Many neighborhoods served by Jackson High School are relatively well-off, and the school’s population is growing dramatically.
Nevertheless, the high school PTSA’s membership dropped drastically this year, so much that recently it looked like there might be no future for the group.
The sharp decline has meant less money for PTSA scholarships, less programs and less awareness of and parent presence at events.
The trouble began at the start of the school year, when Jackson High School had to cut back on mailings due to budget cuts. The school used to split the cost of sending the PTSA newsletter to parents.
The school also stopped sending home forms at the beginning of the year for volunteering and PTSA sign-up, parking passes, school pictures and more. Parents now must go online to get that information.
The PTSA also had to put its the newsletter online, where few people read it, said Shannon Lochrie, PTSA co-president.
“People are more apt to sign up when they have a hard copy in hand,” she said. “Not many people want to print out 14 pages of newsletter.”
In the past, the Jackson PTSA has had more membership than any other high school in the district, she said.
“This year was the worst,” she added. “We’ve always had the highest membership, this year we’re down to nothing.”
Last year, there were 288 PTSA members at Jackson. This year, there are 86. Because the group is fueled by membership dues, the PTSA’s budget took a hit too.
“We had budgeted to bring in about $3100 for membership and in January had only brought in $768,” said Rita Rubenis, PTSA co-president.
As for fundraising, the group had budgeted to raise $1900 and by January, had only raised $685 of that.
One area that’s affected is scholarships.
Last year, the PTSA gave out five scholarships of $400 apiece. This year, it could only offer three, and one of those was funded entirely by a PTSA member.
Also, there have been less PTSA programs. The group does less for Jackson’s teachers than it used to, for example, appreciation brunches or bringing in snacks, though it still does some of that.
In addition, Lyn Lauzon, the school’s drug and alcohol counselor, has had minimal help putting on monthly programs for parents and students about drug and alcohol use, Internet safety and other topics for Jackson and Cascade high schools. The PTSA would like to help more, but there’s a lack of volunteers, Rubenis said.
“There’s a deficit,” Lauzon agreed. “It’s discouraging, the lack of parental involvement. It would be great if I had someone that did it with me.”
The programs are a lot of work to produce, and Lauzon is evaluating what to do next year, since only two to 25 people show up at the programs.
It’s been hard to get the word out to parents that those programs are available, Lochrie said.
Things reached an apex this winter. It looked like the future of the PTSA was in jeopardy, since no one had stepped forward to hold an elected post. So the group spent some of its budget to mail home a newsletter in April asking for help.
As a result, several people stepped up, and now there’s a slate of officers for next year.
But the group still seeks people to serve in other roles.
If the group could get more members and more funds, they would do more activities, like bringing in speakers and holding social events, and they would offer more scholarships and do more for teachers, the co-presidents said.
Though the newsletter played a big role in the group’s decline, it’s hard in general to get parents to volunteer at the high school level, Lochrie said.
PTSAs have traditionally been places for parents to meet other parents and feel part of a community.
“Parents meet their neighbors when their kids are small, make play dates and a lot of them keep the same friends,” Lochrie said. “By the time they get to high school, they know their neighbors.”
Many parents work during the day, so it’s hard to get them to volunteer at daytime school events, Rubenis said.
Fundraising at the high school level is difficult, too, since many parents give money to their child’s specific activities, like sports or band, and elementary and middle schools also do a lot of fundraising.
Still, the PTSA’s new officers are thinking about how to raise membership for next year.
“They hope that somehow they can raise money that they can mail (the newsletter) via mail somehow without the school’s help,” Rubenis said.
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