At the most recent meeting of Baltimore City’s school board, I was shocked to hear applause and congratulations that Baltimore City Schools is now an official member of the PTA. City school board commissioners congratulated the representatives of the PTA for meeting and having seven member-schools. I sat there dumbfounded by the idea that we did not have an organized PTA this entire time. I knew that my school did not have an official PTA organization, despite how often we hear that collaboration and communication with families is integral to a school’s success. I figured that was my school alone and surely other parts of Baltimore City must be utilizing this historic organization to better our schools and, at the bare minimum, meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind…right?
Apparently, Baltimore City Public Schools had member-schools and had an official PTA Council of Baltimore City before 2008. In 2008, however, the city PTA “was stripped of its authority to operate under the auspices of the state organization, amid concerns that the its [sic] president was expressing his personal views of the schools [sic] chief in his official capacity.” The President of the Baltimore City PTAs “gave Alonso an F for his revisions of the system’s organizational chart (he said it doesn’t include parents and community)” in his 2008 report card of the district. The PTA had various paperwork accountability problems, but was ordered to “cease and desist” essentially for being critical of City Schools not involving parents and community members.
At the board meeting I attended, the new PTA president said that the newly reauthorized PTA is attempting to organize PTA chapters and had 7 school-members. This entire ordeal seems somewhat absurd. Is it not more beneficial for our students to be advocated for by their parents and teachers on a regular basis rather than entirely disbanding the PTA for 4 years for standing up for family involvement? I worry that the PTA will struggle to gain traction within Baltimore itself even Baltimore once again has a voice in the state’s parent advocacy organization.
1 comment:
You might want to dig into your history a bit. The former leader of City PTAs (Eric White) was an embarrassment and a least a little suspicious, if not crooked. I'm not going to go to the trouble of telling you the whole story - you can look it up in The Sun archives. It was way more than once saying Alonso is a failure.
The fact that Baltimore City had no central PTA leadership didn't have the dire consequences that you are imagining. Many schools have PTOs or some other organization that is not tied to a national organization like PTA. Most schools and their parents choose to focus on their own issues, or if they are interested in City-wide problems there are coalitions centered on specific issues. The schools that my children attend have parental involvement, but no PTA which suits me fine.
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