Parent Teacher Association

For six years, I made a practice of working long hours at my little urban elementary school in Oakland, then after a brisk two-mile bike ride home, I would switch hats and head up the hill to my son's elementary school to volunteer my time as a parent. In my teacher's head, I constructed elaborate "Compare and Contrast" lessons. Sometimes I wondered how these two things could really be the same, much in the same way that a Saint Bernard and a Chihuahua are both dogs. But it really was at their core that I found similarities that made me comfortable. It took me most of those six years to become accustomed to my dual role, and that's when my son had to go and get promoted to middle school.
Tonight I went to my first PTA meeting. For that past half-dozen years, I had avoided this experience by sticking strictly with the Dads' Club. They were the Delta Force of parental involvement. They were an action-oriented group that moved in to fill the gaps left by buildings and grounds, or organized fundraisers that could be done in a weekend. Whatever we talked about in our monthly meeting, we were generally acting on before we all got together again at the neighborhood coffee shop. We pulled a lot of weeds, built a few benches, and performed a lot of amusing skits in those six years. The meeting I attended tonight wasn't about action, it was about procedure.
Don't get me wrong, I have an appreciation of process, but I don't care to discuss it. That's why I was intrigued when a woman stood up as the principal was concluding her report and said that she had something that she believed needed immediate action. She said that her grandson had been shot with a BB gun the other day, and she wanted to know what was going to be done about it. I had the impression that she was more in the mood to see somebody lose their job, but instead there was a great deal of talk about what could, should and would be done. Apparently this girl had shown a number of other kids at school her weapon, and nobody had reported it. She shot three different students, including the grandson, who nearly lost an eye. Suddenly I found myself wishing desperately to be discussing the pizza and cookie dough fundraiser for the Fall.
When the meeting finally ended, I came home and asked my son what he knew about a girl at his school carrying a BB gun. He sheepishly admitted that he had seen this girl showing off her weapon. They had gym class together. He didn't tell anyone. "Everyone knew that Shelly had a gun," he said.
"Sherry?" I asked. "She's in sixth grade?"
"Yeah."
I felt my stomach roll. I knew that one of the kids from our school had moved on to go to middle school where my son goes. Small world. Too small. "Sherry Crawford?"
"Yeah."
I went and got one of my old class pictures just to be certain. The same troubled little girl who had struggled to control her temper in my fourth grade class was now set to be expelled from my son's middle school for shooting another kid, a friend of my son's, in the eye. And now my two worlds have a nexus. I think I'll skip the next PTA meeting.