Dear parents, teachers … love the PTO president

I took over as fundraising coordinator this year fongr the PTO at my kids’ elementary school. I think I’d rather swallow knives. Really, it is that bad.

What makes it so bad is other parents — and teachers — who don’t seem to realize that my gig as PTO president (co-president, actually) is not a 24/7, 365-day, corporate on-call job with a six-figure salary and yearly bonuses. In fact, it’s an unpaid volunteer position that shouldn’t take hours out of my workday on a regular basis.

Why does it take so much time? Mainly stupidity on the part of parents and teachers. Stupidity that requires much effort on my part to fix. I’m sorry. Stupidity is the only word for what some teachers and parents have done. So, here is my list of things that I wish parents and teachers would do — to make my life a whole lot easier — and to stop me from vowing to never be in charge of fundraising again.

Parents:

1. When you submit an order for the school fundrasier, please, please  write legibly and include your child’s name on the order. My psychic powers are rusty, so when an order comes in without a name — or even a room number or teacher’s name — it makes it hard to know who is ordering.
2. If you decide to cross out half the order and then change your mind, please rewrite the order items. If you can’t read it, you can bet I can’t.
3. On that topic, if you cross out half the order, please don’t reinstate the order by sending your child into school with a plastic baggie of cash — and no note explaining what the bag o’ cash is for. (See item 1 about rusty psychic powers.)
4. Please don’t wait until three weeks after you’ve received your child’s order to call and complain that something is missing but you don’t know what. That’s almost impossible to fix.
5. Don’t hand in your child’s order a month after the deadline. Period. Ever. Deadlines are there for a reason. Really.

Teachers:

1. Remember that the money we raise in fundraisers helps you do your job better. So please, I’m begging here, hand out the fundraising order in a timely basis. Don’t leave it on your desk for days because the kids won’t have time to get orders.
2. Please glance over the orders from your classroom. I don’t expect you to total each order, but I do expect you to notice if the order has no name or teacher’s name. One teacher might have four or five orders to glance over; I have hundreds. I need your help here, so the PTO can raise money for you.
3. Don’t call me a month after the fundraiser deadline and ask if someone can still turn in an order. Really, what do you think?
4. Please take no money from a child for a fundraising order without leaving a note of explanation of what the money if for. A bag o’ cash does us very little good.
5. Please glance at the directions on the order, so you can explain to your students what they need to do. Remember, some of them are kindergartners or first-graders, so they cannot yet read well. If you explain the directions — which are clearly printed on the fundraising sheet — they might just tell their parents. Maybe. We can hope.

Much love, Bitchy Mommy, PTO co-president