"The teaching staff can invite the parents."
Translation:Le personnel enseignant peut inviter les parents.
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"The teaching staff" as a group is simplified as "they", not "it". Therefore, I don't understand why the conjugation of "pouvoir" is in the il/elle/on from?
staff is a collective noun. A collective noun implies a group of things in its singular form. Therefore, it must take a singular verb (like is). There's an exception to this in British and Australian English, where they are considered as plural nouns, so they take a plural verb (like are).
This exception doesn't happen in other languages like Spanish or French, so it's considered a singular noun.
I put the staff as plural and would say in English "the staff are...", but I note your comments. However, on checking, Google also uses the plural, and translates as such, so you presumably could add American English to your list.
The staff are not...the staff has now been advised that it is not to think that it are.
Why can't we say, "Les enseignantes peuvent inviter les parents?"
Yes - I realize this translates to "The teachers can invite the parents.", but that is much more natural to say in English - 'the teaching staff' is a kind of weird formulation that is found when people are trying to sound 'official' (or are a bit old-fashioned).
Is this formulation more common in French?
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Seriously duo, make a decision on misspellings-- either count all of them right or all of them wrong, but there is no rhyme or reason, currently.