I'm interested to know exactly what the Student Schools Community Coalition is going to be. Is it basically a districtwide PTO? That's not an unusual setup in rural areas. If you do go that way, however, you'll need a strong presence in each school. Typically, these groups have a board member from each school and some kind of committee that is in charge of organizing activities for that school. The good thing about a districtwide PTO is that you can act in a more coordinated way -- make sure fundraisers don't overlap, share resources among schools (ie buy one popcorn machine instead of four), and organize larger events that include more than one school. The issue is that people are more likely to get involved to support the school their children attend -- in other words, it's easier to build parent involvement at the school level than at the community level. If you don't continue to have a strong presence at each school, involvement may very well decrease rather than increase. Please keep us informed about how this goes. I would definitely like to hear more about it, and I'm sure other would as well.
- Craig
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Craig, I am from a small school and our current PTO does the preschool and middle and high school along with the elementary school. They have told me that involvement is very low this is the first year in several years that parents have shown up at a meeting. Just wanted to comment.
- Countrygirl
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