Did the PA President sit on the school Council? When they talk about the PA being a conduit into school Council for raising issues and suggestions (not individual child stuff more general), but not fundraising - did it generally work like that or does stuff go straight to school council? I get the impression that people think the PA can't do anything but fundraise (and the school/parents are great at that) so people don't see any value.

My experience with starting the school last year was so rubbish, I vowed that I would endeavor to change for future parents. Some things have been addressed after raising concerns directly with principal, but to me that seems a strange way of dealing with issues - I would have thought funneling through the PA would result in better more thought through solutions and less work for the principal - but perhaps it just doesn't work that way. Isn't part of the PA about feedback and ideas from the parent community?
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The current President did not sit on school council, but a number of council members were part of the P&F sub committee. It was a requirement that all sub committees had at least one member of council.

There were multiple committees, one which was not a standard committee, but will be recommended to other schools, was the Building our school community committee. That would be more the committee for working on how families integrate into the school. I know we worked on flyers, feedback to teachers about our own experiences and how things could be improved and what worked. We also worked on a parents area and were generally concerned with the wellbeing of students and families.