Our PTO is trying to formulate a policy on including information from other community groups (such as local sports leagues, charitable walks, etc.) on our website and in routine e-mails. Our District was recently sued by a religious organization because the district turned down a request from this org to send flyers home through an elementary school’s weekly envelope. Because of this suit, no organizations, including the PTOs, can send info home with kids. If flyers are approved by the asst. superintendent, they can be put out in the schools’ offices for parents to be picked up — kids cannot be told to look for it or that it is there. We’ve started to receive some requests from community organizations (nothing controversial, yet!) to include their info on our website or in our routine mass e-mails. Some of our members are worried that if we do this, we could also be subject to being sued if we ever turn someone down. Currently our by-laws stipulate that web postings can only be made after majority approval of the board and for services or activities by non-commercial organizations.

Personally, I feel that as a part of the community we should try to help other organizations get the word out if their info would be of interest to our families and students. But, can we get into trouble if the KKK asks us to post something, and we say no? Do any of your PTOs have policies regarding these types of matters?

I suggest that you avoid the whole can of worms and keep your email communications to the parents exclusively for your PTO. No web links, no messages for other groups, nothing except PTO or school news only. As you say, your PTO could put themselves in a precarious situation by picking and choosing which requests to honor.

From a parent's perspective, I think your readership would decline once your parents find themselves slogging through all manner of other news except that which specifically has to do with PTO or school activities.

This is becoming a huuuge topic for the PTO world, and we'll be covering it in depth coming up.

But a few independent thoughts:

1. I HATE the fact that your district has applied its new materials policy to your PTO. It's the wrong decision on many levels. Your PTO is not the equivalent of the local little league or karate school or church group. Your PTO (and parent involvement and parent communication) ios an essential element of a great-working school. I hope you'll make that point strongly with your admins and get a change to that policy.

2. Unrelated, I've never quite understood how/why schools became the default for the US mail for all these other activities. In some ways, I think this controversy (provided PTO communications aren't thrown out with the bath water) may do us all a service. There are tons of fine activities for families and kids in all of our communities... and there are tons of fine businesses (some of whom may even give back to your school), etc. It's just not the school's job to market those offerings.

And I'm not just saying that to be a scrooge to those guys. I think that groups and schools strongly underestimate the "boy who cried wolf" issue. If we send home reams of papers and announcements every week (80% of it fluff or unrelated to school or involvement), is it any wonder that parents tune out?

Off my soapbox.... but I do hope that you and all will make the very clear point that your PTO is not the same in this debate as the karate club. It's a a bad policy that will hurt our schools.

Tim

Okay, first things first. Were I in your shoes, I'd be running to the next Board of Ed meeting to talk about this whole policy as it relates to parent groups. You could point out the part of NCLB that refers to parent involvement, and the risk that this new policy has of decreasing it. You could also point to the amount of funding that is being provided to your district by Parent Groups. Maybe you could even contact all of the parent groups in your district and get together the amount of money that you all spend on your whole district. Point out that applying this rule to groups whose sole purpose is to provide support to the schools is detrimental to all involved. And keep talking until they start to listen. It might even help to talk to your mayor or city council.

As for the other part of your query, I'm just going to relate an experience of ours.

Early in the school year I contacted a local martial arts studio to inquire about pricing for a field trip and demonstration for our Top 12 Gift Wrap Sellers. They replied back with an offer to do it for free for our Top 40 kids. We were really excited and grateful and made a very public announcement of our appreciation both in the gift wrap packets and on our website. Parents took this information and enrolled their children at the studio based on what they viewed as our endorsement.

That was in September. By the end of October when we were ready to book the field trip, the martial arts studio had backed out on us. By the middle of November they had gone out of business. Needless to say, we were really embarrassed.

So now, our new policy is that we will only post information for other groups on our website if they have supported our PTA in some way, and only after they have done so. We do this on an acknowledgments page only. We don't sell ads on our site, and we include a statement at the bottom of the acknowledgments page that stipulates that we appreciate the support of the groups listed but are in no way responsible for any product or service they offer and provide no endorsements of the same.

All of that being said, you would need to contact a lawyer to find out if you could be subject to the same type of lawsuit that your school district was, but my gut says no, since the Boy Scouts are allowed to prohibit girls from joining without violating any laws. But again, talk to a lawyer to be sure.

Also, keep in mind that parents are bombarded with advertising all over the internet. Most of the flyers that were getting sent home from non-school groups were getting trashed site unseen anyway. If you start to fill your emails and/or your website with those same types of ads, you may find that your emails and website are getting the same treatment.

~Lisa

Thanks, everyone, for your input. Just to clarify one thing -- we only post or e-mail info for other non-profits, particularly local sports groups. As a large public middle school, a lot of our kids can't make the school teams, so many of them participate in Little League, Soccer leagues, etc. We don't do any fundraising and wouldn't post/e-mail for local businesses.

Another issue which arose today is that we will no longer have access to mailing labels for school families, which were crucial in reaching incoming families with directory/volunteer and membership info. Thankfully we started using PTO Manager this year, so we have many families in the database, but definitely not all -- and not the incoming 6th graders for next year. It is going to be quite a challenge and an expense to reach everyone. The school population is about 1200-1300 people.

This is a bad policy and/or a scared lawyer making bad policy. Your PTO should bot be equated to every other outside organization.

Tim