PTO Today

Have seen a good amount of web chatter about this recent New York Times piece on a California district proposing mandatory parent volunteering for all 13,000 of its school families.

Thankfully, most of the reaction has seen this for the completely off-target proposal that it is. Here’s Larry Ferlazzo’s reaction, as an example.

You can guess my take. This simply isn’t the way to engage parents. Whether it’s a district, a school or a local PTO or PTA, growing involvement always, always, always starts with serving parents. This proposal is just the opposite, and is destined to fail. Folks don’t become real partners (raving fans, highly engaged… you name it) because you force them to do so. They become highly engaged because it becomes clear that your district or school or PTO or PTA is a great place to get engaged. They understand the value; they’re valued; they’re served.

I love the fact that this district gets just how important involvement is. And I even love pledge programs and the like (like our 2 Hour Power involvement pledge) to try and get as many parents as possible connected. But it has to be welcoming. It has to be positive. And it definitely has to be voluntary. This is just a flawed approach.

Interested in your thoughts…

Want to make a really good impression next fall? You’ve got to sign up your PTO or PTA to participate in our back-to-school program.

We’ve been doing this for four years now, and it’s really our simplest and perhaps our most effective service for parent groups. You get a very cool magazine to give out to parents (all about making it a great school year for their family), plus involvement posters for back-to-school night and tips on making more connections with parents, and even the chance to get free samples for your parents to kick off the year.

You can check out some sample pages and content from the magazine for a closer look.

There is a catch — we’ve had to turn away some schools in each of the past three years, so you have to sign up early. This program is limited to just 5,000 schools and parent groups. Again, the info and registration pages are at ptotoday.com/back2school.

I find that serving parents in this way at the start of the year is a great way to make a positive first impression, help them with some of the very real parenting challenges that come with a new school year, and help change the reputation you may have as “just a fundraising group.”

If you have any questions at all on this program (or any others), please don’t hesitate to email or call us. Hope it’s a big help for you.

Happy Valentine’s day, Happy Chinese New Year, and Happy President’s day!

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!

Tim talks about the 2010 Back2School Program and explains why parent group leaders should take advantage of this great opportunity to reach out and connect with parents at their schools.

Yes, I know it’s still January, but this is actually when we start accepting registrations from groups who want to sign up for our very cool annual Back2School package of know-how for your group and giveaways for your parents. You don’t want to miss this one.

Complete details on Back2School 2010 are here on the website. The program does fill up, and we have to turn away groups every year.

As a summary, the centerpiece of the Back2Schoool offering is Jump In! magazine, which is written to help parents make it a great school year. How and why to get involved. Tips for communicating with teachers and helping the kids succeed in school. Lots of stuff. You get one copy for each parent in your school to hand out from your parent group. (Check out some sample Jump In! articles and other content.)

We also provide custom materials to help you make the most of back-to-school night and ideas on kicking off a great involvement year for your PTO or PTA. There are usually extra giveaways from our sponsors and supporters, as well, which are always nice. And all of it is completely free for K-8 PTOs and PTAs.

Again, here’s the link for learning more and signing up. Hope we can help you take advantage.

Our online community is expanding! We are excited to let you know that we are adding “groups” to our community. What are groups? Think of this new area on our site as a virtual coffee shop, where you can collaborate with leaders around one topic or theme. Our goal is to help you share and discover targeted information more effectively in a supportive environment.

Our first group is the Family Movie Night Group. Why Family Movie Night? We hear from schools all the time that Family Movie Nights are their favorite way to build community. And if you’ve spent any time on our site, you know that we’re all about building community.

So visit our first group today. Lots to do on the Family Movie Night Group page:

• Share photos in the photo gallery – help other leaders with your great set-up and theme ideas.
• Chat with other leaders about ways to run a successful Family Movie Night.
• See which movies worked and didn’t work for other schools. Jump in with your two cents.
• Find helpful articles, tools and resources relating to Family Movie Night.

As always, we love to hear your feedback. What do you think about our first group? What other groups would you like us to add? Please jump in with your feedback and suggestions here.

Got your attention, didn’t I? Well this article about a PTA sponsoring a car creation contest certainly captured my interest! Kids who participated in the contest “drove” their car creations to the school’s drive-in. Loved that this event:

• fostered kid’s creativity
• encouraged kids and parents to work together
• promoted learning (how cool is it that it prompted kids to get online and research cars, etc.?)
• created a fun sense of community!

Thought you’d enjoy hearing about this unique PTA event. PTO Today is all for parent groups events that promote learning or tie into the curriculum.

If you spend anytime on our website, you know that we are all about  parent groups building community. That’s why we love this idea that a New Jersey PTA came up with; use their school’s PTA website to help neighbors in a down economy.  To accomplish this, they have set up an “items for exchange” section on their website — see the “can anyone use a…” tab. Very cool.

”With the current economy the way it is, it would be kind of nice for neighbors to help neighbors,” said Rodger Lippman, the PTA’s president and webmaster. “Items that may be obsolete for one person can go a long way toward helping someone else.”

Now, that’s the kind of parent group that will attract attention and make people want to join. Thought maybe your parent group would like to take this idea and run with it.

What does your PTO or PTA do to build community or reach out to neighbors? Jump in here and tell us about it.

I figured I’d take this opportunity in early July to speak to you as a parent, as opposed to as a PTO or PTA leader. Funny, isn’t it, how sometimes (often) our work being good PTO leaders makes it even harder to find the time to be good school parents?

Tackling that particular parenting challenge is the whole point of our sister site over at SchoolFamily.com. I hope you’ll take some time to check it out. I find helpful new stuff on there nearly every day.

Perhaps most interestingly, we’ve just added a brand-new “community” section on SchoolFamily.com. It’s a great place to connect with other parents and find solutions to the kind of school challenges (and joys!) you may be having with your family. I really like the interactive Q&A section, too.

As an added bonus, if you’re a PTO Today fan, the new SchoolFamily.com community functions provide a nice sneak preview of what’s coming soon for ptotoday.com. Expect even more cool functionality in the ptotoday.com version.

If you’ve been reading these tips for a while, you know how much we value parent involvement. The research makes it so clear that increasing parent involvement is perhaps the most important thing your group can achieve.

As your group gets better at involvement, you should think some about how you can increase your impact even more. Some of the most effective first steps to bringing parents in and making a connection are fun, welcoming events like a movie night or a carnival or a spaghetti supper. I’m a big fan of the value of community around a school.

As parents do start getting engaged, though, the research makes a strong case for integrating your family events with academic goals of the school. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to have the language arts teacher droning on to parents about the reading curriculum. But what about a Family Reading Night ? How can you merge other academic goals and your family events? That’s a second-level involvement step that can have an even greater impact at your school.

The whole thing is kind of a ladder. Like getting your kids into swimming — first you get them to the pool, then they dip their toes in the water, then they splash around some, then they can maybe swim a few strokes in the lanes. Creatively connecting the classroom with your family events can be another step on the ladder for your school next year.