PTO Today

I'm new to the site and have eagerly gobbled up a ton of your ideas! I'm hoping you can help me. I'm VP of our Parent's Club at our Catholic School in Chicago with 150 kids. We have found an Arts Center who we can contract with to provide Art and Music classes to our kids for the year for $6,000. We are trying to fund this with different types of events. We have sent individual mailings to each parent, spoke at Open House, spoke at the Open House for Pre-K and Kindergartener's - explaining how important this program would be to our school. It would involve every child in every grade. This past weekend was our first fundraiser - family portraits and a spaghetti dinner. Out of 92 school families, only 20 of them signed for portraits. And probably 1/3 of them came to the dinner! We served over 100 dinners, but they were to church members and members of the community. This is normal for our school - church members seem to care more about the school than the parents! Please - somebody tell me what we can do to explain to these parents that new programs are important to keep this school open! Many of the parent's are more interested in sports than in the education or anything else going on in the school - as you can see I'm at my wit's end! Oh, and by the way, I've been dealing with this for 8 years! I'm not a new parent by any means!!

Have you ever done a survey of your parents to find out what they expect from the school and from the parent group? It might give you some insight into what your school families' priorities are and how you can reach them. I know that doesn't solve your current problem, but it may help you find ways to get your parents motivated. If you have so many interested in athletics, maybe you can have a fundraiser that involves sports-do a basketball tournament or find a local college that might help you run a sports clinic for which you can charge a fee to attend. Use what your parents are enthusiastic about to draw them into the school!

It's so discouraging when you find a program that you think will be so worthwhile for the students and then you can't get anyone to help get it funded. Has your group looked for other funding outside of your school community? There are many grants available for music and arts programs if you do a little research.

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

I know it seems simple but it really isn't. There is another Catholic School (in neighboring Indiana) that is allowing our students to transfer there because some parents think our school is closing and because that school has tons of programs for them! I have searched for grant funding but our school is not entitled for 90% of them simply because it is a catholic school or private school as some call it. Funny enough, we decided on the arts and music program at the end of the 2007 year because parents were thinking of leaving because there wasn't one!

I like your idea about a sports clinic. I will definitely contact some of our local colleges, even our AAA baseball teams in the area. Thanks for the worthwhile tip!

I guess I didn't think of your school being excluded due to the private school status and I should have, I've filled out enough grant apps to have seen that stipulation on them. That does kind of mess you up.

It also sounds like the other school is doing a great job of talking your school down in order to get more students for their school. Maybe it's time to do a little promoting of your own. Let your school families know that your school is not closing, that you are working hard to find and fund additional programs to better educate your students and that parent support is needed if that is going to happen. Remind them of all the wonderful things that are available at your school and the wonderful things that COULD be available at your school if they just step up to help.

Keep in mind that some people see problems and just roll over and give up or move on to greener pastures and some roll up their sleeves, dig in, and sow the seeds to make their pasture green again. Appeal to your parents' sense of loyalty to their school and community and maybe you can find some others like yourself who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Good luck with your efforts and I hope we get to see some positive results posted here soon!!

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.