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!

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.

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.

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!

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!

If you are not familiar with the basics of twitter, watch the video below:

Most importantly, Twitter is a great tool for building parent involvement. Here are some sample posts or tweets from parent groups:

PTO Meeting this Thursday. XHS Princpals will be on hand to talk about the upcoming transition for the 8th graders. Don’t miss it!

Thanks to all who have volunteered for Friday’s Holiday Shoppe. We still need more volunteers – if you can help, DM me.

Working on our school auction. Anyone have an ideas for a fun theme?

Some Twitter lingo and basics:

Follow- When you follow someone on Twitter, that means you elect to see, in your twitter stream,  the tweets that they post.

Tweets – this is just another word for post or status.

Your “followers”-  (a.k.a. “tweeps,” or “tweeple”) are the people who have chosen to see your tweets.

@ Replies – When you want to reply to someone or simply get their attention, you use the @ sign followed by their username and your message. Note that when you do this, everyone who follows you and that person sees your message.

Direct messages –  To send a private message you type a ‘d’ before their user name and then the message. Direct messages  are often referred to as “DM.”  You cannot, however, DM just any Twitter user – only people who you follow and happen to be following you back. This restriction helps prevent spamming.

Adding links to your Tweets:  You can include links in your tweet simply by posting the complete URL, including “http://”, but some URLs are long. Luckily there are free online services that will shorten your URLs. Three popular services are Hootsuite, snurl,  and bit.ly. They all work basically the same way: You enter the long URL, and the service generates a shortened URL. You then copy and paste the short URL into your tweet.

Still not convinced you should jump on the Twitter bandwagon? Watch this Youtube video about the social media revolution.

Now that you’re convinced, we hope you’ll follow us on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/ptotoday
http://twitter.com/TimPTO
We’d also love you to join the conversation on our Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/PTOToday
Does your school use Twitter? We’d love to hear how you are using it and how you have encouraged parents to engage with this new form of communication.

School Family Events:

Enthusiasm is the key ingredient in this parent group-sponsored math night.

PTO runs a fitness day where football rules.

Creative PTO party animals set the stage for success.

Teachers & parents with talent serve up plenty of inspiration at this school!

Loved this PTA event that encourage middle schoolers to honor family history.

And it always saddens me to post articles about thefts from parent groups but they certainly serve as good reminders for PTOs & PTAs to employ smart financial controls.

Parent Group Thefts:

http://www.brainerddispatch.com/stories/020510/new_20100205001.shtml

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100127/LOCAL1804/1270354/Maplewood-Elementary-PTO-chief-jailed-in-theft

Has your parent group been in the news and you’d like to share your story with other leaders? Email me at lgundlach@ptotoday.com and I’ll include it our weekly round-up.

courtesy of stock.xchng

Just came across a really neat program called the Green Thumb Challenge, offered by the Green Education Foundation (GEF).  Sounds like a wonderful opportunity for parent groups, schools, and most importantly kids!

The purpose of the challenge is to introduce kids across the country to the joys and healthy benefits of gardening.

The program runs between February 1 and August 31, 2010 and has set the goal of 10,000 classroom and outdoor gardens. How cool is it to think of 10,000 schools and parent groups working together to teach their children more about nature, sustainability, and nutrition? Besides the obvious benefits of participation, GEF has teamed up with Lowe’s and is offering all participants $10 off a $50 purchase at Lowe’s, and the opportunity to be awarded a $5,000 grant in recognition of their garden project.

Think I’ll bring it up at the next PTO meeting, how about you?

Here’s the news recap for this week:

Found more great stories about schools and parent groups coming through for Haiti with creative ideas:

http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/darien/newsnow/x1920347013/Glenbard-schools-host-fundraisers-for-Haiti

http://www.courier-gazette.com/articles/2010/01/29/news_update/252.txt

http://freehold.injersey.com/2010/01/28/freehold-twp-pupils-hopping-for-haiti-2/

Always happy to see articles about fun family events:

Mini golf:  http://www.cannonfalls.com/main.asp

Science Fair: http://www.morningsun.net/featured/x562888504/Lakeside-hosts-annual-Science-Fair

Fundraising, the good, the bad, and the ugly:

Good: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm

http://www.redbankgreen.com/2010/01/get-ready-to-keel-over-in-the-kitchen.html

Bad: http://www.ktvb.com/news/regional/Papa-Johns-franchise-short-changed-elementary-schools-83042432.html

Ugly: http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp

Remember, if your parent group  has been in the news and you’d like to share your story with other leaders email me at lgundlach@ptotoday.com and I’ll include your story in our round-up. If you are wondering how to get your school event in the news, be sure to read our article on how to write a press release.