Basically, it's a very simple (and free) tool for sending professional-looking emails to your parents.  (If you want to jump ahead to the tool without reading my thoughts... you can check out Parent Express Email here.  I'll only be a little bit hurt. :-))

For years now, I've been very conservative about PTOs and email.  But I think the time is finally right for nearly all groups to take the plunge in a big way.  I wrote a column on this general topic of PTOs getting greener in our January issue.

Two big developments have changed my mind. The first is that, finally, the stats show that more than 90% of your parents likely have email access.  When that number was lower, it meant that groups that went hard to email still had to do quite a bit of paper work.  It was almost twice the effort.  But now that email is so ubiquitous, we can eliminate a lot of our paper without losing parents.  If there are still a handful of parents at school who just can't get email, the work required to accomodate them is low enough to be manageable.  It's now a time (and paper and $$) saver instead of a time-adder.

The second big change is that the technology has gotten so much better.  Sending emails with Parent Express literally couldn't be easier.  PEX uses the back-end system of the leading small business/non-profit email provider (Constant Contact), so it's top-end stuff with great usability.  The tools available 2 or 3 years ago were a good chunk more complex.

Of course, the free price-tag is nice, too.  Love to hear what you think of PEX, and can't wait to hear your success stories with it.