PTO Today

How many times have your kids said to you, “Hey mom, check out this funny video on YouTube?” Now it’s your turn to share a fun video with your kids, your friends, family members and teachers at your kids’ school…

The neat (no pun intended) thing is that by sharing this video you’ll be helping schools that are struggling financially get the cleaning supplies they need. Bounty is going to make a one-time donation of $200,000 worth of paper towels (retail value) to schools in need if they get 2,000,000 views by Jan. 31st (with distribution help by PTO Today). So we encourage you “to bring it” – share the video and help schools around the country. Kind of refreshing to see brands with a sense of humor and heart, isn’t it?

I’m sure you do a ton for your school. But do your key audiences really understand all that you do? I bet you talk about your fundraisers a lot. Do you talk about all that your fundraisers provide even more?

A key habit of successful PTOs and PTAs is to focus on your good work all year round. If you don’t, no one else will, and you’ll be known as “the group that always wants my money” or “the group that always wants my time” rather than “the group that does such essential work for our school.”

One of my best tips here: Make sure you tag anything and everything you purchase for the school with a nice plaque or sticker or nameplate that reads something like “Gratefully Donated by XYZ School Parents and the XYZ PTO.” Working on a playground or new risers for the auditorium? Find a way to remind all of the students and families who use those items (for the next 10 years!) that it was the good work of your PTO that made them possible.

This is not just to brag. It’s how you strategically (and consistently, and frequently) emphasize your good work. This is the kind of habit that makes your fundraisers more successful and that helps you bring in new volunteers each year. Folks like to be associated with and support successful endeavors. If you’re successful but don’t tell anyone, then that dynamic will never help you out.

We have several great articles on marketing your PTO and changing impressions:

• Basic Marketing That Builds Involvement
• Communication Tips for Better Involvement
• Put On Your Sales Hat

Good luck!

Does my heart good to read about so many family nights in the news this week! Here are the highlights:

• Lady Gaga songs at a Family Reading Night? You bet (as long as there aren’t Lady Gaga costumes ; -)
• Wow, this school had 600 people attend their well-organized Reading Night! Neat that they included a book swap as part of the night.
• Family Math Night is one of 4 family nights for this school. Interesting that they are trying to persuade parents to come to all four by offering prize. Would love to hear how the incentive affects numbers.
• Family fun nights don’t have to be fancy to work. This school brought families together with board games and the ever-popular apple, toothpick and gumdrop, turkey- making activity.
• I stumbled upon this school’s page about  Science Family Fun Nights. What a jackpot of information and ideas. I think every school should have one of these nights!
• Also came across another school website that lists their family fun nights present and past… great place to pick up some family night themes and ideas.

What family fun nights does your school do? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below, on our message boards (add your ideas to the family night ideas thread) or on Facebook.

If you are new to family nights be sure to check out our School Family Nights page. Hint: our free kits take the hassle out of organizing an event from scratch.

Educating kids is a big job. It takes help from parents, community groups, and even business partners. As director of the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University, Joyce Epstein helps schools partner with all these groups to help students succeed. One of her top priorities is promoting productive family involvement.

NNPS draws upon decades of research on parent involvement and school improvement to help schools and their partners focus their efforts on what works best. That means making sure everything they do helps schools reach their goals. We talked with Joyce to find out how parent groups fit into the picture.

What is your message for parent group leaders?

Have a conversation about “What is the goal of parent involvement?” Is it to involve parents for parent involvement’s sake, or is it to help youngsters do better in school? We have learned that if it isn’t about the students’ success, then principals and superintendents and community leaders consider family involvement “fluff.” If it is about student success and if it’s in tune with what the teachers are working hard on every day, then family and community involvement is considered central to the success of school improvement goals.

What are some ways PTOs can contribute to student success?

Parent groups can help by creating a welcoming feeling at school. For example, the PTO might sponsor a picnic before school opens to help all families feel that they are partners with the teachers for the new school year. Other parent groups have held a drive-through breakfast to offer parents coffee and a “thank you” for what they’re doing to support their children as students in school. When there’s a good climate of partnerships at a school, it’s more likely that other activities that focus on student learning goals will occur.

We also want everyone to be working on activities that will link family and community involvement to student results and good outcomes. PTAs and PTOs can make sure that any curriculum-related programs that they have are tied to what teachers are working on with students in their classrooms. If the parent group recruits volunteers for a “reading buddy” program, for example, it’s important to make sure that what they do links to what the teachers need the students to practice. Otherwise, the program may involve parents as volunteers but may not really help the kids improve their reading skills or attitudes.

What is your advice for PTO leaders who want to increase parent involvement?

Talk with the principal about how the group’s activities can be linked to what the staff is trying to achieve with the school improvement plan. And keep the focus on student success. Also, we would like the PTO or PTA to let the principal know that NNPS can be a resource to the school (and to the district) to provide ongoing guidance for strong and sustainable partnership programs.

—Emily Graham

Much of our focus as PTO or PTA leaders is on building involvement and fundraising. This week Tim suggests that you add another focus to your agenda: serving parents at your school. No, we’re not talking about serving them spaghetti or ice cream at your ice cream social. We are talking about serving parents by delivering programs that provide pertinent parenting information without asking for anything in return. There are so many hot topics that dominate the side lines at the soccer field: How to deal with homework, internet safety*, and the college application process, to name a few. Watch Tim’s video blog to hear his thoughts on these events.

