I blew off my PTA meeting last night and in doing so, broke my perfect attendance record. Every two years one of my kids attended or will attend the public kindergarten in town. Two years ago, Tommy attended and since he was the first child starting in the school system, I eagerly signed myself up on the PTA and enthusiastically volunteered to write the monthly newsletter. By the end of the school year, I vowed I wouldn't be writing it again when the next child had his turn attending. At least as long as the director was still there. If anybody could make what should be an enjoyable and rewarding, experience as regrettable and detesting as the job had become, this woman could and did. The little trivial things that came along were not worth the aggrevation for which I didn't have time. I get enough of that at home on a daily basis.
She is not a welcoming, warm and fuzzy person. In fact, she's not a people person at all. She is degrading and insulting to anybody and doesn't seem to care how she comes across to her coworkers, peers, or parents of the children who attend the school. She is the director, although she would like to think she is the principal. The school already has a principal, although he is also the principal to one of the elementary schools in town, where he spends his days, so the responsibilities of running the kindergarten fall on this woman's shoulders and it doesn't seem like she minds at all. In fact, it seems that's how she wants it. It's her school, her show. And she has a finger in every single thing going on. Micromanaging is an understatement.
Anyway, I vowed that when Christopher attended, I'd just be a back seat PTA member, sending in the cookies when asked and thereby not even needing to attend the monthly meetings. But a friend of mine was on the Board and going for President, and personally asked if I'd write the newsletter. A year had passed since my last experience, and with time, the bad memories had faded and didn't seem quite so painful to recall and anyway, didn't Christopher deserve the same dedication I had given to Tommy when he was a student at the school? So I caved, said I'd do it. We are only halfway through this school year and again, I find myself vowing never to volunteer or agree to do this task again in two years when Joey enters those doors.
And so, given the most recent incidents, I decided not to go to last night's meeting. My resentment about the newsletter is growing, and I didn't want to put myself in a position where I'd say or do something I'd surely regret later. I still have 2 kids to go through the school, remember. It doesn't matter that I don't like her and she clearly doesn't like me. I think we'd both openly agree that we just don't like each other, which isn't necessarily required for her to do her job and me to do mine, but a certain degree of respect and professionalism is expected and on her end, just isn't there. She is insulting and degrading in a subtle way, and has a way of leaving you bruised, although you'd never admit it to her. It's the kind of bruise that shows up later, like when you hit your shin and cry out in pain and then forget about it and go on with your life. Then the next day your son comes up and just touches the spot where you hit it yesterday in just the right way, and you recall the moment when you bruised it. And then you look and see the tell-tale sign of the bruise itself, its colors as dark as the cloud over her head, that very cloud you usually try to avoid at all costs because isn't a sunny day always better than a rainy one?
There are too many incidents and examples and she's not worth my blog time, so I won't bore you with the pathetic stories. Suffice it to say that she's miserable and misery loves company and I have decided like most of the other people who work with her that she's not worth the stress and trouble and time in my life. Obviously, it wouldn't be fair to the board to abandon my responsibilities and quit doing the newsletter. No, I will certainly complete the school year. Only 4 more newsletters to do. But via e-mail, I can tell the committee when their submissions are due. And I can farm out the tasks of running off and collating the pages, a task I had also been completing out of obligatory reasons and because I wanted them to look good. But as many of our run-ins occur at the production end of the newsletter as they do at the editing end.
So for all those horror stories you have heard about PTAs and the clicks and back-stabbing that preclude you to avoid joining, I am here to say those are all true. Not only do we have to deal with the director, but we also have a complicated internal battle going, unbeknownst to mostly everybody. But I don't involve myself with that. Just imagine having to deal with the politics of the PTA on top of the director's moods. So much for the PTA and all it represents.
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