PTO Today

Lots of chatter about school auctions this time of year! Did your school just have an auction? How did it go? Have you done a debrief on your event?

Here’s a question: Did some of your auction items create bidding wars? I bet they did. For tips on how to create bidding wars and other ideas on how to make your next auction a big success, watch Tim’s video blog. Also be sure to visit our new Auction Group page — your spot to access great auction tools and information, collaborate with other leaders,  share your event photos and tell other about your most lucrative and unique auction items!  Hope to see you over there soon.

Megan Fox, American Idol, texting donations. Wow, parent groups certainly are finding original ways to combat extreme budget cuts! With the level of cuts we are seeing recently, the standard school fundraisers aren’t enough. Have to hand it to these school communities — instead of just bemoaning the cuts, they are banding together to make things happen. With creativity and flair to boot.  Check out these programs:

• An elementary school in Laurel Canyon, California enlisted the help of Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green to create a video about the proposed education cuts from the state budget. Someone on that PTA understands the meaning of “viral” for sure!

• A troubled school district in Michigan has gone to impressive lengths to educate their community about budget cuts and offer ways people can help. The most compelling way is a raffle that is giving away 4 tickets to the American Idol Finale — including hotel and airfare. Sweet!

• Most would agree that in many areas, cuts to school budgets have reached crisis proportions. Vacaville Unified school district in California took note of the texting fundraising methods used for recent crises, like the Haiti earthquake, and was the first school to use this method. Kudos to these folks for their resourcefulness.

We wish these parent groups the best of luck. How is your PTO or PTA fighting budget cuts? Would love to hear about your programs.

Interesting snapshot here of local Texas schools and trends in parent volunteering. Membership and attendance by and large down, but I’m not sure it’s the economy to blame, as the writer offers..

I’ve seen just as many stories about laid off or less busy employees now finally having time to volunteer as I have stories about financial struggles limiting opportunities to get involved. Five years ago when the economy was flying, there were plenty of stories about volunteerism in schools being down relative to decades earlier. I suspect it’s much more societal than it is economic. So many options for parents these days, so many demands on our time.

Solutions: the effective PTO doesn’t just long for the good old days but instead deals with reality and adapts. If (and I’m actually not even convinced this was true back then) 30 years ago, all the moms showed up to PTO meetings because they were supposed to, today most are only going to get involved if you make it attractive and fun and show them why it’s worthwhile to be involved. (We have some good resources on making your group more attractive here.)

And even while you’re getting attractive, you also need to get much more flexible. If the Tuesday night meeting at 7PM is your only entry point for involvement, then you’ve eliminated a big % of your parents from whom that time just doesn’t work. Can parents get involved even if they can never make a meeting? Do you have opportunities for those who want to or need to help only from home? We have resources on that challenge, as well.

My conclusion: yes, the economy makes everything more difficult. But stock market up or stock market down, the keys to growing your volunteer base is in how you reach out and how you work to make volunteering work for today’s moms and dads.

What are you seeing? Economy effecting your group? How?

We’ve been having a lot of fun at our PTO Expos this year. Being able to talk face-to-face with energetic parent group leaders never gets old. Whether it’s hearing about the challenges you face or exchanging ideas about our School Family Nights, the experience of spending time with leaders at our Expos makes everything we do worthwhile. Of course, hearing all the positive feedback about our website, magazine and Expos is pretty darn neat too.

Moving forward, we hope to be sharing videos of conversations with Expo attendees about their school events and their reaction to the Expos. Here is our first video of two PTO leaders from Rhode Island, with their feedback on the Massachusetts Expo.

This week’s round-up features the fun and not so fun.

First the fun. At PTO Today we talk a lot about how important it is to infuse some fun into your parent group. Well, these groups certainly seem to have the fun factor figured out.

• Nothing like some good-natured competition to liven up a school community:  Iron Chef competition.
• This PTO is giving families a chance to get creative with an all-day scrapbooking event.
• Families at this school love their Spaghetti dinner family night tradition. Sometimes it’s the old fashioned favorite that is the most fun.
• Getting high schoolers on board with a fundraiser can be a bit tough. This NJ PTO figured out a fun event to do the trick: a fashion show fundraiser. Loved that they involved the students by sponsoring a contest for the invitation. Neat idea.
• This school combined a  school carnival with a silent auction and had over 1000 attendees. Wow, that says a lot about the community!

Ok, now for the not-so-fun. Speaking to the need of solid financial controls in your parent group, there were several stories in the news this week about embezzlement:

Woman pleads guilty to $35,000 PTA theft.

PTA treasurer sentenced to three years of probation for stealing nearly $75,000 over a six-year period.

Ex-PTA president sentenced for stealing funds.

Here’s another way to ask that question: are you bragging enough about your PTO or PTA? In this week’s video blog Tim says that groups may not realize it, but not boasting enough can have a negative affect on your ability to recruit more members/volunteers and fundraise successfully.

Some of the ways that Tim suggests to promote your group are:

• newsletters
• local newspaper articles (write a press release)
• brass plaques

We also hear of many groups using Twitter and Facebook to toot their horn a bit and grow involvement.

How does your group get the word out to your school about your hard work? We’d love to hear from you.

This week’s round-up highlights projects and events that underscore the mission of  school parent groups.

Have some fun:

Caribbean style

Taking pies in the face

Do good:

Fighting world hunger

Organizing a prom dress swap

Sharing globally

Reinforce school curriculum:

Math-a-Mania

Multi-Cultural Festival

Support our kids:

Fabulous after-school programs

Educating parents on teen safety

Keep doing what you’re doing- you’re doing a great job!

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!

Recently, we had a good exchange on our message boards centered around the question: dues or no dues? Tim is squarely in the “no dues camp” on this question. Watch his video to find out why he believes that dues are a bad idea for PTOs.

I continued to be inspired by the creative ways that parent groups raise money and/or create a sense of community at their schools. Here a few of my favorite event articles in the news this week:

School Family Events:

Enthusiasm is the key ingredient in this parent group-sponsored math night.

PTO runs a fitness day where football rules.

Creative PTO party animals set the stage for success.

Teachers & parents with talent serve up plenty of inspiration at this school!

Loved this PTA event that encourage middle schoolers to honor family history.

And it always saddens me to post articles about thefts from parent groups but they certainly serve as good reminders for PTOs & PTAs to employ smart financial controls.

Parent Group Thefts:

http://www.brainerddispatch.com/stories/020510/new_20100205001.shtml

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100127/LOCAL1804/1270354/Maplewood-Elementary-PTO-chief-jailed-in-theft

Has your parent group been in the news and you’d like to share your story with other leaders? Email me at lgundlach@ptotoday.com and I’ll include it our weekly round-up.