what to do and when, I jump in figure it out and work hard, usually with a few stories told in the lulls

What was my last activity, a great mom got tasked with a beautification project almost 19 months ago. The project got delayed due to weather and then due to the school being vandalized. This last weekend we were able to paint the map of the United States on the blacktop at the school. The full goal wasn’t met, we were supposed to do two, and we only did one. I was so impressed with the turn out, working with all these parents I have had the chance to get to know over the last few years was so enjoyable. The kids were running around playing with the oldest amusing the youngest. Each parent sort of set their own rules and guidelines. Some parents worked with their kids to paint a state, some parents didn’t let their kids near the paint, but it seemed we all made it work and we all respected each other’s views. Some of the parents I had set ideas about shined and some of the moms that I thought were amazing, were eh. The thing is, all these parents came out, we got it done and we laughed a lot doing it, and that is always a good PTA experience.