I read recently that more and more schools in Howard County are having difficulty keeping their PTA’s going. If you can’t find officers to lead, the program will fold. If the number of folks willing/able to volunteer for events and initiatives dwindles, those who are volunteering are overworked and experience burnout.
There are a number of factors that are contributing to the current decline in school PTA’s and I’d be interested to hear what my readers think. But one suggestion that resonated with me is that PTA’s have always relied on the unpaid labor of women. Maybe, just maybe, that’s not a sustainable model.
In many homes it is a necessity for women to be employed, yet they are still somehow expected to pick up the unpaid services that support family and community life. PTA is only one of the things that could be making demands on their time. There is only so much time. Human beings only have so much energy.
I wrote a post (so long ago that I can’t find it) about how much of what we perceived as neighborhood safety was dependent on stay at home moms being ever-present. That, too, relied upon the unpaid labor of women. Some folks think that this was an idyllic state to which we can return by taking away women’s rights and working at subjugating them with more zeal and enthusiasm.
I am no expert on what it takes to run a school PTA. I welcome feedback. But, if we value this kind of support for students, teachers, and school programs then is it possible that a model which still depends so heavily on women’s unpaid contributions is just not feasible?
How might it look different? What works best?
