By Pam Frederick
Not much comes for free in Tribeca. Anyone who’s dared glance down at their Whole Foods receipt lately knows that full well.
But there’s one thing we get more than our fair share of: free labor.
Witness last weekend’s event at P.S. 234. Two parent leaders and a corps of at least 75 volunteers came together to produce a 20th anniversary celebration for the school. The goal was not to raise money, but to show everyone a good time. The bigger events draw a bigger volunteer crowd: a core of a dozen parents for Taste of Tribeca, for example, corral well over 200 volunteers in the spring. It’s no great secret why the parents in Tribeca can pull off such events. We have an abundance of wealth, time and skill that rivals any neighborhood in this city, and we funnel it right back into our children’s schools.
That’s why the recent P.T.A. shenanigans at 234 have been so frustrating, and I know I am not alone in my thinking. We squandered one of our greatest assets. By forcing the parents to choose between two good candidates in June — which resulted in a dubious tie, a botched election and eventually, the temporary suspension of the P.T.A. — we were unable to exploit the talents of the previous P.T.A. president, Liat Silberman, while also tapping the new president, Kevin Doherty, for everything he’s willing to give. We have 700 students at P.S. 234; there is more than enough work to go around. In short, our cup runneth over. Don’t let’s spill it.
One way to avoid this problem in the future might be to add term limits to the P.T.A. board. The terms would still be one year, but the assumption would be that the officers serve two and no more. Then every two years, we would seek a new president, likely one who had served in the officer ranks before and gained a little knowledge and experience of the position. But there’s another solution that deserves a little attention.
At the election meeting in June, I made a motion that the P.T.A. amend its bylaws to permit co-officers in any position. Nearly every parent in the room voted for it by a show of hands. But somehow the motion was dismissed.
What we were all agreeing on at the time was that there is plenty of work to go around, and if two people have the time and energy to contribute, we should find a way to make it happen. The motion could have helped avert the inevitable political machinations that we were then thrust into, which led to the P.T.A. now requiring monitoring from the chancellor’s office.
In June, members of the P.T.A. board were struggling with the concept of co-presidents. How are they elected? How do they split the job? What if they hate each other? Yes, these issues would have taken some consideration, but I would venture that if the board were to put together a small group of people willing to hash it out, a solution would have appeared. For example, what about a president for internal affairs and a president for external affairs? One person could handle the overcrowding issues, nearly a full-time job. The other could handle the pedagogical issues. That is the obvious split, though there are most likely many others. The point? Exploit the energy and efforts of anyone willing to do the gig.
I asked a friend who runs a parent association on the Upper East Side just why she does it. It happened gradually, she said — first joining the board for a couple years then being asked to consider the president’s position — but in the end, she did it because she saw some things around the school that needed improving, and she wanted to make it happen. “You evaluate your own strengths,” she said. “I thought I could make a difference in the school by taking the job.”
I have to assume that the men and women who run for the job of P.T.A. president at P.S. 234 — and indeed any of the offices — have similar motivations. And I for one want them to follow those motivations and take the job. For one thing, it means that the rest of us don’t have to. And we are grateful. But when it devolves into pushing one person out to make room for another, we’ve blown it. We’ve not only alienated one person who wanted to contribute, we may have poisoned others into thinking the same could happen to them.
The solution is simple. Make more room, and see if leaders continue to step up. Around here, I think we’ll see that’s one resource that will not dry up any time soon.
Pam Frederick, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s journalism graduate school, has a first grader who attends P.S. 234.
