PTO Today

During a break in the action at a faculty basketball game, teachers at Grafton (Mass.) El­ementary suddenly started dancing. The basketball players were joined by school staff members from around the gym to create a flash mob to a version of the song “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music. The dance and game were a hit with students; some wore wigs, body paint, and leis in their favorite team’s color. The school parent group sponsored the April event.

Wanted to give a big shout out to the PTO Today Teacher Wish List grant winners!  Here are the 10 lucky winners:

• Ririe Elementary School - Ririe, ID
• Centennial Academy - Littleton, CO
• Lakewood Elementary -Twin Lakes, WI
• Gardnertown Fundamental Magnet - Newburgh, NY
• Nolachuckey Elementary - Greenville, TN
• Meadows Elementary -St Louis, MO
• 66943 Skipwith Elementary - Richmond, VA
• Coronado Elementary - Amarillo, TX
• Berryton Elementary - Berryton KS
• Hollister Elementary School - Hollister, MO

These ten PTO Today grants are added to the 100 grants given by Teacher Wish List and Bounty. That’s a total of 110 schools that have received Teacher Wish List grants! It makes me smile to think of all the school supplies that these grants bought!  And the best is yet to come. Next week Bounty will announce the winner of the $25,000 art room makeover! Stay tuned…

Have you signed up your school for Teacher Wish List yet?  What are you waiting for? Order a free kit to get started or visit the Teacher Wish List site. The teachers at your school will thank you!

One of my favorite leadership maxims is also a powerful tip for growing your PTO or PTA.

If your group has success, praise and thank widely. You want as many people as possible basking in the sunlight of a hard-earned win. And yes, that applies even if you did nearly all the work and saved the event yourself. Here are some tips for appreciating and thanking volunteers.

Similarly, if your group makes a mistake or drops a ball — fess up, apologize, and refrain from pointing fingers. “We’ll do better” is 8 million times better than “Sarah’s mom shouldn’t have screwed this up.” The latter is a surefire way to lose Sarah’s mom and a whole bunch of other volunteers.

This tip goes double for dealing with your principal. Take every chance you get to publicly thank her for support or helpful efforts (even overstating it). Honey works well with nearly every principal I’ve ever worked with. (Here’s a column of mine on the care and feeding of your principal).

P.S. — Have you checked out SchoolFamily.com lately? It’s our sister site aimed at helping parents navigate the school years. Bet you’ll find some great stuff there for you and your family. Hope you enjoy and perhaps share it with the wider group of parents at your school.

A bit of a self-serving tip this week, but I still think it’s a pretty good one. Do you get ideas, helpful tools or even a bit of inspiration from PTO Today and ptotoday.com? I hope so.

If so, would you take a minute to forward this post to some fellow PTO or PTA leaders you know or work with? They can sign up for the email themselves or visit the site and hopefully find some inspiration themselves.

We know from experience that the more leaders who connect with PTO Today, the better, as nearly all of our best ideas come directly from creative leaders like you. More leaders — more ideas. And everyone wins.

Hope your school year is off to a great start. Thanks in advance for introducing PTO Today to some of your friends and fellow volunteers. It’s worth the couple of minutes.

We’re excited to let you know that our new, free Family Movie Night kit is available. Now that the dust has settled a bit from back-to-school mayhem, your parent group may be considering hosting a family night. Good idea! Family nights are a fantastic way to build community at your school. Building community is the first step towards getting more parents to volunteer! Family movie nights are a low-key and fun way to bring families together. Our kit has everything you need to organize a successful event.

So, check out the new kit. It has a professionally designed poster and banner to promote your event, that we’ve been getting rave reviews about! Also, be sure to visit Family Movie Night section on our message boards to get and swap ideas. Once you host a Family Movie Night, don’t forget to share your fabulous event photos with other parent group leaders on our Facebook page!

Gearing up for a fall fundraising auction? If yes, then you’re likely in “acquisition mode,” where your volunteers are scrambling for donations that you can auction off. That’s fine, and I totally see the value in getting $20 for the dry cleaning gift card you got for free. But if you want a really successful, memorable auction, focus more on what I call “stuff you can’t get at Target.”

The best memories and your best profits will come from truly one-of-a-kind items. The good news is that these don’t have to cost your group much at all, if anything. My mom, a 1st grade teacher, used to offer two hours of after-school computer time and an ice-cream trip. That item went for big bucks each year. Her cost: $3.99. At my children’s school, the ride home in a police car, Principal for a Day, and naming rights for the school cafeteria (David’s Deli, Rachel’s Restaurant) are the big ticket items.

Not only do these items turn nice profits, they also generate the kind of buzz that helps you grow your auction year after year. Frankly, dry cleaning gift cards or a $50 restaurant trip for $42 just aren’t all that buzzworthy. For long-term success, buzz matters.

