PTO Today

Gotta love it when a PTO realizes that involvement takes unique outreach… and then sees great success.

This PTO in Southwest Florida is hosting family events and they’re involvement motto is: “Make it Fun and They Will Come”. How great is that? Check out more about their involvement success in this article.

It’s such a fundamental truth of growing involvement — it starts with the family events. Meetings aren’t the key at all. You can have better meetings. You can have raffles for attending meetings. You can have shorter meetings. But they’re still meetings. When you’re trying to connect with those who aren’t connected, you have to attract them. (Hint: meetings are not attractive.)

This has probably been our number one topic on the site and in our talks (which is why I love this Florida story so much). Looking for more aroud this? We’ve got: My column on why meetings don’t matter nearly as much as most PTOs think. And we’ve got great family event ideas.

If you do nothing else this coming year, think this way. (Now, would someone please help me down of my soapbox???)

I just ran across this t-shirt site (and this one shirt, in particular), and I think I’ve found the best door-prize ever for a Kindergarten welcome event. Cool stuff. Thought I’d pass it along.

Wow, this is really the week for honoring PTOs. First it was the school throwing the nice party for its PTO. And now Ellen Degeneres is giving away brand new playgrounds to two deserving groups.

Side note: looks like our friends at Playworld Systems were heavily involved in this program with Ellen. That new NEOS playground system of theirs looks cool.

Now, that’s what we’re talking about! Most of our appreciation stories here are of PTOs appreciating teachers or PTO leaders appreciating volunteers. But this Kansas school turns that story (rightfully) on its head with a great, creative appreciative event honoring the PTO. Very cool.

Yup, turtle races. Love the creativity of these PTOers in Massachusetts, who are planning a ton of activities centered on a man-made river (in the schoolyard) with plastic turtles floating downstream. The article contains really good detail on the build-up and plans for the turtle race event, which is a big fundraiser for a new playground project. Nice job.

Story is a great example of the “doing fewer things but doing those things better” philosophy that we’ve written about in the magazine for years. This is the kind of event that — done well — can change the reputation of a PTO for the better.

Today is National Teacher Day.

Don’t worry if the holiday snuck up on you. The NEA has some cool electronic greeting cards your kids can email to their teachers. As an added bonus, the teacher’s name will be included on what’s being called the nation’s largest teacher thank-you card. (You can snail mail your own cards to be incorporated into the giant card, too.)

Today’s also a good time to think about ways your parent group can appreciate teachers all year long. Be sure to check out our article on this topic, Teacher Appreciation Done Right, which has great ideas on how to do just that.

Here’s a new twist (and I bet it will be the first of many of these). Talented volunteer puts together a video selling the importance of volunteering at school. Professional editing and a soundtrack make it really slick. Love it! I feel like I’m watching Oprah:

We’ve always said that if announcing: “Meeting next Tuesday at 7PM” is your main involvement-building strategy, then you’re in trouble. These guys clearly get that.

Sometimes we take for granted just how tough (and important) a job it is to do this school parent group leader thing.  Makes it even nicer when a paper reminds us with a glowing profile of a rather typical leader.  Passionate. Generous. Accomplished.  Yup — that covers it pretty well.

Every year we talk about the excitement and energy at our PTO expos. Of course when you put hundreds of parent group leaders in a room full of ideas and information great things are bound to happen. I sure had fun at our New Jersey show. And from the looks of it, so did these 80 folks from the Newark school district.

I hope the gang in the pic below are feeling strong. Conference tote bags always end up jammed with information and samples. Lots of stuff to take back and discuss with the whole group.

And of course the entertainment is always fun. Here a couple of Harlem Wizards get ready to show what they can do.

Two more shows to go this year - Chicago and Denver. If you’re attending be sure to stop by the PTO Today booth and say hi!

Here’s a twist on the traditional schoolyard carnival. This PA PTO combined their fair with a classic car show and not only added some fun and interest to their day but made some nice extra bucks, too.  Great work!