PTO Today

I was just curious. I was always disappointed we had such a low turn out to the meetings I held at my daughters preschool.

Well I went to my first meeting at my sons elementary school and I was one of 3 parents who had attended. That not including board members.

I was shocked. Apparently this was the biggest turn out they had seen.


Is this fairly normal? I am wondering what I can do to get more parents involved.

You should read some of the articles that PTO Today has on their main page. It has some great info on getting people to meetings; food, door prizes and performances. There is also some good advice on not getting too disappointed about low attendence at the meetings. They aren't the most important event that you deal with through the year, do what you can to get them there and then just let the stress roll off your shoulders and look forward to a short low key meeting!

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

Thanks for the advice.

Your most welcome!

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

I agree. I too believed that many attendees at the meetings were important. But after reading some info from PTO Today, I realized it's the involvement in the events/fundraisers that are the most important!

We have approx. 30 people in attendance at each monthly meeting. That's up from 3 yrs. ago!

Your doing better than us! Our first meeting this year had 6 adults and that included 1 teacher and the principal...lol. But we had a fun Halloween door prize we gave away and the meeting was over in 20 minutes. BUT, we have and tons of volunteer forms for our up coming Fall Festival come back filled out so......!

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

We have six steady parent members and two or three that come and go...

For a school of almost 500 students, normally we have over 30 at the first few meetings of the year. This goes down over the course of the year, but usually stays above 20.

When I first started 3 years ago we were getting like 10 to a meeting, but when I took over as President I focused on communication, and now with the new website, monthly, 2 page, color newsletter, e-mailing and school announcements, we have seen the noted increase.

Regards,
PresidentJim

I am really excited about our new website. I can't believe nobody has pushed for one before...and really it wasn't even a push. I asked the principle and he said he thought it was a great idea. So we are going to get our own area on the school website and I really hope that will help the communication. We really need to get a more consistant newsletter out as well. Sometimes its weekly sometimes it bi weekly. While I don't think weekly is completely needed I do think that a consistant schedule is needed.

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

We had a decent turn out for our meeting. More than last year which was 4. This year we had 20 people. The key was offering babysitting by a responsible adult. Our adult took the children to the gym and they had a blast. I offered door prizes. Made everyone feel welcome and remembered to thank everyone for their time. The key is to stick to the agenda. I told parents if we didnt cover everything it would be moved to the next meeting. zif it was something that couldnt wait the Principal and the President would offer resolution. Limit topics to 10 minutes. We also offered a topic of interest. This moth is Market Day samples..LOL. I hope this helps. Remember know one expects you to be perfect.