My Year On PTA Board

I don't know what quite to say about this but I do know I want it documented.

Last June, my friend Terri and I were talking about the boys starting Kindergarten and how we wanted to get involved at their new school. When we made the call to the PTA President asking about roles to get involved, little did we know, we might be the only two women with only first time incoming Kindergartners that have ever said they would like to serve on the PTA Board, not just as a member, but as a BOARD MEMBER. Already knowing that I was barely pregnant and due in early Spring, I told the President I worked and had to be done with the major part of my role by Christmas. The PTA President, a really awesome lady that I have a ton of respect for, said what about "School Directory Chairman," it's just inputting data you can do in the evenings and you'll be done my October at the latest. Okay, sounded perfect... sign me up!

(I'm sure my best friend, Alli, is cracking up at this point because she heard me vent about this project every single day!)

Let's start with the bad so we can end on a high: This being a brand new school and having to strictly follow the district's policy of only being able to enter what was returned on the forms from the first week of school, I was at a huge disadvantage! Up until this year, apparently, schools would slip you a nicely formatted excel document and you could simply delete the kids that didn't return the form. But I had to hand enter nearly 400 kids individual contact info and parents names. THREE LEARNINGS for mom's of kids out there!!! 1) Write legibly.... PLEASE. Blake and I spent hours debating if a phone number ended in a five or an eight.
2) Please turn your forms in!!!! At first due date four weeks after school started, I had only heard back from 30% of the school and who wants a directory with only 30% of the students in class lists, right!??!?! So my overachieving ways overcame my "get this project done" mentality and I sent out yet ANOTHER form begging for people to return in this time!

3) Don't call and leave rude messages on any volunteer's answering machine claiming they didn't input your child's data in as you requested and make that volunteer take her valuable time to locate their form, snap a picture of what she said to include and not include and then have to email it to her. I guess the bottom line is this experience reminded me that volunteers are a crucial part to any non-profit organization and not to treat them rudely, especially when they are trying to make life easier for you and your child's school!

So now for the GOOD: I know without a doubt that being a board member early on allowed me know everything thing going on at Carter's school; from school functions to volunteer opportunities to spirit items for sales, those were just a few of the benefits but the most important are the relationships I formed to be able to ask all the questions I had or that I will have in the future. I know who to go to find out anything and the school administrators, most importantly, know who I am. The front staff, the counselors, Carter's teachers and even the school principle knows my face and that I care not only about my child but the entire school, as a whole!

So FIFTY-EIGHT hours of work later (yes, I was told document the hours) I finally had the directory somewhat together and realized on the day that I was to deliver it to the printer that I didn't include page numbers in the book, but this time my "get this project done" mentality superseded my overachieving ways and I let it go. (Well kinda... it still bothers me but whatever!)

Driving home after delivering the books to the two campuses, I felt so good and like a hundred pounds had been lifted from my shoulders!