Cyndi Loza

Parent-teacher organizations have gone beyond supervising field trips and bake sales.

One school is paying the salary of the physical education teacher through the PTO; another is helping supervise classrooms while the teacher is testing students.

D’Lisa Crain, school district parent involvement coordinator, said such participation is common from parent organizations.

“The focus for parent involvement is really changing, and I don’t think this is just in this district. This is nationwide,” Crain said. “Historically, parent involvement has been a lot of fundraising and class parties. I think that the focus is really shifting toward academic achievement.”

The change is a byproduct of tight funding and the substantial time demands on teachers to provide so many individual assessments, she said.

Westergard Elementary is among schools employing physical education teachers through the PTO. Nancy Leuenhagen, Westergard PTO vice president, said the group pays for teachers to work with the students three days a week.

The group was motivated by the lack of funding and resources in local schools, Leuenhagen said. She said parents need to help their local schools because it looks like the state will not.

“Until the state of Nevada begins to make K-12 a priority, PTOs are going to have to pick up the slack,” Leuenhagen said.

Members of the Towles Elementary PTO also have taken charge.

Tamala Green, president of the organization, said parents have helped teachers supervise students as they take mandatory tests and do their classwork.

“It’s really horrifying when you start realizing how bogged down (teachers) are with assessments,” Green said. “Anytime a teacher is not instructing our students, that’s time lost to our kids.”

Green said the organization will try to rally more parents to help teachers in the classroom.

Lisa-Marie Lightfoot, school district Volunteer Services Coordinator, said each parent volunteer must undergo a law enforcement background check before working in a school, including a search of terrorist lists, arrest warrants and registered sex offenders.

The precautions began in 2005 after three volunteers were arrested during a two-year span. One was given a life sentence for kidnapping a 5-year-old Stead girl.

More parents are beginning to understand the scrutiny some educators are under, Crain said.

“There are high stakes now in education,” Crain said. “There’s a lot of pressure for our schools to achieve, and educators can’t do it alone.”

Peavine Principal Doug Whitener said meeting the standards of No Child Left Behind puts more pressure on schools. He said he is grateful the PTA at his school was able to contract a group of visual art and theater instructors to work with the students in the spring.

“With No Child Left Behind some of the fine arts and physical education have kind of taken a back seat to reading and math,” Whitener said.

“PTA has been great to support that.”