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Public School Insights: Why do you think it’s important to get men engaged?

Saylors: I think that your listeners will all agree that we’ve seen studies that show time and time again when both parents — both adult role models in the home — are engaged in a child’s education, then the child is more successful.

Public School Insights: The PTA has actually been getting a lot of attention recently for broad efforts to create greater diversity in its membership. In addition to getting many more fathers involved, you are also engaging many more parents of color, who haven’t necessarily been the traditional PTA members. Is that a fair statement?

Saylors: That is a fair statement. It’s not been for PTA’s unwillingness to open its doors to all comers—that’s not the case. It’s just been our ability to identify markets where minority populations exist—for example, large cities.

PTA currently is predominantly based in suburban America. We have a need to grow our base in urban America, and in rural America. So you’ve got cities like Miami, Baltimore, Houston and Las Vegas, where we have tremendous opportunities through our urban initiative to bring in all families in large cities and in trying to get them more involved.

Probably four years ago now, I believe, we started a program called Emerging Minority Leaders, where we asked each state to identify one, two, three leaders in their state in the minority community to come learn more about PTA and be trained to be PTA leaders within their community. That has really taken off very well, and we are really proud of the effort that our staff and volunteers are doing to make that happen.

The PTA Policy Agenda

Public School Insights: A lot of people see the PTA’s activity in their own local schools. But PTA has also been getting more of a profile in some national policy areas. Do you have a sense of what kinds of national policy areas that PTA wants to take on?

Saylors: The one that comes to mind first is probably one that I am the most proud of currently, and that’s our association with core common standards.

You know that the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have worked together to develop a set of core common standards that all states could use for a baseline in their accountability measures.

PTA, fortunately, was the very first association within the education community to come out in support of those common core standards. We, as an association, had been talking about this for over 10 years. So it was a natural fit once the NGA and CCSSO came out with this initiative.

We’ve also worked a great deal with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle over issues with No Child Left Behind, with IDEA…anything that is for the betterment of the welfare of children.

Public School Insights: As you know, there has been growing support for common core standards, but there are still a lot of people out there who push back against this idea. Why do you think parents have been really at the vanguard of this common core movement?

Saylors: We’ve got kids in the classroom. I have a child in elementary school, I have a child in middle school.

I’m on the school board in my home community, and so I see essentially both sides of the issue. We should be able to take our children from my school district in Greenville, South Carolina, to anywhere in the United States, enroll them in a new school tomorrow and have the same level of expectations be there.

Are there concerns? Yes, and a lot of things that have been brought up as this process has started have got some validity to them. What I am wanting PTA to do is generate the conversation to deal with the concerns, to answer the questions, and to make sure that the public and the policymakers are comfortable with the decisions that they are making towards these core common standards.

We should be able to support any child, anywhere, at any time, and have them be successful.

Public School Insights: So parents should really be concerned about the fact that the accident of what state their children are born into shouldn’t determine their competitiveness in a global society?

Saylors: I think they should be engaged in the conversation. They should be mindful of what the effects locally have to their child being competitive, yes.

A Spirit of Volunteerism

Public School Insights: It’s very interesting to note that you as president of the National PTA are a volunteer, and there are millions of PTA volunteers around the country. My first question is, what is the significance of volunteerism for this organization, which is one of the largest volunteer organizations in the country, if not the largest? And second of all, how do you do it all? You, personally?

Saylors: [Volunteerism is] significant in the fact that you are willing to give of your time and treasure, and in this case time, to the support of a common cause, that being a child’s ability to learn and a child’s ability to succeed in life…That in itself is significant.

How I do it? That’s a question I get an awful lot. My response— especially when talking to other men, who say, “I don’t know if I have the time to do the PTA thing” – has generally been, “If I can do it, anyone can.”

I have a child in military service, I have a granddaughter, I have a child in middle school, I have a child in elementary school, and I work full-time. I have almost every conceivable reason not to do what I do. But it’s not that hard. It’s a great thing to get involved in.

I work for an organization that is extremely supportive of public education. I work in construction management for a firm out of Columbia, South Carolina. They realize that my work in this area is a good thing and that it reflects positively on the community, the organization and the company I work for. I am very fortunate to be in a position where my employer supports what I do.

I’ll also be the first to admit that I have an extremely understanding family. My wife and kids know what I do, they know where I am at, and they understand that hopefully the contributions that I can make through this position will help somebody somewhere some time.

Public School Insights: So this is a message to families, to fathers and to employers.

Saylors: Absolutely. If you are a father and you want to get involved…My message to them would be give me three hours during the entire school year.

National PTA has a program called “Three for Me,” and it essentially asks an adult—you don’t even have to have a child in school—but it asks any adult to commit to volunteering a minimum of three hours during the entire school year.

How many of your listeners can leave home, go to a movie, watch the movie and get home in less than 180 minutes? That’s all we’re asking. Contribute that 180 minutes to a school in your community. Tutor a child, chaperone a field trip. Do something positive to interact with kids and let them know that adults truly care. That’s one thing that you can do to get involved.

For employers, if you’ve got an employee who needs time off to go to a parent-teacher conference or to attend a field trip with one of their children, I would really encourage you to support that request.

For policymakers, we have 16 states right now that have laws on the book in some form that allow a business to get some kind of tax credit or income tax rebate for allowing their employees to go to a school function while they are at the job.

I would really hope that other policymakers would look at that. If an employer is willing to allow an employee to participate in a school function during work hours and school hours, then I would certainly hope that that employer could be recognized accordingly.

Saylors’ Story

Public School Insights: All this raises another question – how did you personally get started in PTA, as a father at a time when fathers were generally less involved than they are now.

Saylors: You’re right. It was not as common then as it is now. I started when my now 25-year-old son was in the first grade.

My wife and I both grew up in homes where our parents were committed volunteers, and so we felt that one of the things you do as a parent is get involved in your child’s education.

When Matthew started the first grade, we went to the fall carnival. Every school—every elementary school—probably has one. We get there, and I guess you could say, I’ll never look at a hot dog again with a straight face. Because that’s how I started.

We get in the line for the infamous hotdog supper at the fall carnival, and there’s one lady behind the counter serving hotdogs by herself. You could tell she was somewhat overwhelmed. Without missing a beat, my wife, knowing me the way she does, said in so many words, “Are you going to go back there and volunteer to help her now, or do you want to eat with us first?

I spent the night serving hotdogs, and two weeks later I was the fundraising chairman for the school. The following school year I was PTA president.

Public School Insights: So things can start small and then build into something much, much bigger.

Saylors: Absolutely. I didn’t start out at that level looking to ever be where I am at now. I am here today because a lot of really good people in other states thought that I would be able to contribute something positively to this association, and I just hope I can end up doing a good job.

Check Out PTA

Public School Insights: Are there any questions I should have asked but didn’t?

Saylors: PTA’s got a lot of great things going on, and I would encourage your listeners to come to our website at anytime – that’s www.pta.org – and see some of the great things we’ve got going on. I think that they would be proud to see what we do, and I would encourage any of your listeners to participate and join the PTA in their community.