It is supposed to have nine elected parent members but has just four.

Each council has nine parent members except for the high school council, which has 10.

Each of these officers gets two votes toward filling nine parent members on the district councils.

I have observed a parent member being treated as an errand person.

The public school-private school battle for special needs children is not going to be won on the backs of parent members.

In addition, each committee must contain a "parent member" who has a disabled child attending school in the district.

Since the job pays only lunch and travel money, parent members are hard to recruit.

Impoverished parents rarely benefit either, since parent members contribute little to the proceedings.

Instead, parent members on the councils will be elected by officers of parent-teacher associations.

As a "parent member," I have participated in more than 100 committee meetings on special education with no compensation.