PTA’s New School of Thought : Immigrants, Working Parents Force Changes

If it weren’t for the PTA, Laurie Holeman of Northridge might not be able to work.

When her daughter Jamie is through with her kindergarten class at Darby School at 11:20 a.m., she walks over to another room and joins a program run by the PTA. And her mother is free to pursue her job as secretary for her salesman husband.

“We can’t stay the old PTA. We have to change. We have working parents, single parents,” said Connie Snyder, who presides over a council that includes 26 PTA presidents in Encino, Reseda and Van Nuys. (Technically, the proper name of the group nowadays is Parent-Teacher-Student Assn., or PTSA, but the term is rarely heard.)

Not only have the parents’ life styles changed--these days, they have immigrated from dozens of countries. At Cantara Street School in Reseda, for example, 27 languages are spoken.

And so, at multi-ethnic schools, the San Fernando Valley PTA chapters run cultural fairs to promote students’ tolerance and appreciation of one anothers’ backgrounds.

PTA chapters operate daytime workshops on topics such as learning styles, listening, keeping children safe from abduction, preventing teen-age pregnancy and alcohol and drug abuse.

Clifton Davis, star of NBC’s “Amen,” who is the PTA’s new national honorary membership chairman, has said he will encourage fathers to get more involved in their children’s education.

One of the most significant changes in the Valley PTA chapters overall is their reduction in size. PTA membership in the 31st District, which covers the Valley, is down by 16.49% from last year’s figure.

The labor dispute between teachers and the Los Angeles Unified School District has also had an effect. Most PTA members enroll in the fall. And Back-to-School Night--the traditional annual event that helps recruit new PTA members, was not held at schools in the district last fall as a result of the labor skirmishes.

The PTA’s role regarding the teachers’ strike has been as impartial information-provider, its officers say, except to urge collective bargaining, which it has traditionally supported. Just before the strike, Cecilia Mansfield, 31st District PTA vice president and president-elect, had said, “We are displeased with both sides for not being at the bargaining table.”

Nevertheless, widespread social changes have probably had more to do with the drop in PTA enrollment than the local labor situation.

As more mothers have returned to the work force, there has been less time for volunteer involvements, the officers say. And these days it is less common for both parents in a family to join the PTA, as they were apt to do in the past.

The large influx of immigrants means there are many more parents who are unfamiliar with the PTA and who may not understand information about the organization that is sent home, the officers say.

A recent 50-cent increase in annual dues may have contributed to the drop in membership. (Valley PTA annual membership costs $2 to $3 a family.)

But the major reason for the decrease may simply be that “membership is cyclical,” in Mansfield’s words. “Every year you can find some schools that are in trouble, that suffer dramatic decreases.”

For example, she said, sometimes a school loses its active parents when an upper class graduates. “Some schools go through years when they barely hold it together, and then they rebuild,” she said.

Snyder pointed out: “The PTA used to have 75 or 100 people on a board at a single school. They were able to come up with that many programs.” But now a particular Valley school might have only enough active membership to fill five board seats, she said..

Thus, PTA presidents are advised to streamline. “Look at your school and see what it needs that the PTA can provide. The PTA can no longer do everything,” Snyder said.

The Latchkey Project is one example of what it can do.

The 31st District PTA Latchkey Project began as a pilot project at Darby School seven years ago. Now it serves 800 children in kindergarten through sixth grade at 17 Valley schools. The PTA hires each site’s directors and aides, and a PTA committee oversees the whole project.

It is financed chiefly by those who attend, although some scholarships and subsidies are provided. Families pay $32.50 a week if a child attends a full day, from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., or $25 a week for the 2:30 to 6 p.m. shift.

Other part-time arrangements can be scheduled at various rates. For example, most sites offer before-school care as well, from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

At Darby, which has the largest of the programs, 115 children are involved, with perhaps 50 present at one time. Staff there is recruited from Cal State Northridge and is trained for subsequent employment at other sites in the Latchkey Project.

A typical afternoon for a kindergartner might go like this: lunch, nap, homework, supervised outdoor play, arts and crafts, a snack of fruit juice and graham crackers, and games.

If a child’s regular school does not offer day care, he or she may be given a permit by the school district to attend one of the Latchkey Project schools. But space is severely limited. At Darby, only two classrooms, a library and the auditorium are available.

According to Donna Moser, co-director of Darby’s program, the school district is reluctant to expand the program. Current leases have been renewed, she said, but “it’s doubtful that we’ll get leases on new sites, because the district wants to have as much flexibility as possible to deal with the public school seat shortage.” She said the waiting list to enroll in Darby’s program was 35 last year.

Ellen Pollack, Latchkey Project coordinator and president of the PTA at Darby School, said: “Once a year we send home to the parents an evaluation form, asking them if we are meeting their needs. Under other comments, we get ‘Thank you so much for having the latchkey program. I don’t know what I’d do without it.’ ”

Another successful PTA program is Lanai Road Elementary School’s Cultural Fairs.

These one-day festivals were designed to alleviate a special situation at the Encino School: Half of the school’s population of 500 are bused in.

Snyder said some longtime residents resented the bused-in children, and Lanai’s PTA decided they wanted to combat prejudice by furthering knowledge of foreign cultures.

Two fairs have been held so far, one highlighting the cultures of Asia, the other featuring Latin America. Next year’s plans call for a more inclusive International Day.

Before the festivals, teachers incorporated information about the relevant countries in daily lessons. Children received citizen-of-the-world passports with their pictures. The PTA sent out a paragraph in English, asking parents to translate it into another language if they could, so those who were bilingual were identified.

They were then sent flyers asking them to share something from their history or their country or their personal experience: recipes, costumes, artifacts, or a story of their childhood.

The response was enthusiastic. Booths for each country were set up in the auditorium. Children got a stamp on their passport as they visited each booth. Parents and students from the appropriate country manned booths, displaying artifacts and offering food samples.

At activity areas for each country, children were taught a dance, a game, a song, or a native craft. There was an international fashion show and a karate exhibition.

“In this day and age, when it’s so hard to get parents to show up,” Snyder said, “they had parents coming out of the woodwork. Because they were asking these people something they knew--their own country, their own heritage and something they were proud of.”

Results went far beyond the educational value. “These people who were so angry and hostile at the beginning of the year, which carries over into the kids, are really enjoying each other’s culture,” Snyder said.

“A project like this is truly making a difference in the children’s and parents’ lives,” she said.