We have a ton of auction info on the site. Check out these links:

• Auction Gold: Student Art Projects
• Auction Planning FAQs
• School Auctions Resources Page

Recently a lot of people have been searching ptotoday.com for information on carnivals and fall fairs. A fall carnival is a great event to create excitement among kids. It’s also a terrific way to get parents involved and create camaraderie, since you’ll need a lot of volunteers but the jobs are mostly fun.

Here are my top tips for running a carnival:

• Keep volunteer shifts short so parents can spend time with their children. If you need extra volunteers, tap high school service clubs or sports teams.
• If you plan to charge, take money in just one place and issue tickets. It’s important to limit the number of people handling cash. Consider selling wristbands so kids can enjoy all the games without worrying about how much each one costs.
• Fun game idea: Create your own mini golf course. Even one hole will be popular, and it’s a good project to get creative dads involved — you might even find a crafty person to build a windmill for your course.

Here are three links with great resources for planning your carnival. Have fun!

• School Carnival Planning Basics
• Classic Carnival Activities
• Carnival File Exchange: Flyers, feedback forms, supply lists, and more

“This event not only created a sense of community for our school, but was a great promotion of literacy. Plus, everyone had fun. We plan to do this event twice per school year.”

~Joanie Triestman, Board Member

Canyon Vista Elementary – Aliso Viejo, CA

Now for a limited time, when you order a Family Reading Night kit you have a chance to receive a free copy of the new Shel Silverstein book, Every Thing On It (coming September 20th), to give away at Family Reading Night! Books are limited to the first 2,000 schools*, so be sure to order your kit now. (Details on how to request your free copy can be found on the Shel Silverstein-themed activity sheet in this year’s Family Reading Night kit.)

This year’s Family Reading Night kit also includes an activity sheet that provides fun Shel Silverstein-themed activities your event’s activities — Rhyme Race, Draw Me a Poem, and Create a Creature, to name a few!  The kids will be reading, rhyming, and writing in imaginative ways!

Shel Silverstein books are always a hit for all ages, so don’t put off ordering your Family Reading Night kit. And don’t forget to take photos of your fabulous event and share them on our Facebook page.   We’ll send a “My Parent Group Rocks” t-shirt to everyone who uploads photos of their Family Reading Night by the end of 2011.  Have fun!

*If you were chosen to receive or have already received an advance copy of this book from PTO Today, your school is ineligible.

Every Thing On It cover and artwork © 2011 Evil Eye, LLC.

We get this question a lot, and my answer is, probably fewer than you typically run.

For my full explanation, you can check out my column “The Fundraising Myth.” But three key factors make the case for running fewer fundraisers (but running your remaining fundraisers better):

First, groups that fundraise less (but better) actually make more money from their fundraisers in the long run. Parents who are connected and served by a group that isn’t all about fundraising typically open their wallets wider when it is time to support the group.

Secondly, volunteers and their volunteer time are precious. If you’re having trouble recruiting help, it could be because so many of your jobs are and so much of your focus is around fundraising. Volunteers aren’t clamoring to hit up their friends for cash.

Finally, your parents will appreciate your group more if you carefully choose a few great-fit options and run those few very, very well. Better promotion, better prizes, better products and prices. Asking parents to support two or three really well-run fundraisers is way better than reaching into parents’ pockets every month for nine straight months.

We don’t exist to fundraise. We fundraise (hopefully well) to support the great work that we do in schools and for kids. Make this the year your group decides to get a bit smarter about how often you ask parents for dollars.

Judging from my news feed, things are heating up in parent groups across the country. So refreshing to read how PTOs and PTAs are making the first day of school fun and memorable for anxious kids and teachers! Here are some of the highlights:

–One Missouri PTO brilliantly sponsored a back-to-school event that let students and parents check out their classroom and local businesses set up booths to hand out goodies to connect with families. “The businesses give so much to PTO.This is our way to support them,” said, PTO Co-president Cherie Horn said.  Sounds this school is thinking ahead and starting their year off right!

–Like how this Illinois PTO recognizes that going back to school is not a picnic for students — so they start the year off with a back-to-school party!

–This PTO’s First Day Celebration invites parents and kids to the first day of school! What a great way to emphasize how parent involvement is encouraged and valued.

–One Texas school hasn’t started yet but their PTA has been busy buying back-to-school supplies, in effort to help cash-strapped parents. Bet these families will be more likely to say yes to that call to volunteer!

–Kudos to this Illinois PTO for kicking off the school year by getting kids involved in a community service program. Kids at this elementary school are learning the valuable lesson of helping others by bringing in gently-used backpacks and school supplies to send to Tanzania.

Remember, if your school is in the news we’d love to share it with other parent groups. Share your story on our Facebook page or by emailing me at lgundlach@ptotoday.com.