*We have a free kit to help you run an Internet Safety Night. Check it out!

You probably knew that getting involved in your child’s education can help his academic achievement, but did you know it could help improve his social skills, too? A study published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development found that kids of highly involved parents had better social skills and fewer behavior problems at school than children whose parents were not as involved.

The study by University of Pittsburgh researchers looked at students in 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades. Those whose parents had above-average involvement at school got along better with their classmates and made fewer trips to the principal’s office.

One explanation for the improved behavior is that the more often parents visit or volunteer at school, the more opportunities they have to talk with teachers about their child’s behavior. As parents become better informed about their child’s social troubles at school, they can address the issues at home. Involved parents were also more likely to be aware of school and community resources that could benefit their child socially and academically.

—Emily Graham

Well it’s officially autumn now! Happy Friday to all our hard-working friends. Just did a scan of the news this week and a few headlines caught my eye. Perhaps these parent group stories will inspire new events or ideas for your group.

Walk-a-thon raises $12,179

2,500 volunteers get things done on Day of Caring

PTO car show growing in popularity

Fun fest brings families together

Kamp-out in Redlands offered stars, tents and s’mores

Have a fabulous first weekend of fall! As always, if your PTO or PTA is in the news let us know.

Besides providing great family activities and supporting your school with resources and volunteers, are you helping the parents at your school become better school parents? It’s an often-overlooked role of the best parent groups around the country.

Whether it’s sharing information (or bringing in speakers) on Internet safety or college preparedness or connecting families to academics with a program like Family Reading Night — your group can go far beyond fundraisers and fun nights.

With that in mind, we’ve recently launched a really simple web plug-in for school and PTO and PTA websites that automatically shares great tips on being a good school parent — how and when to help with homework, best ways to communicate with teachers, managing the morning madness, etc. — with all the parents at your school. The “widget” pulls the best content from our sister site, SchoolFamily.com, and displays it and updates it right on your website. Any webmaster can grab the code and add it in just a couple of minutes. You can also feel free to add the same links to your print or email newsletters.

Great teachers teach. Great principals keep effective schools running well. Great parent groups are passionate about helping all of the parents at their school connect and serve. Hopefully, this new web tool will help you do that even better.

Starting to think about back to school and getting parents involved? One of the best approaches I know of for increasing involvement is our 2 Hour Power pledge program.

Basically, you ask parents to pledge two hours of volunteering, any kind of volunteering, per semester or per year. And you make it clear that you’ll celebrate those two hours and not ask/badger/guilt them about doing more. For many parents, the reason they don’t volunteer is because they feel that volunteering once will send them down this super-volunteer path that they can’t escape from.

You want to make volunteering less scary for parents. And 2 Hour Power can help you do that. Plus you’ll get lots of two-hour time donations, which really add up. Even better, many of those folks will find that the volunteering wasn’t half bad and — even without you badgering — will sign up for more. Nice, right? I highly recommend you give the concept a try.

Our 2 Hour Power materials have lots of tools and know-how for executing a program like this. If you’re looking for more ideas for connecting with volunteers at back-to-school time, check out this article on welcoming new families.

Are you the designated historian of your PTO or PTA? Or maybe, you are simply the person who happens to have a knack for photography and brings your camera to all the events. Either way, you are left with the task of organizing all those photos. And often (not always!) if you were blessed with the creative gene, you didn’t get the organization gene. If you fit into that category, sorting through and organizing those digital photos can be down right daunting. Can you tell that I speak from experience? So, I recently did a little research on best ways to organize photos and thought I’d share what I learned.

The first step in organizing your photos is to choose where to store them.  Storing photos on your computer’s hard drive can be a bit risky. Crashes do happen. External sites like Picassa or Flickr provide free storage and offer other great organizational benefits.  I happen to love Picassa because they make things so simple. Check out this video on the basics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rskC6c_5L1M

Once you choose a storage method, there are a few photo organizing basics to keep in mind.  The biggest tip, moving forward, is only download your photos when you have time to organize them. First, delete the photos that you don’t want as you go. Next, move your photos into the appropriate folders.  If you don’t take these steps when you download, chances are it will never get done. Once you finish downloading, remove the photos from your camera to avoid downloading twice and duplicate photos.Ugh!

The next tip is pretty obvious but I’ll mention it — just in case. When you create folders, include a real, recognizable name (I’m guessing I am not the only one who has given a folder a name that was meaningful at the time, but is cryptic a year or two later.) And always include a month and year in the name. Or if you prefer, you can just create a folder for each year and then have files within that with your event names.

Here a few other sites that provide some good information on photo organizing:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/learnmore/folders.mspx

http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/digital_photography/organize_archive_photos/tips/photo_organization.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10458296-263.html

OK, three last related tips:

• Take lots of photos. You can fool yourself into thinking … I am busy and there is always the next time.   But trust me, you will not remember how you set up your event, what the center pieces looked like, etc.  and you will certainly forget the stills of smiling faces. These events and years go by very quickly!
• After you have happily downloaded and organized your photos, share them with your community in your newsletter or website. Photos are a great way to build community and remind people of the good your group does.
• Finally,  please share your event photos with other parent group leaders on our site. You know the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”  No where is that more true than on our group pages. I have picked up some great auction classroom project ideas on our Auction group page and some of the photos on our family reading night group page have sparked some new theme ideas!

That’s it. Did I miss anything? Please add your tips in our comments section. Happy photo organizing!