Parent Involvement Archive

Want to find ways to get more parents active and engaged at your school? The articles below have tons of ideas and tips about connecting with dads, reaching out to families, and more. Find more information on the Parent Involvement resources page. (For articles about volunteer recruitment and building your PTO’s volunteer base, go to the Volunteers archive.)

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• Make the Case for Parent Involvement - When parents participate in the educational process, kids do better in school. Here’s how to tell parents what they need to know.
• Make Your School a Community - Your parent group can play a vital role in creating a welcoming, supportive atmosphere for everyone.
• How To Respond to Common Excuses - Try our No-Excuses Response Guide when "I'd love to, but..." is the answer you get from potential volunteers.
• How To Have a Great First Week - What you do at the start of the school year sets the tone for your group all year long.
• How To Fix Volunteering Roadblocks - The most common challenges to engaging new parents are actually fairly easy to fix.
• The Volunteering Gene - Time spent helping out could result in lifelong friendships—and your kids might follow your example as adults.
• Insights From a First-Time Volunteer - How do newbies perceive your parent group? A new volunteer’s insightful look at how others view the PTO.
• Put Parent Involvement Before Fundraising - Too much fundraising talk can take the focus off your primary goals.
• Secrets That Build Parent Involvement - Savvy tips and tricks to get parents more interested in volunteering, and get more out of them when they do.
• Reach Out to Parents With a Pledge Program - PTO volunteer pledge programs make a big difference for schools, one hour at a time.
• Make Your First Meeting Count - Use these tips to harness the energy of a new year for your PTO and set a positive tone you can build on all year long.
• Don’t Do It! - Sometimes it's more important to know what not to do. We outline 12 common mistakes PTOs make and offer positive alternatives.
• Is Your PTO Fun Enough? - PTOs and PTAs that aren't fun and welcoming will struggle more in their involvement efforts; working to change that might be the most important thing a parent leader can do.
• Supporting Adoptive Families - An adoptive parent starts a group to connect with other similar families at her school.
• Reach Out to Single Parents - Single moms and dads want to get involved. A small shift in focus by your parent group can help them get past the additional challenges they face.
• Are You Planting Roots? - Success has a life cycle; make yours last by nurturing new leaders.
• 13 Things To Do This Year - Get out your to do list and add these items to build involvement and strengthen your group.
• Beat the Midyear Volunteer Slump - A focus on recognition and communication can help energize your group's recruitment efforts.
• Taking Involvement Online - A parent puts her technology skills to work to increase involvement and improve the school.
• Homemaker Extraordinaire - This mom has the tools to make a difference—and she knows how to use them.
• Adjusting to Middle School Involvement - Ways to maintain an active role even after the kids get older.
• Make New Families Feel Welcome - Holding out a helping hand when families first arrive at the school pays off in increased involvement and a stronger parent group later on.
• Customer Service Secrets You Can Use - The most successful businesses know how to create loyal customers. You can learn from their techniques to build strong parent involvement.
• Teaching Parents To Be Involved - A California kindergarten teacher gets moms and dads into the classroom.
• Confront the Fear of Quitting - Concerns about how they'll be treated if they stop volunteering makes some parents avoid getting involved at all.
• Create a School Tradition - Ambitious events build excitement and involvement. They make your PTO look great, too.
• Multicultural Outreach: Food, Music Bridge Cultural Divide - PTO Today's 2007 Parent Group of the Year for Outstanding Outreach to a Multicultural Parent Base found innovative ways to bring in families with limited English skills, achieving greater involvement and enthusiasm than ever before.
• Send a Powerful Message - You can use communications to improve your group's image and boost involvement. Just put the focus in the right place.
• Involvement Step by Step - Getting new parents to participate means finding out where they are on the involvement ladder, then creating opportunities that match.
• Teachers Influence Involvement - Want more parents to get involved at your school? Personal invitations from teachers may be the way to go.
• Recruiting Preschool Parents - Involvement by parents whose children haven't even started school yet is great for everyone: They get a low-stress introduction to the school, and your group expands its membership base (and the pool of future leaders, too).
• Create an Effective Survey - Gathering feedback from parents and teachers can help build support for your programs. These tips will help you create a survey and evaluate the results.
• Where Involvement Begins - Parent groups play a key role in making schools better. Unfortunately, the role often goes unappreciated.
• Involvement Ranks Last in School Reform - Parent involvement may be a focus of the No Child Left Behind Act’s school improvement prescriptions, but it’s the least likely to be implemented, according to a 2007 report issued by the Rand Corp.
• Overcome the Language Barrier - Effective strategies parent groups use to reach out to non-English-speakers.
• Hmong Parent Group Connects Cultures - St. Paul, Minn., junior high school teacher Ann Hebble talks about the parent group she founded to serve the school's population of Hmong families.
• Multicultural Outreach: Group Thrives on Personal Contact - Translation services, a mentor program, and personal outreach to parents helped make this group our 2006 Parent Group of the Year winner for Outstanding Outreach to a Multicultural Parent Base.
• Is Your School Parent-Friendly? - From the staff to the building to the materials sent home, there are steps PTO leaders can take to help make their school a place where parents feel comfortable.
• Open Doors, Lots of Them - It's important to make it as easy as possible for parents to get involved. Are you doing all you can?
• Giant Games, Huge Involvement - Oversize Twister, Yahtzee, Scrabble, and others put a popular twist on a PTO’s family board game night.
• A New Way To Get Volunteers - According to their own policy, PTO leaders can't ask parents for help directly; instead, they have to find ways to encourage interested parents to volunteer their willingness as well as their time.
• Involvement Matters: What To Tell Parents - Hundreds of research studies show that when parents get involved, children do better in school. We sum up the details that every parent should know—and you should tell them.
• 13 Keys to Strong Involvement - A step-by-step guide for parent group leaders who want to reach out and engage more parents.
• Quiz: Rate Your Involvement IQ -  See how your group's attitudes and practices for building parent involvement measure up.
• Help Build Student Achievement - An expert challenges PTOs to increase parent involvement in ways that are connected to the curriculum.
• Nine Schools Merge Into One - A district-mandated mega-merger came at the end of a trying time, which might have spelled disaster under other circumstances—but these parents focused on community-building to get through it in one piece, making the newly created group a clear choice as PTO Today's 2005 Mid-Atlantic Region Parent Group of the Year.
• Leader Offers a Warm Welcome - After her own less-than-engaging first encounter at school, a new PTA president vows she'll do things differently for other parents.
• Connect With Immigrant Parents - One group's innovative event to help immigrant parents adapt to U.S. school culture provides lots of lessons for reaching out to families.
• The One-Hour Pledge - You'll get a lot more people to volunteer if they know there's a limit to their commitment.
• Build Your Volunteer Base: 11 Ideas - Tried-and-true ideas to nurture volunteers and make sure that every involvement experience is a positive one.
• The Truth About Cliques - If people say your group is a clique, it is. In this case, perception matters.
• PTO Mom Wins on TV Show - A trivia buff undertakes a unique fundraiser: competing on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?
• Talking Points That Build Involvement - Use this list to address the questions and objections that people raise about getting involved in your parent group.
• Make Your Family Night a Winner - Fun family nights are a great way to build involvement. Get started with these ideas and tips for success.
• 26 Ways To Build Involvement - Getting more parents to participate is as easy as A, B, C when you follow this list of best practices.
• Classes in Parent Involvement - Two moms who wanted to move beyond traditional involvement roles learned how through parent involvement education programs, which range from monthly workshops to in-depth, yearlong curricula.
• Is Your PTO a Clique? -  You work hard to make your parent group welcoming, but to other parents it still might seem like a closed circle. Here's why—and what to do about it.
• Partnership Model Builds Involvement - The National Network of Partnership Schools focuses on helping schools build broad-based parent involvement using a team model.
• Time: The New Currency for Volunteers - Time is a precious commodity for today's overcommitted families. To get them involved, show them you understand and offer a variety of ways they can participate.
• Basic Marketing That Builds Involvement - There's a simple reason why some parents haven't gotten involved: They don't know what your PTO is or what it does. Change that by communicating with parents the right way.
• Build a Multicultural PTO - Reach out to diverse groups and bring them together with these effective involvement and communication strategies.
• Orienting New Members - Help newbies hit the ground running by creating a welcoming atmosphere and giving them the opportunity and information they need to be able to contribute right away.
• Middle School: A Role for Parents - Involvement can be a harder sell in middle school, but there are still plenty of ways parents can participate.
• Reaching Out to New Parents - It takes a special effort to attract parents new to the school; a good first impression will make them more likely to become active members of your PTO.
• Mother-Son Dance: Jammin' Fun - A twist on the traditional father-daughter dance offers music, activities, door prizes, and a chance for parents and kids to bond.
• 7 Steps To Grow Involvement - Use the approach to parent involvement taken by the most successful parent groups. These resolutions will change how you think about attracting members and volunteers.

