We’ve worked with these guys a bit in the past, when we’ve had PTO Expos in the Philly area, but we’re continually impressed with the Philadelphia public schools and their outreach to parents. Here’s just another example, as district hosts wide-ranging Parent Appreciation Day. Love it.
Good details in this piece about an Ohio PTO’s overall efforts and their upcoming road race community day.
It’s that time of year when the new PTO cubs start bugging the seasoned PTO mama bears. Yup, I said it 
Whether you’re the spirited newcomer or the grizzled old verteran, I hope you can find some peace by thinking about what the other side is going through. This column on the gap between old volunteers and new volunteers could help.
Also find this quick diary/blog interesting from a brand new PTOer, attending her first meeting at a new school. Good to hear what the new eyes see. Love the observation about just how much trash can be turned into school cash (and the fact that she’s diving through the home trash to recover school treasure).
Prince Georges County (MD) making specific efforts to involve Dads. Article includes good research and background on why getting dads involved is so key.
Unusually strong (and long) piece here from Connecticut with excellent content for parents on the hows and whys for parents of getting involved at school. Good stuff.
OK, this PTA creatively calls it the “Kindergarten Cry” but I still love the name “Boo Hoo Breakfast” for an event to welcome/support the new parents at your school, who are letting go of their babies for the first time. Fun way to make that first connection and make a great first impression.
Reminds me — there a whole bunch of good “Boo Hoo Breakfast” docs in our File Exchange. Have you seen the File Exchange yet? It’s my favorite new PTO tool of 2008 (though I am a bit biased).
Gotta love it when a PTO realizes that involvement takes unique outreach… and then sees great success.
This PTO in Southwest Florida is hosting family events and they’re involvement motto is: “Make it Fun and They Will Come”. How great is that? Check out more about their involvement success in this article.
It’s such a fundamental truth of growing involvement — it starts with the family events. Meetings aren’t the key at all. You can have better meetings. You can have raffles for attending meetings. You can have shorter meetings. But they’re still meetings. When you’re trying to connect with those who aren’t connected, you have to attract them. (Hint: meetings are not attractive.)
This has probably been our number one topic on the site and in our talks (which is why I love this Florida story so much). Looking for more aroud this? We’ve got: My column on why meetings don’t matter nearly as much as most PTOs think. And we’ve got great family event ideas.
If you do nothing else this coming year, think this way. (Now, would someone please help me down of my soapbox???)
I just ran across this t-shirt site (and this one shirt, in particular), and I think I’ve found the best door-prize ever for a Kindergarten welcome event. Cool stuff. Thought I’d pass it along.
The core example is teacher selections — should heavily involved parents get to influence the teachers their kids get?
My take: Expect? No way. That’s a real quick way (once it comes out, and it *will* come out) to cement an insider/clique reputation that so many parents want to believe in the first place. A real involvement killer.
But there are certainly benefits that come naturally to those that get heavily connected to school. Things like knowing the best teachers and perhaps teachers taking extra interest in your child and getting to know so many other families at school. And I think that’s perfectly OK.
Would love your take. Should you get bennys for your volunteer leadership?
Excited to introduce all of our ptotoday.com readers and users to a new site we launched just this morning — schoolfamily.com.
It’s from the same team of involvement experts who bring you ptotoday.com, but you’ll see that the focus is subtly but importantly different. Where ptotoday.com is all about the challenges of being a great school PTO or PTA leader, schoolfamily.com is all about the challenges of being a great school parent. Example: ptotoday.com might talk about how to put on a spaghetti supper for 400, while schoolfamily would talk about why attending a spaghetti supper actually matters.
We’re excited about how this kind of new content can help you (as a leader) accomplish even more. Hope you’ll share the new site with all your parents, as helping parents “get it” when it comes to getting involved is what you’re all about and what schoolfamily.com is all about.
(We’d also love your ideas on how we can make schoolfamily.com even better.) Enjoy!
 Tim Sullivan |
 Kathryn Lagden |
You are currently browsing the archives for the Back to School category.
