PTO Today

Simple note this week as we move into August. I’ve written more than 70 columns for PTO Today magazine these past 12 years. Here are my 3 favorites, where I have a point of view that may surprise you.

A Tale of Two Volunteers: Bridging the newbie-veteran gap.

Let Teachers Teach: What do you really want, and what should you expect, from the “T” in PTO?

The Truth About Cliques: If people say your group is a clique, it is. In this case, perception matters.

Very excited to announce to you today the launch of our newest service for parents and teachers and PTOs and PTAs: TeacherWishList.com.

If your teachers and school are like most, then 1) teachers are spending nearly $500 of their own money each year on classroom supplies, and 2) parents try to help out where they can.

That’s why we developed TeacherWishList.com — we’re taking the old-fashioned printed wish list and making it a lot more new-fashioned using the web and email tools and even social media. Teachers can load their lists (or parents or your PTO can load the lists for them) and then share and update the lists and basically get the help they deserve.

My advice: Check out Teacher Wish List yourself (and recommend it to your teacher friends). For PTOs and PTAs, we’ve also put together a free kit to help your parent group introduce Teacher Wish List to the whole school. It has posters for the teachers’ lounge, letters to teachers and parents, and more. Get a kit for your school at TeacherWishList.com/freekit.

For a limited time, there are also some great giveaways with Teacher Wish List. Each week, our partners at Bounty are giving 10 teachers $462 (the amount they spend on average out of their own pockets), and participating schools will be entered to win a $25,000 creative classroom makeover, as well. It’s great stuff! And we here at PTO Today have added a bit to the pot with $462 grants for PTOs and PTAs that get their whole school involved (start by ordering the free kit).

Look for more updates on Teacher Wish List in the weeks and months ahead. We’d love your feedback on how we can make it an even better solution for your teachers, your parents, and your school.

My fourth and youngest child enters kindergarten next month. While she knows a lot of the teachers and kids at her new school (thanks to her brothers), she’ll also get a warm welcome at our school’s sixth annual welcome party for incoming kindergartners.

The students love it; parents love it; and it’s been really good for our parent group, too. Even better, it’s really simple to execute.

The recipe is basically: 1) a two-hour window at our local playground’s covered picnic area; 2) an invitation to each new student and family; 3) about five big buckets of ice cream; 4) some napkins, name tags, and water; and 5) a bunch of crossed fingers for sun.

The kids show up and play with their soon-to-be new buddies on the playground. Everyone gets a name tag. All the parents cautiously and politely mingle. We usually have 10 to 15 veteran families there to welcome and answer questions from nervous newbies. The welcome speech is maybe three to four minutes tops. The focus is on ice cream and fun and community.

The end result: We have a nice crop of new students and families whose first interaction with our school is very positive and warm. It’s also been a great way to informally introduce our parent involvement opportunities to these new parents. Very cool.

I hope you can create a tradition of your own at your school. We have a ton of good content on welcoming new families:

• Open Doors, Lots of Them
• Make New Families Feel Welcome
• Community Night Helps Families Find Resources

Is your group extensively using email yet? If not, you simply have to make it part of your 2011-12 plans. Now’s the time to set the stage.

Why email? When compared with traditional PTO and PTA printed flyers, email is less expensive, more green, and far easier. Most important, email is more effective (reaches parents more easily) and is preferred by your target audience of parents.

The first step is getting the email addresses and the back-to-school forms are the easiest place to start. Work now to get the forms right to collect email addresses and permission from all of your parents this fall. Here’s a sample email opt-in form.

And how do you send the email? There are multiple options, but I think you’ll really like our Parent Express Email tool. It’s free and easy, and — with our tech guys working hard all the time — it’s getting better every month. Whether you’re new to emailing parents or you’ve been doing it another way (like your personal Outlook account), I think you’ll find Parent Express (PEX) to be your best option. Give it a try.

No tip this week. Fourth of July week should be the apex of PTO and PTA relaxation. One year done. Another year still over the horizon. Enjoy!

If you’re looking for some light reading, here are three of my favorite “fun” PTO features from this past year:

• Workouts for PTO leaders
• How many PTOers does it take to change a light bulb?
• Fantastic vacation spots just for PTO and PTA leaders

Good stuff!

Before you make definitive plans for next year’s PTO or PTA calendar, have you sat down with your principal and asked about her top two or three priorities for next year? If not — have that conversation first.

