How to get more parents involved with your parent group is a hot topic. No surprise to you, right?!

Next Wednesday, March 24 from 9:00pm – 10:00pm EST we are hosting a Twitter chat on this very topic. Here’s your chance to chat with Tim, founder of PTO Today, dad, and president of his kids’ parent group about the challenges, strategies and rewards of growing parent involvement.

If you are new to Twitter, check out a post I did a few weeks ago titled How to Use Twitter to Grow Parent Involvement. That post will familiarize you the basics of Twitter.

The next question is how do you participate in a Twitter chat? It’s really pretty simple.  Here are the basics of a Twitter chat:

What is a Twitter chat? A Twitter chat (sometimes called a Twitter party) is an event where a group of people decide to get on Twitter at a pre-determined time period to discuss a given topic.

How do you join a Twitter chat? To be part of the the conversation, you must first have a Twitter account. If you are just signing up now, again I recommend that you watch the Twitter basics video.  All Twitter chats use a # (hashtag) in their tweets to designate that they are part of a specific chat. Our hashtag is #PTOchat. Once you have an account, you then choose how you want to follow the conversation. You can just follow it in Twitter but there are many other unrelated conversations going on and it’s somewhat difficult to follow.

To make the conversation easy to follow there are online applications that organize the tweets: tweetgrid and tweetchat. Tweetgrid has a nice, little how-to tutorial on how to use Tweetgrid to set up and participate in a Twitter party.

Don’t let all these videos give you the wrong impression though – it really is simple to participate. You are basically IMing with other people on one topic and participating in and following the conversation using the #PTOchat hashtag. Easy Peasy.  It’s a very forgiving form of communication — can’t really make a mistake.

That said, if you are not ready to jump into a conversation but would like to get a gist of a Twitter chat, we’ll let you off the hook this time. To eavesdrop on our parent involvement convo,  go to one of the sites mentioned above and search on the #PTOchat hashtag during our chat (don’t need to use your Twitter login this way).  The downside of sitting on the sidelines? You are not eligible to receive our #PTOchat give-away, that folks will receive for tweeting with us during the March 24th chat, using the #PTOchat in their tweets.  This month we are going to give away a free Parent Involvement Kit to every person who tweets during our chat. At the end of our #PTOchat, we’ll also be giving away a t-shirt.

Hope you’ll join Tim and I to talk about effective ways to increase parent involvement. Bring your questions and ideas. Lots to talk about!

Are your meetings the worst part of your PTO job? Have you been doing them the same way for years? Do folks dread the second Tuesday of the month (or the first Wednesday, or whenever)?

Making meetings work is a frequent challenge for all parent groups, and my advice this week is to think differently. There’s no global law that says you have to read last month’s minutes at every meeting. Use your website and email to distribute them beforehand.

There are all kinds of sacred cows (the budget report, having the meeting every month in the first place) that you can choose to change. I loved this post on our message boards last week — read how this group is approaching meetings in a new way. Can you borrow some of these ideas? Their approach may or may not be right for your group, but it’s a great example of thinking differently.

I bet you’ll also like these resources from ptotoday.com on making meetings better:

• Successful Meetings: 14 Tips
• Meetings File Exchange
• Meetings/Robert’s Rules topic page

If something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to change it up. Often that kind of spirit can spread throughout your group and lead to surprisingly great results.

This week’s round-up features the fun and not so fun.

First the fun. At PTO Today we talk a lot about how important it is to infuse some fun into your parent group. Well, these groups certainly seem to have the fun factor figured out.

• Nothing like some good-natured competition to liven up a school community:  Iron Chef competition.
• This PTO is giving families a chance to get creative with an all-day scrapbooking event.
• Families at this school love their Spaghetti dinner family night tradition. Sometimes it’s the old fashioned favorite that is the most fun.
• Getting high schoolers on board with a fundraiser can be a bit tough. This NJ PTO figured out a fun event to do the trick: a fashion show fundraiser. Loved that they involved the students by sponsoring a contest for the invitation. Neat idea.
• This school combined a  school carnival with a silent auction and had over 1000 attendees. Wow, that says a lot about the community!

Ok, now for the not-so-fun. Speaking to the need of solid financial controls in your parent group, there were several stories in the news this week about embezzlement:

Woman pleads guilty to $35,000 PTA theft.

PTA treasurer sentenced to three years of probation for stealing nearly $75,000 over a six-year period.

Ex-PTA president sentenced for stealing funds.

Being a middle school PTO leader is challenging. The standard tactics to bring parents in — family events and doughnuts with dad — don’t work as well when the kids’ hormones are kicking in and being seen with Mom or Dad becomes a prison sentence.

That pressure from the kids not to attend events is very real, and if you want to have success with parents of older kids, you really need to address it. My best advice: Bring those older kids into the process. What kind of events would they find cool? What do they want you to do? Can they help you plan it? Can you even make it seem like it’s their event?

