Young people are supported by far more than parents and teachers. PTAAY! makes room
for everyone who shows up for them.
P
People
Parents, grandparents, caregivers, siblings, neighbors
T
Teachers
And the education professionals alongside them
A
Advocates
Anyone a young person counts as a trusted adult
A
Advancing
Turning willingness into action
Y
Young People
The reason all of it exists
Why this matters
When adults work together, young people win.
They see more than one adult who knows their name and is paying attention. They
watch grown-ups solve problems in the open, disagree well, and follow through on
what they said they would do.
They get more of what a school can offer — more events, more enrichment, more
chances to be included — because more hands are making it possible. And their
teachers get a community that shows up with real support rather than one more
request.
Adults coordinate. Good things happen.
The diagnosis
This is a collective action problem.
The work that makes a school better — the events, the enrichment, the fundraising,
the volunteer coordination, the follow-through — benefits everyone and lands on
whoever raises a hand. Goodwill is not the scarce resource. Coordination is.
No individual parent can fix that by caring harder. No teacher can fix it by staying
later. It gets solved at the level of the community, or it does not get solved.
That is the work. PTAAY! is the outside capacity that makes
collective action possible — so the burden does not sit on the two people who always
say yes.
These aren’t individual willpower problems; they’re collective ones.
Angela Duckworth, on the Phones in Focus research — where teachers reported
that enforcement works when it is shared, and breaks down when it falls to one person
How we can help
Practical help, not another meeting.
Every school community is different. We start by listening and learning what already
works. From there, it usually looks like one of these.
Making membership, registration, or giving easier to navigate
Bringing coordination to fundraising and family requests
Refreshing websites, newsletters, calendars, and other communications
Creating more welcoming ways for people to volunteer and contribute
Capturing recurring responsibilities so knowledge doesn’t leave with one leader
Getting teachers the support they actually asked for
Strengthening events and the overall family experience
Developing programming that reflects the young people and families you serve
Exploring thoughtful uses of technology, expertise, and resources you already have
Three ways in
Scoped to what you can carry
A conversation
Thinking through one challenge with someone outside the building. This one is free.
A project
Refreshing an existing approach and leaving a system behind that outlasts you.
A season
Staying alongside the work through the school year, so it doesn’t stall in March.
Families should be able to find information, make a contribution, volunteer their time,
or offer a good idea without running into unnecessary confusion or resistance. Leaders
shouldn’t have to reinvent every process, year after year.
Who you’d be working with
Meet the advocates.
Between us, roughly twenty years across classrooms, nonprofit leadership, operations,
communications, fundraising, technology, and community engagement.
The educator — a licensed teacher who has spent her career
building programs for young people.
The parent — a mother of two boys currently in school, in the
buildings and at the meetings.
The pairing is deliberate: the professional view and the family view of the same
building. Sometimes a community needs a new system. Sometimes it needs another set of
hands. Sometimes it just needs someone to listen, ask the right questions, and help a
good idea move forward.
This isn’t about turning volunteers into corporate executives, or asking
already-busy people to do more. Belonging shouldn’t depend on your title,
helpful people shouldn’t have to fight their way in, and good ideas
shouldn’t get iced out for being new.
Say PTAAY!
Is something at your school working beautifully? Barely working? Not working at all?
Tell us how we can support you — we’re listening.