I have read a lot about school directoryies on the boards, but I am not exactly sure what this is.... explain anyone? What all is included? What's the purpose?

Our school directories are a booklet of contact information about the students. We send a form home with each student asking for address, phone number and parent name. The parents then have complete control over what, if any, information is printed about their student. I think this year we will also ask for email. For our school this is an invaluable tool for contacting parents for volunteering, class parties, etc.

We do the same thing and list all the names by class and include a teacher/staff list and important school #'s and info. Be sure to check with your district, here the schools can not be involved with the directory, it is strictly created by the PTO and it must have a disclaimer in the book itself stating so.
We also have a local printing company put it together for us so we don't have to do all the copies/sizing/stapling.

Is it expensive to have a printing company put it together for you? We have never done this before, but I think it would be a great resource for parents and PTO as well!

Our Middle School has had the traditional "printed" directory for years but this year we will be introducing a "paperless" directory. We are adding an website which will allow us to have a password protected page that will "house" our school directory. The directory will be downloadable as well. As a very active PTO we tend to generate a lot of flyers that are sent home with all the students, this prompted us to look toward moving in a "paperless" direction.

When we used to create one, volunteers collected the information and organized it into a master document. We did the kind where it's 8-1/2 x 11 paper landscaped, folded in the center and stapled with a cardstock cover to create a booklet. But I've also seen the ones that are just full page (not folded) and either stapled in the corner or along the left edge. The full page size is easier to format.

So you are bascally talking about copying and fairly rudimentary binding (i.e., stapling). We had a local printer who did it for about $1.50 per booklet.