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The story
A post on 5ch’s “Anything Goes Live” board sparked discussion after claiming that schools which disbanded their PTA saw field trips and sports days cancelled one after another. Commenters pointed out that PTA membership dues had funded things like tent setup for sports day and adult supervision on field trips, so once the PTA was gone, both the budget and the manpower disappeared, making the events impossible to keep running. Others argued that school events should be run by teachers alone, or that schools could simply switch to paying outside contractors. Opinion split between resentment over unpaid labor and acceptance of scaled-back events.
What people said
・The handful who do volunteer aren't much use
・Once the PTA is abolished, PTA dues disappear too, obviously, so nothing can get done
Is that thing funded by donations?
Teachers alone can't watch every kid on a field trip, so PTA members come in as extra hands
You've got a hundred-plus kids moving around at once, so lookouts are non-negotiable
For sports day there's setup work like putting up tents and roping off areas
Schools without a PTA outsource it
so just have the school staff — who are public employees — handle whatever's within their means
That's just common sense
Say that and it also rules out bringing in outside coaches for club activities and the like
Nice strawman
How can you lump together outside coaches hired with school budget money and events run on dues the PTA collects on its own, separate from the school budget?
That's fine as long as they're actually paid properly
PTA work is basically unpaid labor
Just scrap it
Guess that means cancel the flower expo too, huh
Seriously, this. "The flowers are pretty" — so what, they just attract bugs
The complaints now are just people uncomfortable that something that used to exist is gone
Once "not having it" becomes normal, the complaints will fade too
Guess that'll be true of high school baseball's 7-inning rule too
Lots of pushback now, but time will take care of it
And yet people still complain about the Doraemon and Lupin voice actor changes to this day
Field trips → don't really need them either
I mean, it's fine to keep them,
but at my kid's school there's also a whole separate festival-type event on top of camping trips and bazaars
I've never once seen the PTA moms doing that
Guess it varies by region
Where I am, the parents handle setup and cleanup
You're the one with the impoverished sensibility if you can't stand not having flowers
That's something students or teachers can just do themselves
Then just cancel it
Leave the kids alone and they'll just go ride bikes around and play on their own anyway
And pay for it with what money?
If collecting a bit of money would solve the whole PTA problem, people would probably pay it
It's like this precisely because there are idiot parents who won't even cough up a little money
I heard trying to collect even 100 yen gets you a 2-hour complaint call
If one teacher per 25 kids isn't enough to keep them safe because you're that incompetent, just quit being a teacher
Back then you could just smack any little brat who did something dangerous, so you didn't need extra staff
I feel like they were there
I guess these days teachers can't scold kids, so brute-force manpower is the only option left
Pathetic that even in elementary school they're still doing field trips like it's kindergarten
Being a schoolteacher is a job only a masochist could do
For some reason, when graduation stuff comes up, they'll say things like 'I'll pay for the diploma tube and the corsage, so give one to my kid too'
And if you turn them down, they blow up with 'don't you feel sorry for the kid?'
Wonder what would happen if you said back, 'Don't you feel sorry for a kid being raised by a parent who won't even pay PTA dues?'
There's no way I could say that…
Too many weird people out there, you don't know what they'd do
Including to your own kid
Maybe try sending an anonymous letter with what Re: #100 said written in it
Background and Key Issues
The PTA is technically a voluntary association for parents and teachers, but in practice most schools treat participation as mandatory for everyone. In recent years, a growing number of schools have moved to disband it or make membership optional, citing the heavy burden involved. The thread’s central issue was that PTA dues — kept separate from the school budget — had been funding things like tent setup for sports day and supervisory staff for field trips; once the PTA was disbanded, both that funding and that manpower vanished at the same time. Some argued the school could simply pay outside staff using its own budget, but no one worked out where that money would actually come from. Whether this scaling-back of events is a nationwide trend or just varies school by school isn’t something this thread’s discussion alone can settle.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Anything Goes Live” board) thread “A Mysterious Faction Says ‘We Don’t Need the PTA — Disband It’ → Here’s What Happened After They Did…“.
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