This is an idea we are trying at my school to keep parents informed of district/community/school events. We are using Yahoo Groups. Since our PTO doesn't have a way to mass email through the school computer network this is a nice way to send out email to all that choose to be included as well as update a calender and post. We also intended it to also be a way for teacher's to ask for help in the classroom with things that parents can do at home, like cutting /staple/or misc. things that take the teachers a lot of time. It give people who can't attend meetings a feeling of helping and involving themselves with the school. We just started it so I will let you know how it goes.

Good Luck...

I set one up for our school when I created the website. So far it's been working very well.

That sounds like a good idea! I like the calender idea.

The only negative I've heard with starting groups is that they can sometimes devolve into "b boards" if you know what I mean. That may not be the case for you at all...but I'd have some rules of etiquette in my hip pocket just in case.
d

The only negative I've heard with starting groups is that they can sometimes devolve into "b boards" if you know what I mean. That may not be the case for you at all...but I'd have some rules of etiquette in my hip pocket just in case.
d

That's a valid concern and one reason why you need to fully think through how you want it to work. You can set the group up so:

1) Only designated people can post
So if you want an announcements only type post, you'd authorize the key officers to post. Everyone else is read-only.

2) Everyone can post
That provides for full discussion, but doesn't guarantee all the discussion will be good or fair

3) Moderated postings
My least favorite - this requires a moderator to approve postings.

Frankly, for general PTO - unless you are trying to establish a discussion forum - I'd set it up as announcements only. The main goal is simply to distribute information. Allow a core set of people the rights to post messages. If other things come up, they can be routed through someone authorized to post or new people can be given temporary access.

If you set up a group for committee work or for the Exec Board - then you want collaboration, so set everyone to be able to post.

These configuration options are very easy to set/change. I can't remember the specifics now, but last year when I had to create a new group, I think this was the area where Goolgle Groups was stronger than Yahoo.