PSS wants parents to be involved

The Public School System wants the Parents Teachers Association of every school to get involved in terms of knowing how the Board of Education uses the money it gets from the Legislature.

At the last PSS board meeting, board member Herman Guerrero said that involving the parents represented by the Parents Teachers Association president at every school would shorten the process of educating the Legislature on how PSS plans to use the money lawmakers allot the system.

“It seems like that it’s always an educating process every year that we go through the exercise of telling the [Legislature] how we plan to use the money. By getting the PTA involved, the Legislature will have a clearer picture on what the actual needs of the schools are,” he said.

“There are certain individuals out there that don’t like us and just creates problems for us. So I believe when we make the initial budget request, let’s make sure we engage the parents,” he added.

Guerrero suggested that in the future, a letter of certification signed by the parents will help PSS justify the system’s immediate need.

“It would be nice to see a letter of endorsement or a certification from PTA that they have at least reviewed the budget that we presented to them, where they have provided input,” he said.

“This way, when the Legislature comes back to us, we can show them the letter that supported the needs of the school by the community as represented by the parents of the students,” he added.

Board member Florine Hofschnieder shared Guerrero’s view of involving the parents because, aside from giving the parents voices, the parents will go through what the board experiences when they present the budget to the Legislature.

Guerrero said that in budget hearings, inviting the PTA president to join alongside management and the school principals is an ideal situation.

“We always have management and principals and it is an excellent idea to invite the PTA president of every school and be there so if they want to speak, they can to support their interests and the PSS budget,” he said.

“I am tired of hearing from the Legislature that we gave you the 25 percent but that is just the minimum and that doesn’t mean it ends there. They need to move away from that mentality… We need to invest in our students and we are still at the bottom of per pupil expenditures, even though we are moving up with our teachers” he added.