PTO Today

Wow, can you believe that July is almost over? For some of you, August means the start of school. No doubt you are in the thick of getting your kids ready and working on organizing your PTO or PTA back-to-school projects and programs. For those of you who don’t start until late August or September, I bet you are already thinking about how to get more parents involved in the next school year – c’mon, admit it : )!

Speaking of parent involvement, thought you may be interested in a neat webinar that Shutterfly (one of our Back2School 2011 partners) is hosting!

Here’s the scoop:
Webinar Topic: Parental Engagement

Audience: Teachers, room parents, principals and district administrators

Date/Time: Tuesday, August 9, 2011 2:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00)

Webinar overview: “Strong parental engagement with their children’s classroom experience is highly correlated with successful learning outcomes, especially in earlier grades. But how can you build parental involvement in today’s world of busy and diverse families? This web seminar will explore a new program for improving the parent-school relationship called Classroom Connections Challenge from Shutterfly, which provides schools with Share Sites: free, private classroom websites for safely sharing information, photos, videos, calendars and more.”

For more information and to register for free click here.

Sounds like a terrific way to get geared up for the best school year yet!

My fourth and youngest child enters kindergarten next month. While she knows a lot of the teachers and kids at her new school (thanks to her brothers), she’ll also get a warm welcome at our school’s sixth annual welcome party for incoming kindergartners.

The students love it; parents love it; and it’s been really good for our parent group, too. Even better, it’s really simple to execute.

The recipe is basically: 1) a two-hour window at our local playground’s covered picnic area; 2) an invitation to each new student and family; 3) about five big buckets of ice cream; 4) some napkins, name tags, and water; and 5) a bunch of crossed fingers for sun.

The kids show up and play with their soon-to-be new buddies on the playground. Everyone gets a name tag. All the parents cautiously and politely mingle. We usually have 10 to 15 veteran families there to welcome and answer questions from nervous newbies. The welcome speech is maybe three to four minutes tops. The focus is on ice cream and fun and community.

The end result: We have a nice crop of new students and families whose first interaction with our school is very positive and warm. It’s also been a great way to informally introduce our parent involvement opportunities to these new parents. Very cool.

I hope you can create a tradition of your own at your school. We have a ton of good content on welcoming new families:

• Open Doors, Lots of Them
• Make New Families Feel Welcome
• Community Night Helps Families Find Resources

A few simple financial controls can protect your parent group’s bank account as well as your volunteers who are handling money:

Accept cash at one place only. For carnivals and similar events, sell tickets at a single pay station. The fewer people who handle money, the better.

Create a paper trail. Always use paper receipts for cash transactions. For carnivals, tally each sale and compare the number of tickets taken at each booth with the total dollars collected.

Work in pairs. Always have two people present whenever cash is being collected or counted. After the cash is counted, have each counter initial a form certifying how much money is being turned over to the treasurer.

Make deposits immediately. Never let cash—or checks, for that matter—sit for a few days. Funds should be deposited as soon as they’re turned over to the treasurer. If your event is at night, lock the money in the school safe and deposit it the next morning.

Keep it simple. Never take IOUs. Never mingle parent group cash with your own. Don’t ever deposit PTO money in your account, then write a check to the group for the same amount. And never float a loan to the group, then take the money out of cash receipts as repayment.

Cover yourself. Get bonding insurance for your group. It’s well worth the cost. You can find insurance information at ptotoday.com/insurance.

The weekend is here and I have gardening on the mind! It’s so refreshing to scan the recent parent group news and see so many articles about schools taking on gardening projects. In general, we are seeing a trend of parent groups taking a more active role in green school initiatives. This week’s article round-up speaks to the benefits of school gardens:

• Education grows with learning garden.
• Students learn life lessons through gardening.
• Kids learn about the importance of nutrition and gardening sustainability.
• Constructing a courtyard creates various sensory activities for the kids.

So, are you inspired? Is your PTO or PTA involved in a garden project? We’d love to hear about it.

If you are looking for other ways to make your school more green, check out these articles and tools:

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/825-how-ptos-are-going-green

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/689-fun-and-eco-games

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/826-greening-our-parent-group

http://www.ptotoday.com/sfn/SFN_gogreen_leader.php

Happy weekend and happy gardening!

If you volunteer at school long enough, I guarantee that you’ll run into volunteers who don’t do a good job. It’s not if but when, and how you deal with those volunteers can affect the culture and success of your group for years.

(Note: Have you experienced this already? Share your “bad volunteer” stories on the message boards.)

When I talk about “bad” volunteers, I’m referring to everything from gossips and folks with delusions of grandeur all the way through to those people who just can’t seem to keep their commitments or move projects along on time. All of them can be really frustrating to work with.

Of course, if there is a volunteer truly doing wrong (stealing from the group or hurting a child, for example), you need to take quick and formal action to end that. But most problem volunteers are more subtle. They have personalities that turn off others or they procrastinate too much or they criticize without offering solutions. How do you deal with them?