Dads

• Dads Club Creates an End-of-Year Camping Tradition - Happy campers in Paso Robles, Calif., gather for a night under the stars.
• Doughnuts With Dad and More - Muffins With Mom, Doughnuts With Dad: Tips for a successful family breakfast-theme event, no matter what time of day you hold it or who’s invited.
• More Dads Involved at School - School-based dads' clubs and parent group events geared toward dads may hold greater interest for fathers now than they did a decade ago, according to a 2009 survey by the National Center for Fathering and the National PTA.
• Dads Are Different - For more participation from dads, meet them on their level.
• Major Project: Dads Create Resource Room - The 2008 PTO Today Parent Group of the Year for Outstanding Job on a Completed Major Project simultaneously engaged dads while serving parents as a whole.
• Dad Pulls Out All the Stops - A committed crossing guard keeps students safe.
• When It's Time To Change - This time, Dad has to volunteer.
• This Dad Is Having a Blast - A background in design and illustration can make for one explosive family night.
• Superintendent Starts Dads' Clubs - Overcoming the skeptics, a superintendent created thriving involvement among dads at all of an urban district's schools.
• Start a Dads' Club - Fathers want to be involved, but they aren't necessarily going to respond to traditional parent group roles. A dads' club can give them a low-pressure way to take the first steps.
• Get Dads Involved - You can get dads connected and volunteering. It just takes a concerted effort and a different approach than you use for moms.
• Dad in Charge of the PTO - Single father Rich Linden wants everyone who gets involved with the parent group to have fun.
• Filmmaker Dad Finds Role in PTO - Even someone who doesn't see himself as a leader can make a difference by using his talents.
• "Computer Nerd" Takes Charge - He gave them a piece of his mind. They elected him president.
• Dads Plant Trees - A PTA group enhances its doughnuts with dad event by adding a school beautification project.
• Great-Grandfather, PTO Leader - When others would retire, this Navy veteran is just getting started.
• Dad's New Job: PTA President - A bank manager turned stay-at-home parent puts his skills to good use running the parent group.
• Dads Make a Difference - When dads get involved, kids perform better in school. PTO fathers talk about how to get more men to participate.