Not your mom's PTA

Tell me if this sounds familiar at your kid's school.

Someone suggests joining the PTA, and your mind conjures up June Cleaver in a white apron baking cookies for the Beav's school sale.

Suffering a major guilt trip, you say you'll think about it, unable to shake that 1950s image.

Parent Teacher Associations and their independent sibling, the Parent Teacher Organization, have come a long way since the days of black-and-white TV. They have tried to adapt to the fast-paced world of working moms and single parents, recruit more men and adopt new fund-raising approaches in a highly competitive environment.

But their primary mission remains the same: raising money for the things school budgets don't cover, according to leaders of several metro Omaha PTAs and PTOs.

And they're still mostly run by moms.

One of those moms, Nicki Simmons, just finished a year as PTO president at Gretna's Thomas Elementary School. She said volunteering is “just a part of parenthood.”

She and husband, Mark, have three children: Anthony, 19, Eric, 11, and Sydney, 7.

“I think by being more involved in the school, you have a tendency to learn more about what's going on in your children's classroom,” Simmons said.

In Nebraska, PTA membership has been sliding for decades, falling from about 25,000 in the late 1980s to 7,000 members in about 100 schools today, Nebraska PTA President Melani Luedtke-Taylor said. She attributes that slip primarily to parents balking at the $3.75 per member dues required of local organizations to support the state and national PTA — a small price to pay, she says, for the group's advocacy on children's issues.

The Iowa PTA reports membership of 12,200, which also has been declining for decades.

PTOs, however, appear to be picking up the slack. Tim Sullivan, founder and publisher of PTO Today, a website that is a resource for PTOs, reports that nationally nearly 75 percent of parent groups are independent PTOs that have no affiliation with the national PTA.

Both types operate in metro Omaha and report raising as much as $20,000 a year for books, playground equipment, storm drains, parking lot paving, security systems, computer equipment, parties and treats. In the Omaha Public Schools, most raise between $8,000 and $10,000 a year, but it varies widely depending on the neighborhood, a spokeswoman said.

Parents are still paid the same as Mrs. Cleaver: zero.

Amy Tichota, president of the West Dodge Station Elementary School PTO, said her involvement started the way it does for many parents.

“Somebody asks you to help,” Tichota said.

First, she brought a dish for parent-teacher conferences. She graduated to box-tops chairperson, gathering the little coupons from cereal and snack boxes to trade in for cash. Now she's running a rather sophisticated operation at the new Elkhorn school near 185th Street and West Dodge Road, aided by multiple chairpersons.

At West Dodge Station's recent “Back to School 101” event, parent volunteers were out in force. They ran the book fair, sold $3,800 in shirts and hats with the new school's locomotive logo, signed up dozens of new members and peddled $20 smart cards entitling holders to discounts at local businesses — hauling in a $15 profit on each.

On the gym wall hung a banner listing about 30 corporate donors — proof of the full-court press members put on local businesses last summer. Seven PTO members rounded up the commitments, worth $6,300. Part of the bargain with businesses was to display the banner in the school this year.

The West Dodge Station PTO also taps another popular funding source, teaming with restaurants to offer family dinner nights, returning a percentage of sales to the school.

A big part of Tichota's job is wrangling the volunteers. That means staying organized and respecting their busy schedules.

“If I volunteer for two hours, and it took four, I'm not going to be too happy,” she said.

Parents give what they can. Those who work in the day volunteer at night or do something at home to help out. Those available in the day help out with school-day events like health screenings, she said.

Renee Black, a bubbly corporate event planner, staffed the sign-up table during “Back to School 101.”

Black reported a “huge success” in filling sign-up sheets.

Heidi Meyer, a single parent working in the financial services field, said she respects the volunteers in the West Dodge Station PTO but can't free up time to sign up herself.

Instead, Meyer said she teaches the Junior Achievement business class at the school, which fits her schedule better.

Some Catholic schools have PTAs and PTOs for parent involvement. Parents in these private schools are already deeply invested in their children's education through tuition and book fees.

St. Vincent de Paul School, near 144th Street and West Maple Road in Omaha, has no formal parent organization, but parents are expected to sign up for committees that run the annual magazine fundraiser and other support activities, Principal Barb Marchese said. Magazine sale revenue helped buy additional playground equipment last year.

The school's major fundraiser is a big annual dinner and auction called the SPREE — Sharing Parent Responsibility for Excellence in Education, which can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At St. Bernadette School in Bellevue, fundraisers help pay for the basics, such as interactive teaching boards, said Lisa Plourde, president of the St. Bernadette Home and School Association.

This year, parents hope to buy flat-screen TVs and DVD players for instruction in the classrooms, she said.

Mick Messbarger, attorney with Mutual of Omaha, and his wife, Amy, are co-presidents of the Dundee Elementary School PTA in Omaha.

Several years ago, the group started Dundee Direct. Parents can make a direct donation, rather than making their kids sell door-to-door.

The group made about $4,000 more with the new system, he said, and parents no longer had to make last-minute appeals to friends and family or co-workers to buy stuff.

“I always questioned what the rate of return was,” Messbarger said.

Contact the writer:

444-1077, joe.dejka@owh.com

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