My advice is to do all you can to minimize the harm while avoiding formal processes. Officially removing a volunteer from her position could take weeks or months of difficult discussions, and it’ll distract your group from its good work. With summer, the holiday break, and school vacations, the PTO year is too short already to bring things to a halt.

A better solution is to manage around these folks. Get the procrastinator a co-leader who is on top of things. Communicate positively and frequently to counteract the gossip. Give the critic a job she can thrive in (kill her with kindness). That kind of thing. Even though your bylaws might provide the means to officially remove someone from office, avoid taking that step whenever possible.

You might also like these volunteer management resources from ptotoday.com:

• 25 Ways To Catch and Keep Volunteers
• Managing Personality Conflicts
• How To Deal With Difficult People

Parent groups deal with a lot of checks, and eventually you’re likely to get one that bounces. Follow these steps to handle an insufficient funds check:

Contact the person privately. Start with the assumption that this is an honest mistake. In the vast majority of cases, that will be true. Never threaten to tell others, such as the person’s employer, about the bad check. Such threats are rarely helpful and may be illegal.

Send a letter. If you are having trouble getting payment, send a certified letter, return receipt requested. State the check number, date, and amount, the bank it’s drawn from, and who the check was written to. Set a date when payment is due (10 days is standard). Site your state’s check deception law. Keep a copy of the letter for your records. (Download an editable bounced check letter from the File Exchange.)

Contact the bank. Banks often will tell you whether an account has sufficient funds to cover a check. You might be able to put the check through a second time and receive payment.

Take legal action. If the person refuses to pay, you may go to small claims court or notify the police. In most states writing a bad check is a misdemeanor. In either case, your certified letter provides important documentation.

Check Dos and Don’ts

Do require contact information on all checks.
Don’t accept postdated checks.
Do set a service charge for handling bounced checks.
Don’t accept checks from people you’ve had trouble with in the past.
Do review checks to make sure they’re complete before depositing them.

For more tips, read “Dealing With Bad Checks” in the ptotoday.com archives.

Here’s this week’s question from our Ask a Question section:

kczech asks:

Anybody have difficulty getting teachers to participate at school carnivals? At my school the teachers seem to think that they need to be paid if they participate.

Craig writes:

It would be great to have teachers participate in all PTO and PTA events, but unfortunately that doesn’t happen. In truth, I don’t blame the teachers. They have their own families and private life to worry about, and chances are at least some of them have their own children in other schools where they would like to be involved. When you meet the kind of resistance that it sounds like your group has, you’re better off moving on. Focus on getting teachers to help you in the most key ways — distributing your communications in the classroom, helping you collect fundraising money, working with you to plan field trips and other curriculum or enrichment-related events. You might try to get a teacher representative at your events, but from your description I doubt there’s anything you can do to get broad attendance from teachers. Read the articles Let Teachers Teach and Get Teachers on Your Side for more on this topic.

Related links:

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/262-build-your-volunteer-base-11-ideas

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/1089-three-creative-carnival-ideas

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/1088-classic-carnival-activities

How is your group doing with recruiting volunteers for your school carnivals? Do your teachers participate?

As the weather starts warming up, make sure your playground is safe for students with this simple checklist.

1. Measure the fill around the equipment. It should be at least 12 inches deep. Clean out trash and animal droppings. Examine rubber mats for curls and wooden borders for splinters.
2. Examine the play structure for cracks and breakage. Check for rust spots or splinters. Run your hand over plastic parts—they shouldn’t have any imperfections. Shake stairs to make sure they are still sturdy.
3. Examine bolts and nails to make sure they’re still tight and not protruding. You should never be able to turn bolts with your fingers.
4. Look for missing caps or plugs (common on ladders and climbers). Examine hooks for wear.
5. Look for wear in gears and other moving parts. Oil as needed.
6. Make sure seesaw handles are secure and bumpers are in place to cushion the landing.
7. Wash equipment with soap and water as needed. Never use bleach.

Read “How To Inspect Your Playground” for more details, and find lots more tips and ideas on the School Playgrounds resources page.

Here’s this week’s featured question from our Ask a Question section.

Anonymous writes:

We have a president but he doesn’t seem to care if the group has a different idea about how to make things for events. It’s really his way or the highway. We have a good group of people that I don’t want to get discouraged about being on the PTO. We need these people. What can we do?

Craig writes:
Your president is a micromanager. Unfortunately, that’s not uncommon and the typical result is exactly what you describe — people get turned off and involvement declines. As involvement declines, the micromanager’s belief that if it weren’t for him, nothing would get done becomes reinforced. To stop this spiral, you have to talk to the micromanager about the effect his actions are having. This can be a touchy conversation — it’s important that you approach in an unemotional way and simply as business rather than a criticism of his personality. It’s possible that he doesn’t really know how to manage effectively without micromanaging. Share the article Change Your Micromanaging Ways with him. And before you talk to him, I’d recommend reading How To Deal With Difficult People. It will help you to prepare, depending on what his reaction is. Good luck!

Have you had experience dealing with a micromanager in your PTO or PTA? What has worked for you in terms of managing the micromanager?