Room mothers

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Home : 2004 : January : 1

Room mothers
By Third Grade Teacher

We have room mothers in our district also, only they are assigned by at PTO coordinator, not chosen by us. Some years, we are even assigned an "alternate". This year, I have two room mothers who should not have volunteered.
One has several younger children, and she never seems to be available to go on trips, be there for parties etc. The other one also has other children, and seems to have things constantly happening in her life (kitchen construction etc.). Even when I contact them with a specific need and time, at the last minute, they drop the ball. One of them went ahead and ordered three different crafts

without telling me, and then sent me a letter telling me that I should make the time to teach them. (You can imagine what my response was to that. I did teach the first one, and then informed her that if a parent volunteered a craft, they were the ones to teach it. We have a Room Mother's Tea in September to detail their specific responsibilities. They talked through the PTO president's talk, then they asked me what she had said. I described for them what our class would need, and still one showed up at the wrong time for the Halloween party, and the other never came at all, and didn't tell me. As a result, my third graders were changing in the bathrooms without parental help or supervision because I couldn't leave the students who didn't need a bathroom to change. The kicker was our December party. I took the responsibility for making the goodie bags (using the idea another poster had suggested about having the girls bring in items for the girls and the boys bring in items for the girls). Both people who signed up for food and drink were obviously not reminded by the room moms, and neither sent in anything. One of the moms saw me earlier in the morning, and when I said to her, "I'll see you later for the party, right?", she told me that she had a home inspector coming and wouldn't be there. The other one showed up about 5 minutes before the end of the day with her children and the grandparents in tow. Luckily, we had a singalong, and the kids didn't miss the treats. I told them we'd have a New Year's Party and they were good with that. As for your dilemma, I have found that I have definitely needed to be assertive in what I need from them (and even then, I can't count on them getting it right!). I liked the idea of notifying the Office, and I would also spell out in a letter for each party just what you need. I had to write a strong letter to the room mother who ordered the crafts telling her that I didn't want her doing that again without my okay. I also think due to working parents, it's getting harder and harder to get people to volunteer. I have taken over more of the work myself, because then I am sure it gets done the way I want it. Good luck to you!