One of our Parent Group of the Year winners from a few years back was a middle school group that created several great student events with lots of different activities, including separate overnight parties for the 6th grade girls and boys. The fact is that parents participated and volunteered, parents attended, and connections were made.

If parents are connecting and getting involved at school and meeting teachers, that’s the result we’re looking for. If you have to have a Survivor contest or American Idol night or an all-night Xbox party to make those things happen, then go for it. Involvement does change at the middle school level — but if you’re creative and flexible, it doesn’t have to go away.

Hello All –

Would you mind taking 5 minutes to help us help you and other parent group leaders?

There’s a link to a quick survey here: Parent Group Leader Survey

We haven’t done this in a while, but it’s always helpful to get an update on the latest with parent groups and parent group leaders. What you’re doing. How you’re using the web and technology. What we can do for you? All that good stuff.

Really appreciate your taking the time to help us out. Confident that you’ll see the results in the next few months as we plan our next advancements here on the site and beyond.

Here’s another way to ask that question: are you bragging enough about your PTO or PTA? In this week’s video blog Tim says that groups may not realize it, but not boasting enough can have a negative affect on your ability to recruit more members/volunteers and fundraise successfully.

Some of the ways that Tim suggests to promote your group are:

• newsletters
• local newspaper articles (write a press release)
• brass plaques

We also hear of many groups using Twitter and Facebook to toot their horn a bit and grow involvement.

How does your group get the word out to your school about your hard work? We’d love to hear from you.

I have an assignment for you this week — check out the last four or five PTO emails or notices home and see what kind of message you’re sending about your group’s DNA.

We talk a lot about making our groups more welcoming and trying to bring more parents into the volunteering fold. But are your messages home supporting those goals?

Funny thing is, I’m talking about little things: Do you start with a welcome? Do you always close with a sincere thank-you? Are you preachy or do you use guilt tactics (”It’s hard to believe that in a school with 400 children, we can’t get 10 volunteers”)? (I wrote a column a while back about avoiding guilt recruiting.) Or do you remain positive even when the frustrations of a long year are getting to you? Do you take the time to be careful with your editing and to try to write well?

These are the simple things that play a role in how you’re perceived by parents at your school. Tone tells a story about your group. Careful editing says your group believes its work is important.

I know you’re busy. And I know it’s hard to stay positive when you’re working so hard and facing obstacles and complaints along the way. But these little things do matter.

This week’s round-up highlights projects and events that underscore the mission of  school parent groups.

Have some fun:

Caribbean style

Taking pies in the face

Do good:

Fighting world hunger

Organizing a prom dress swap

Sharing globally

Reinforce school curriculum:

Math-a-Mania

Multi-Cultural Festival

Support our kids:

Fabulous after-school programs

Educating parents on teen safety

Keep doing what you’re doing- you’re doing a great job!

Where do you get all your ideas? That’s a question our editors hear often, and the answer is simple: We get them from you. We now have close to 600 articles on ptotoday.com, and nearly all of them were written because parent group leaders were willing to share ideas and talk about what works and what doesn’t.

One of my favorite sections of the website is the Idea Bag. It’s a large collection of ideas on a wealth of different topics, from parent involvement to teacher appreciation to great events to meetings to fundraising. Some of the ideas were compiled by our staff, like the list of six ideas for spring family events. But most of them were submitted by individual parent group leaders. One of my favorites is the dads’ reading night, shared by Lora Lakin of the Rockford (Minn.) Area Schools. Fathers came with their kids to hear books read by prominent community dads, like the fire chief. They also spent some time learning what the school library had to offer and how to use the online card catalog. What a terrific involvement event!

If you haven’t done so already, check out the Idea Bag and don’t forget to share some of your own ideas. Things that seem old hat to you may be new to a lot of other parent group leaders.

That’s my tip for this week-share with other leaders. Whether it’s on ptotoday.com or at a meeting over coffee with PTO folks from other schools in your district, sharing ideas helps everyone involved.

Happy Valentine’s day, Happy Chinese New Year, and Happy President’s day!

Here’s a quick overview of articles from this week. Perhaps these stories about creative PTOs & PTAs will inspire some new ideas for your parent group:

PTO reaches out community members in need. Very nice.
Like how this Nebraska school puts the fun in  fundraisers.

Always enjoy reading about school auctions with fun, upbeat themes.

PTO sponsors afterschool program prepares kids for the business world.

There has been an alarming amount of news about bullying in schools recently. Nice to hear that this PTO is doing it’s part to take on bullying issues.

Also, it’s sad to read so much about school closings. Threats of school closings has sent some parent groups into fundraising overdrive.

Came across several contests that I thought parent group leaders may be interested in:

http://www.meetingtomorrow.com/audio-visual-giveaway.html
http://www.gardenabcs.com/
http://www.parenting.com/momcongress/

Enjoy!