PTO Today

Have you been to our clip art gallery recently? Worth a visit — we’ve added lots of new colorful images so you can jazz up your flyers and newsletters.You can download any or all of these high-resolution image files, then resize, crop, or edit them in any way that works for your group’s needs. They’re free for parent group use in print, online, or anywhere else.

We hear it a lot this time of year: “I am so excited to be the new PTO president… but I’m also nervous!” Or, “I had a great year this year, but I am already thinking of ways to improve the board for the next school year.” Well, whether you’re new to the job or an old pro, our FREE New Leader Kit will be your new best friend. The insider tips will give you the tools you need to lead with confidence — so you can relax a little this summer.

Always love it when a PTO project gets completed successfully.   In this case — thanks to the PTO — this school backyard no longer looks directly into an active cemetary.

Love it even more when a Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant is a big part of the reason why the project worked.. 

Nice.

Sounds like these folks are making strong involvement progress bringing lessons from statewide training program back to their school.

Love this quote:

“There are four levels of community and school relationships,” Tyree said.

“There are closed doors where no one is welcome, doors open but no one is invited, only invited if asked, and then the partnership school, which is what we want to be.”

That’s dead-on perfect.  Good luck!

This issue is creeping its way across the country.  Here, a PA district and its parent groups deal with after-effects of a lawsuit-driven ban on backpack express announcements.

My take on why these backpack express bans are nonsense was posted a few weeks back.

What was once a very minor annoyance is becoming a more common challenge for many PTOs and PTAs. We’ve tracked several communities where school parent-teacher groups (PTOs and PTAs) have been banned from using the backpack express to communicate with parents.  I’ll explain below, but cutting to the chase — this is horrible policy that does harm to schools.  And it doesn’t have to be this way.  Nuance and a backbone are both wonderful things.

For background, here’s a post on our message boards about this topic.  And here’s a story from Minnesota about one school board making this poor decision.  And a follow-up from same paper on the after-effects to date.

The real failing here is equating the local school PTO with the local karate school or the Church down the street from the school. That’s hogwash.

(more…)

Family events — excellent.  Family events with an academic connection — even better.  So kudos to this Massachusetts PTO for their creative math night for parents and kids with an emphasis on supporting the school math curriculum.

Looking for family night ideas (and the tools and step-by-steps for making them work)?   You’ve got to check out our School Family Nights program.

I honestly don’t think Lowe’s support of parent involvement and of PTOs and PTAs gets near enough credit.  These guys really walk the walk when it comes to supporting schools in the communities where they do business.  I may be missing a program, but I’m fairly certain that the Lowe’s Toolbox for Education program is by far the largest and most generous grant program focused primarily on school PTOs and PTAs in the whole country.

Thanks Lowe’s!

The 2nd cycle of the 2008-09 school year was just completed.  The totals — more than $4,000,000 shared with more than 900 local parent groups across the country.  And that’s just this year.  The Toolbox program is now well over $10 million in total.  Double thanks, Lowe’s!

PTO Today is proud of the modest role we play as the communications and administrative team behind the scenes of Toolbox. None of this would happen without the generosity of the Lowe’s Charitable & Educational Foundation. Hundreds of playgrounds, hundreds of school grounds upgrades, hundreds of school signs, and innumerable creative building projects that don’t fit squarely in a common category (but which all are making schools better places…) — awesome.

Let’s Build Something Together is the Lowe’s tag line.  With this program, they’re really making that a reality.  Can your group gear up now to get involved next year?  

Wow — this is the harshest sentence we’ve seen yet for a PTO or PTA embezzle case.  This Arkansas treasurer convicted of taking $23,000 (and that’s just what they can prove).

We do like the fact that this case was prosecuted and taken seriously. Too often, groups or schools try to sweep these cases under the rug or prosecutors downplay the damage.  Make no mistake — this is stealing from kids and violating a trust.  There’s also often even further damage to the support and involvement at a a particular school for years.

More than worth it to use smart, basic money hanbling procedures.  And to get insured.

Was fun this morning to appear with Gene Lavanchy on Fox 25 in Boston to talk about Internet Safety for families.  You can watch the appearance below:

We have a whole ton of good content for your parents over on the Internet Safety Week pages on schoolfamily.com.  As part of this important week, I hope you’ll share these links or any/all of these tips with the families at your school.