PTA: Town Hall Format & Parent / Teacher Briefings

PTA: Town Hall Format & Parent / Teacher Briefings 

·         (module 2 activity 2)

     Structure, role, and duties or responsibilities of the members of the PTA/PTO or school board

In the school I have taught at we have two phases to our regular PTA meetings (which occur approximately every 2 months).  The first phase uses a classical town hall format where those in attendance were briefed on any issues pertinent to the school.  A Q&A time would, then, be opened up where anyone may raise their hand to ask questions or address concerns.  The principal of the school acted as the moderator during this first phase.

The second phase included teachers returning to their classrooms having prepared briefings for how each student is doing.  The parents would then go to each student’s first period, second period, third period, and fourth period classes, with the bell notifying when it was time for the parents to move to the next period.  Parents would wait in line to be called in and each briefing was around 5 minutes.  If the parent or teacher wanted to talk about the student more, they would schedule an appointment before or after school or during the teacher’s prep period.

·        Members role in planning and executing school policies and activities

Like any town hall meeting, the idea is to pool together the community’s intellect and creativity to solve problems and try to get people more actively involved.  The more involved parents are in the student’s life, the child’s chances of success are dramatically improved.

·        Importance of documents, handouts, and materials received in the meetings

During the town hall meeting, handouts were designed to stress all of the different learning opportunities that are available to the students.  Parents were encouraged to engage their children about getting involved in after-school activities such as sports, debate clubs, student lead organizations, additional tutoring, and the like as the parent sees fit. 

·        Strengths and weaknesses of the PTA/PTO or school board

The nuclear, grass-roots, community is absolutely fundamental to the education process.  We humans are born as collaborators—our survival and progress has always depended on the degree to which we are successful in pooling our collective capabilities for the better.  Encouraging healthy grass-roots collaboration is a bedrock of education, and I think our school has an environment of encouraging more engagement from everyone.

Of course. . . there is always that one easily exasperated, discontent, parent who can tend to bring the whole show down a notch.

·        Overall value of the PTA/PTO or school board as compared against formal or informal goals set for the group

PTA meetings are invaluable.  Most of the other male teachers I’ve worked with find them incredibly annoying and even cheesy.  Sure. . . I’m not gonna lie.  I’ve been tempted to roll my eyes a few times because the cheese is real.  But I simply do not know of any truly successful civilization that ever succeeded without having active, successful, collaboration.  In fact, the more they found ways of making use of one another’s talents, the more they flourished.

·        How Can I Become More Involved?  How Can Meetings Improve?

I think every teacher should have at least one extracurricular project that they both enjoy and care about.   I’ve found communicating with the parents effectively to explain why the student’s grade is what it is, is absolutely paramount to the child’s improvement or continued success.