Thursday, February 25, 2010

City Insider : The power of PTA moms

City Insider : The power of PTA moms
The power of PTA moms

Do not ever, under any circumstances, underestimate the power of half dozen PTA moms. Especially really pissed off PTA moms.
It all started last October as the Sherman Elementary School principal explained to parents that the school could lose about $300,000 from its budget next year.
Uh oh. Now you've done it.
Uh oh. Now you've done it.
That's equal to about three teachers and two teacher aides, give or take, and about three times what the school's PTA had raised in a single year before. Fundraising wasn't going to make up that gap.
That's when the six PTA moms looked at each other and said, "This is unacceptable." "We might as well become a third world country," said one of the moms, Erica Hunt, as she described that moment.
And that's when the moms got mad.
So, they decided to hold a town hall meeting, although they admit now that they actually didn't exactly know what a town hall was. That didn't stop them.
They thought maybe 100 or so people would come to chat about funding schools, but it turns out they aren't the only ones who are angry.
More than 1,000 people have signed up to attend the town hall (see info here) at Marina Middle School Thursday evening, an event aimed at helping the district and state figure out how California can stop being dead last nationally in education spending.
KQED's Michael Krasny is hosting (Read: keeping Mayor Gavin Newsom, city supervisors, school board members and other official folks in line) and the moms say that the requests from the city's biggest big wigs to be part of the town hall keep coming


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=57881&tsp=1#ixzz0gYg5imWC