Question! Who organizes open house at a school? Is this a teacher-administration invitation where they invite us parents and students back into the school for an evening. Or is Open House supposed to be organized, date set, agenda like and opening thing , our pto booth and then treats?
I know you all hate it when someone comes in new to your school and SAYS "Back Home" we did it this or that way. But I am really not happy about open house. Back home open house was an invitation for parents to come visit. Teachers made it special and the office sent out invitations or children made them. PTO had a booth and that was a few parents. But this year as president of my new school's PTSO, Being so new, (delegated president) not less, but being so new to the whole school and everything, I was flabbergasted that I had to make up an invitation, spend hours copying them 500 copies and then distributing them to teachers. I was also in charge of telling staff what date it was. Needless to say there were some surprises. WHO does open house? Help. I told administration that I was going to give them back the invitation making thing, and he told me he had more important jobs to do than to design a computer invitation!!!

Our open house has varied with the principal. Last year was her first year and open house was a bit less friendly then we wanted it to be. I think this year will be better, and she is more open to our helping plan it. I like the idea of the invites, but we've not done that before, either...usually there's a notice of it in the school newsletter or just a simple flyer that comes home. Due to parking constraints, our open house is "staggered" with 1-3 grades attending early and 4-5 grades attending later. That makes it more work for Boosters who have to man the coffee and cookie booth. I'd like to hear what the convention is in other schools - we plan on having a handout available to parents on special events we have planned, as well as sign up sheets available. We have also gotten samples from marketing companies and the families seem to like the freebies.

Open House is the school opening its doors to the parents. It is an opportunity for parents to come in to the students classrooms, look around and get some curriculum information. At our middle school they took a picture of the staff on the front steps of the school and made it into a postcard invitation. PTA has a table with information and act as ambassadors, giving directions and such.

Open house in our area always comes as in invitation from the principal, and the date is set by the principal. With so many schools, they usually set these at there principals meeting to avoid conflict with secondary grades.
Monday - High school
Tuesday - Middle school
Thursday - Elem. school
NONE - WEDNES OR FRIDAY.

Also, many of the PTAs offer dinner to the families and do not use the event as a fundraiser but only to break even. The past two years we've had a great BBQ dinner catered by a local diner.

The PTA does have a table set up to greet anyone looking for direction, to solicit details for the Student Phone Directory, and to collect those last minute membrships. Also a small table is set up to still sell the Spirit Shop items.

Open house in our area always comes as in invitation from the principal, and the date is set by the principal. With so many schools, they usually set these at there principals meeting to avoid conflict with secondary grades.
Monday - High school
Tuesday - Middle school
Thursday - Elem. school
NONE - WEDNES OR FRIDAY.

Also, many of the PTAs offer dinner to the families and do not use the event as a fundraiser but only to break even. The past two years we've had a great BBQ dinner catered by a local diner.

The PTA does have a table set up to greet anyone looking for direction, to solicit details for the Student Phone Directory, and to collect those last minute membrships. Also a small table is set up to still sell the Spirit Shop items.

At our school, the Open House is organized by the principal. But the PTO makes sure we are visible. We've always sold our spirit items there, and often had samples from Market day & our fundraiser. In addition, we're going to increase refreshments this year (all of them either from Market Day or candy samples from our fundraising company). We are also pushing for PTO membership that night (this year's Open House is prior to the start of school) by setting up a membership table and decorating our display case with evidence of our accommplishments. I've also made the Wordsearch puzzles that we'll have available.