PTO Today

There seem to be more and more sites these days talking about what’s wrong with schools, and I suppose there’s a need for that.  But we also know there’s a lot right about our schools, and we always like when that gets attention too.

It’s why we created our own version of “Find a School” and why we encourage you to click through and add your own comments about your school.  Let the world know what’s going right in your school.  (I’m sure it starts with a great group of parent volunteers, right?).

Hope you’ll also encourage all the parents at your school to chime in.  Our find-a-school tool is referenced by a ton of young parents (choosing where the little one is headed) and moving parents (picking a new house based on the possible new school) – and the more reviews of your school the better.

For encouraging the reviews (and, frankly, for encouraging your parents to take advantage of all the great content on schoolfamily.com), we also have a nice tool you can put right on your PTO or PTA website.

I suppose I should explain that www.schoolfamily.com is a sister site to this one.  Whereas www.ptotoday.com aims to help the leaders of local PTOs and PTAs run their groups most effectively, www.schoolfamily.com aims to help the general population of school parents do their best in the important job of getting their kids through school most successfully.  Sometimes we think of the site as a web assistant to all the work you do (as a parent group leader) in trying to explain why parent involvement is so essential.

Spread the (good) news….

As the son of a 30-year first-grade teacher, I can say with great confidence that teachers don’t need any more ceramic apples. None. Nada. Zippo. I’ll just leave it at that.

While apples got old quick, my mom still does treasure notes she received and loves to remember students of hers, as she reads about their exploits (college, jobs, marriages, babies) in the local paper.

That’s why I really like a new product from Josten’s (yes — the picture and yearbook and ring guys) that I think will make an excellent teacher appreciation gift. It’s a simple-to-make photo memory book that will make a great keepsake for a teacher. I know my mom would have loved it.

The class picture.  Some candids from the field trip or the classroom. Shots from the class play.  Good stuff. Cool idea for the room moms at your school, too.

That seems about dead-on perfect, no?  Love the fact that this Tennessee super honors parents. Love the fact that this PTO leader was the big winner.  And love her very humble and very appropriate – we do it for the kids — reaction.  Cool.

In a perfect world, all of our volunteer efforts would garner this kind of praise.  It’s well-deserved, and it also serves to encourage others to jump in.  That’s also the spirit of our annual Parent Group of the Year campaign. Has your group bragged (It’s OK! It’s Ok!) yet this year?  You should. Nice prizes, too, thanks to our friends at DirectTV.

Love the spirit behind these good-hearted wagers — the zanier the better.  Last week it was the Principal in the bunny suit riding a Harley and today it’s the Principal sleeping overnight on the school roof (in 30-degree weather!). 

In both cases, it was the school leadership and the parents teaming up to create excitement about learning and supporting the school.  And kids who learned that teamwork and fun and hard-work and results can all go together.

Here’s a lesson in the power of impressions over reality and the dangers of unintended consequences.  It’s from New Jersey where one PTO’s “tree” (in the school hallway, each leaf represents a family that donated to the PTO) is causing quite a stir.

Worth noting first that i am 100% certain that the PTO leaders here had no intention of hurting anyone’s feelings or causing harm.

But that doesn’t change how some parents feel, and that reality has to be taken into account.  I hope these guys can all come back together.  It sounds like this group already does a great job of thanking volunteers all year round, so my suggestion:  how about makig this tree two times or three times as big and combining the $$ donators and the hours donators on one big community tree in a “we’re all in this together” spirit.

How do you feel about this dust-up?  Should the parents who donated nothing just pony up a buck and get a leaf?  Or is this gripe legit?

Some interesting and creative reading over on babble.com. Hate is an awfully strong word, but — as a parent group leader — there are days when I can relate to both of these very different perspectives. This writer now hates her PTA after having been a leader.  But this one expected the worst but now loves her PTA (which I actually suspect is a PTO, but that’s just a quibble).

And the babble folks even have a snarky poll (”is the PTA an evil cult or a utopian paradise or somewhere in-between?”) as a follow-up.  Wait — they’re stealing our schtick!

I can definitely laugh at parent group humor and stereotypes, but I’ve been to  an awful lot of PTO and PTA meetings, and I’ve rarely, if ever, met the “Bree” (from Desperate Housewives”) character that is so often portrayed as the typical parent group leader. More often, it’s regular folks holding on to the safety bar of life with both hands just trying to survive the ride like the rest of us.

Here’s a concept I hope you can run with. Check out this day-long, free “Parent University” put on by a Nevada PTO. What a service for the community’s families. Fifty parents attended and I’m sure got a ton of benefit, but every family in that school received a very clear message on what this PTO is all about.

Run on a Saturday, topics and guest experts ranged from academics to discipline to dealing with parent stress and more. Very cool.

I can’t think of a better group for this than us active volunteer leaders, so I’ve got a request:

One of our best partners (Symantec/Norton) is working on a pretty exciting new development around keeping our kids safe online. This product hasn’t been released to the public yet, and Symantec is looking for a few PTO Today regulars to be test drivers. Your input will help make the product even better for families all over the world. Better yet, you’ll get to use the product yourself and — at the end of the process — get 6 months more for free. Kind of cool.

You can register here for the sneak preview and feedback program. Symantec will follow-up form there. I hope you can take advantage and help out.

Looking for a programming/service idea? Like what these guys did with a community health fair. Looks like three different groups got involved, recruited some neat local speakers, and even roped in the Radio Disney crew for some fun. Cool.

Like the community spirit of this local parent-serving effort. Local PTO partners with Visting Nurses Association to bring flu shots right to school setting.

We’re seeing this more and more these days from individual groups, and — as often happens — these good grass-roots ideas tend to bubble up into full-blown organized efforts. PTAs, for example, can do something similar through this program. I suspect we’ll be seeing more of these national-scale through-schools flu efforts coming, too. It’s the perfect place to reach high numbers of involved families.