Image by flickr user dave_mcmtImage by 20080625pta.jpg If you want to know what's happening in your kids' classroom, and maybe even help improve things, you'd better get involved with the PTA.

After months of inactivity, the Charleston County Parent-Teacher Association is working to reorganize in the wake of a leadership vacuum. The group hasn't had a district board in place for most of the past year, and there's been no one willing to step forward and fill the leadership void. Until now.

From The Post and Courier:

Clifford Fulmore and Marzel Thomas have volunteered to be the interim chairs of the group until formal elections in September.

Fulmore, who has a daughter at Burns Elementary School and one at Academic Magnet High School, said he plans to reach out to local PTA groups to help them and to provide training on encouraging parent involvement.

He wants to fix simple problems that inhibit participation, such as elementary, middle and high schools hosting PTA meetings on the same night, and he hopes to give the county more of a voice on state and local issues.

"Without that voice, our issues will not be addressed," he said. "We're back."

While school-based PTAs are very active throughout the county, the county-level organization can provide a broader infrastructure for communication between schools and parents.