Parent involvement and family and volunteer activities of all kinds are great. But parent involvement that brings parents into discussions about and solutions for key school challenges is the most powerful. Perhaps reading scores are a struggle. If so, a Family Reading Night (with collaboration from your reading staff) might be a better fit than the annual Science Night. Or you could add a book swap and book club to the school calendar. Or volunteer parent readers and tutors. You get the idea.

The same kind of thinking and collaboration can apply to all kinds of priorities, but only if you have that conversation with your principal and/or staff. The challenges might be related to academics, social skills, safety, physical fitness, or something else. Working together with school staff, you can multiply your impact.

Here are a few more links on that kind of collaboration:

• Make It an A+ Year
• Help Build Student Achievement
• Make the Principal Your Partner

P.S. — Speaking of reading, I wanted to give you a heads up about a fun summer reading list sweepstakes from our sister site, SchoolFamily.com. Head over to the SchoolFamily Facebook page and share your favorite children’s book for a chance to win a $200 Amazon gift card. Good luck!

Believe it or not, now is the right time to do some assessing of your PTO or PTA. Sure, rest. You’ve earned it. But also try to find some time (even just trading emails) with your fellow leaders to think about the big picture of your group before you get back into the craziness of a new year.

One question to ask: Does your group have a signature event, something big and successful that you’re known for?

Many groups have lots of OK events. Those groups struggle to get new volunteers and the results of the events are OK, too.

The cool thing about signature events is that not only do they become more effective and more memorable and more fun (positively changing the reputation of your group in the process), they also attract volunteers more easily. Self-servingly, people are much more likely to volunteer at an event with cachet than at another just OK family night.

How can you do it? If you have too many middling events, drop a few and use the extra energy on expanding and improving the others. Take your Family Reading Night and blow it out into a communitywide reading week with the mayor and local celebrities. Add the best local DJ to your dinner-dance. Put some creative muscle around your marketing and PR for these events. You get the idea.

Here are just a few links to profiles of PTOs that have done just this:

• Million Minute Reading Challenge
• School Spirit in the Spotlight
• A Special Day for Grandparents

How can you make it work at your school?

While you’re winding down this year and planning for next, here’s a key addition for your to do list: Audit your books. If the word “audit” makes you shudder with thoughts of the IRS and CPAs, hear me out. The kind of audit I’m talking about is a simple but thorough review of your financial records for the year. It can be done in an afternoon by a committee of two or three people — or even a single intrepid volunteer.

The process consists of reviewing all financial transactions that occurred during the year to make sure they were entered correctly: checks written, bank statements, deposit slips, etc. Even if you have the world’s greatest treasurer, you should have an audit. Thousands of dollars likely move in and out of your account during the year; it’s very important to double-check that those transactions were recorded properly.

For more details on running an audit, putting financial controls into place, and managing your finances, these articles on ptotoday.com are a good resource:

• Annual Audit: How and Why
• 5 Smart Financial Controls
• What Every Treasurer Should Know

Protecting your money is the responsibility of the entire board. Your treasurer puts in a lot of hours managing that money. Give her the support and your members the peace of mind of this important backup system.

Before my tip, a request/recommendation: If you’re a Facebook user, you should definitely follow PTO Today on Facebook. Tons of great interactions and PTO and PTA discussions and insight happening there.

And actually, my tip this week comes from a Facebook connection I made with an involved PTO mom. Her advice (and I concur): Never give an outright “no” to an offer of help from a parent at your school. It sends exactly the wrong message and is the first step in getting a clique reputation.

Yes, you may have enough help for this particular effort (and too many volunteers can be almost as bad as not enough), but take the time to explain that to the parent offering — and always have another nice volunteering opportunity (or even better, a few choices) to connect that parent with. The worst thing you can do is to simply say no and hope she calls back again later. Most often, she won’t. And she’ll think your frequent requests for help are hollow.

It actually takes work and attention to cultivate more new volunteers. Little steps mean a lot. And little mistakes can do real harm. If this is a challenge for you, you might also like this article about 13 keys to build involvement.

Good luck!

In the spirit of Memorial Day, my tip this week is a recommended link: Could your school Adopt a Platoon?

If you’re looking for a neat service project with real world and school applications, supporting our soldiers is a great fit. Perhaps your PTO or PTA could spearhead this effort as school closes or even in the new school year. Letters from the kids, photos, and — of course — supplies do a great deal to make a very difficult job a bit easier.

It’s also the kind of project that can be set up on your own through a school parent who has served (like this PTO parent did in New Hampshire) or through your local veteran’s agent, who probably knows the names of several men and women from your town who are serving overseas.

In this week, while we remember those who have given their lives in service to our country, it’s a perfect time to think about how we can connect our school families to these brave men and women.