Is there ever a time or a reason when stealing from kids is OK?

Stealing is never right, right? And stealing from kids is even more wrong, right?

Then why do I feel a teensy bit bad for the ex-PTA treasurer accused of stealing up to $100,000 from a Brooklyn elementary school so she could pay for fertility treatments, among other expenses?

Before I found out that a clotting disorder I didn’t know I had caused three miscarriages, I starting poking around for information about fertility treatments like Clomid and in vitro fertilization. When I learned IVF can cost up to $25,000 a pop and no insurance company in my state covers it, I sat down and wept. Had there been a bank with its vault wide open and a Welcome doormat at that moment, I’m not sure what I would have done.

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Can You Resist the Parent Volunteer Vortex?

This school year, will you be sucked into the (cue scary music) “The School Volunteer Vortex”?

On her blog Late Blooming Mom, 45-year-old working mother Holly Sklar describes her initiation into public school volunteering and the onslaught of all these Uber Volunteer Moms who are clamoring to suck her into her ranks. Two weeks into her kids’ kindergarten year, and she’s already fed up.

In a blog post highlighted on the New York Times’ Motherlode blog, she writes:

I have filled out dozens of forms from the [parent booster] club, not to mention the kids’ teachers, all to do with what activities I can volunteer to be a part of, in the classroom and outside of it, ranging from re-shelving library books to driving kids to and from field trips to helping to organize and run any of the myriad of fund-raising events and activities that occur throughout the year. I’ve been told of mandatory commitments per child at the school, e.g., every family has to work one traffic safety shift, at pickup or drop-off, per child, during the year. I have been invited to no less than four volunteer events, and I’ve already missed two of those. I’ve been asked to contribute the “suggested” amount per child – and nothing that you can pay in ten installments is cheap –  because, though a public education is free, a great one is not — especially nowadays.  Every day brings more mail in the kids’ backpacks, offering additional ways to get involved.

If I get another piece of paper from the parent association, it’s quite possible my head is going to explode.

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Isn’t it enough to feel guilty for missing a PTA meeting? For not chaperoning one single field trip in the past 24 months? For avoiding eye contact with this year’s room parent?

Apparently not. Some schools want to give you a bad grade for your lack of involvement at your child’s school. Still another wants to require you to devote a certain amount of your time to it.

One small school district in Northern California has a plan in the works to introduce mandatory volunteerism (huh?) to the parents and guardians of its students. They’re not the first.

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We’re nearly halfway through the school year, and most of my friends and family have logged lots of hours helping out at their children’s schools. We’re all told it’s part of good parenting, and that parental involvement is a huge factor in a child’s success in school.  Plus, there are so many benefits in terms of meeting other parents, getting the skinny on which teachers are good and which aren’t, and generally getting plugged into that network of information that never makes the school newsletter.

Helaine Olen over at Slate’s Double XX is fed up with it all. And not for the reasons you might think. Continue reading »

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Stay-at-home-moms and stay-at-home-dads, you’re just not cutting it anymore. The parent teacher associations and organizations of the world have ever thinning ranks these days, so they’re going rogue.

They’re dropping their commitment requirements to draw more working parents into the fold. Continue reading »

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