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Hi everyone, want to thank everyone for all the wonderful information I have been able to get from this site. I have been reading posts everyday for about 6 months and I think I am officially addicted to this site. Anyhow, I am a florida native (Miami-Lakes) and so is my husband (Deerfield Beach). We are looking at relocating to the Raleigh/Wake Forest/Clayton area with our 2 boys (5 & 8).
Anyhow, I have a million questions but one I thought of first was is there good parental support at most schools? By support I mean volunteering at the school for events, fundraisers, etc. I am the president of the PTO at my son's school and I have to say the parental involvement is pathetic. I was just wondering if it would be different up there. It certainly isn't something that would sway our decision to move either way, I was just curious.
Any input would be soo appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Hi everyone, want to thank everyone for all the wonderful information I have been able to get from this site. I have been reading posts everyday for about 6 months and I think I am officially addicted to this site. Anyhow, I am a florida native (Miami-Lakes) and so is my husband (Deerfield Beach). We are looking at relocating to the Raleigh/Wake Forest/Clayton area with our 2 boys (5 & 8).
Anyhow, I have a million questions but one I thought of first was is there good parental support at most schools? By support I mean volunteering at the school for events, fundraisers, etc. I am the president of the PTO at my son's school and I have to say the parental involvement is pathetic. I was just wondering if it would be different up there. It certainly isn't something that would sway our decision to move either way, I was just curious.
Any input would be soo appreciated. Thanks for your time.
If you want to be active with the schools, there are plenty of things to do. I think it varies from school to school with how many volenteer, but at my daughter's schools there always seem to be plenty.
They almost all (I've never heard of one that didn't, but I don't know all schools) that didn't have a PTA or chances to volenteer. Just ask, fill out the paperwork (if you will working directly with the kids) and they will find you something to do.
I personally don't do the PTA thing.....I don't to power struggles and politics well...and they all have that. I give them money (many of them do 'teacher grants' here which I think are great) and then volenteer independantly for things in the classroom.
My experience is yes, in general there is good parental involvement in Wake County, but it really varies from school to school. Some schools have strongers PTA leaders than other schools. Also the base population of the school affects involvement and another issue to consider is how often children are redistricted to new schools. I thnk that parents of kids who are being bussed 45 minutes away are less willing or less ABLE to volunteer on a regular basis because of the distance/time involved. There are also children who are bussed across town whose parents do not have personal cars which can affect involvement. There are also kids who get redistricted so frequently that parents become disenfranchised with the school in general. It's hard to put in a lot of volunteer work in a school when your kid may or may not be there the next year.
Just a few things to consider. The issues with bussing and redisctricting definitley affect parental involvement and morale.
We looked at both schools in Durham and Wake Co. And all the schools we considered I emailed the PTA Presidents to find out about the school culture and parent volunteering and PTA budgets. I found everyone very receptive to my questions. In fact all the schools we looked at had a high percentage of parent volunteers in the school. You can find the PTA President's email address on most school websites. For the ones that I did not find I just called the school.
We ultimately decided on SW Durham. The school my son will be attending has many parent volunteers. I toured it twice and both days I saw many parents there helping out. LOVE that. And the teachers seemed to encourage it. Also, they have a very active PTA. Whooaa! Great fit for our family.
When my wife and I visited our son's soon-to-be elementary school last month we were amazed by the number of parents passing through the office to sign in. We asked the administrator at the front desk if there was something special going on at the school and she said there wasn't. She said there's always something going on in classrooms somewhere in the building that resulted in parents being involved.
We of course thought that was great. Hope you agree.
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Power of observation.
