We hold a back to school picnic the 2nd or 3rd weekend after school starts. This gives the returning students and chance to reconnect with their friends and the new students and parents a chance to meet new people. This is the one major FREE event we do for the families. We provide inflatable toys, and have hamburger and hot dogs. We thought about doing a potluck and have the PTO supply the hamburger and hotdogs and have families do everything themselves. Every one from loves this event. The teachers, board members, PTO and the families. The teacher love it because they can relax and get to the families.
Just wanted to take a few minutes of your time to let you know how things have worked out in regards to my "volunteer" struggles with our PTO.
First I would like to Thank all of you for the advice you gave to help me see things in a more clear - open - not biased way. I took the advice given and focused my desire to volunteer in other areas of the school... I made copies, did bulletin boards, cut out the weekly "wow" words for all the Kindergarten teachers, and continued to be the room mom for my son's class. I was able to get to know a lot more teachers and parents, which was very nice. This allowed me to hear and voice ideas of how we would like to see the PTO reach out to the community and therefore enable it to do more for the students and staff.
At the last PTO meeting of the year, we discovered the current board president (also fundraiser chair, book fair chair, Fall Festival chair, and RIF chair) stepped down, the vpresident (also fundraiser co-chair, book fair co-chair, Fall Festival co-chair, and RIF chair) would not be in our school next year, and the treasurer (also Fall Festival food chair) stepped down....the only current board member returning was the spirit chair.
None of this information was known beforehand, so the members who showed for the meeting were very surprised. But I am very happy to say that the member turnout was excellent that night and without missing a beat, nominations for the positions came from the floor. Before we knew it we had 13 board positions nominated and voted for!
I have been nominated and elected for the 2007-2008 PTO president and I am very excited and nervous at the same time. I would like to see this new board do all it can to make this PTO a positive and encouraging experience for all who take part.
We want to do as much as possible to involve the students and their families, so I know I will be dropping back by for suggestions and advice.
One question I have already is do you have any ideas for a Back to School event that would be a great way to reintroduce the PTO to the students and their families (new and old)... and as inexpensive as possible. We are in a very economically challenged area.
Look forward to hearing all your ideas!! Thanks again for all the advice!
I for one took tons of advise and ideas and put them into place this year!
Printed up the Welcome Back letter for the teachers and put in their mailboxes. I used the PTO Welcome packets at Open House and had more parents come to our first meeting. I worked with one of our school's teachers and got a PTO website, just send info to the teacher and he updates for me. Made up the room parent volunteer packets and assisting the interested teachers in finding room parents. Implemented a tee shirt sale, reading night and fine arts night, all new this year and did not lose our soup supper, movie night or Christmas Store. Trying to set up a McTeachers Night for PTO. Our goal is to purchase books for our library this year. We are going to apply for the Lowes grant also. A school across town did and they got a grant, they are building an outdoor classroom. Sent all my parents who attended our meeting, volunteered to chair an event or volunteered to help run an event a thank you note - from the four minute challenge.
Next year would love to implement the reading for a million minutes... anyone who does this, let us know how it works out for you!
This years goal is to increase parent involvement, which is low at our school. Fingers crossed!!
This is a very active thread with lots of people seeking help for various events. Folks here on the Forum are great about sharing, but it sure is nice when you come back later and tell us how it turned out.
Let us know how it (whatever IT is) went, what you learned, what you found valuable.
