PTO Today

I love the idea of the 2 Hour Power, BUT, does it really work?

Our school has a handfull of parents that are active, the majority are not. They want to be in PTO, and still do nothing.

Do you find that parents sign up for the 2 hours, and then never show up to volunteer? This is my fear.

At our Christmas shop, tons of parents wanted to come and set up, I am sure to see what was for sale. They either worked one day and pulled no shows the rest of the shifts or didn't come at all. There were shifts the last day and a half where the was only one person trying to run the shop.

Our McDonalds night we had 13 parents signed up to help and only one other parent besides myself showed up. Luckily I had thought to ask teachers to sign up to help also, so they stayed for extra shifts.

How has this worked for you?

It worked for us!!

We are a Catholic school who has a mandatory 20 hours per family. We changed the form to 20 HOUR POWER and listed every activity available (and some wishful activities) the dates and times that the activity would take place.

It made a hit with the parents since the entire year's activities were listed with dates. We copied all the forms, sent one back home to the parents (to remind them what and when they volunteered) and a copy to each activity coordinator.

We had our largest volunteer hours every used this past year. No more "I didn't know the date, time" or "I didn't volunteer for that". Just make sure the coordinators do make follow up phone calls as the dates approach.

Now if you don't have mandatory hours, such as most public school, my neighbor is the PTO President of their public school, and membership is not considered valid until you do your volunteer hours. Not sure how that is allowed, but it works for them.

It has also worked for us! We also are a Catholic School that has a mandatory 20 hours per family. We use the 20 HOUR POWER form and renamed it Parent Volunteer sheet. Parents see what activities, dates and hours are available. We also let them know that attending meetings counted toward their 20 hours. In the last two years, we have had the largest number of volunteers sign up and fulfill their hours than we did before we started using the form. Attendance at our meetings has more than tripled. We hand out 4" x 6" lined post-a-notes for them to write down the events they signed up for.