PTO Today

We posted earlier this week about a school district in South Carolina that is considering mandating parent volunteering. You might imagine there are many different opinions on this topic—a peek at our Facebook post about this story will attest to that. But no matter what you think of mandates, it’s clear that parent involvement makes an impact on a student’s academic success. Two stories published today tell us that.

First, the state of Florida published a ranking of 3,078 public and charter schools based on academic performance in standardized testing. The number one school was Bevis Elementary in Lithia. The school reports it was the recipient of 13,000 parent volunteer hours last year and said the many hours parent volunteers spent tutoring students contributed to these results.

Meanwhile, a Grand Rapids, Mich., publication reported on a presentation at Hope College from the founders of the Watts Learning Center in Los Angeles, a K-8 charter school founded in the late 1990s in a historically poor neighborhood. The school has been named California state school of the year four times. It requires its parents to volunteer, attend parent workshops, and participate in parent-student-teacher meetings.

Congratulations to both of these schools.

For anyone who has every run a school event or fundraiser, you understand the importance of parent involvement. Chances are, you’ve felt the pain of not having enough volunteers. But, would it ever make sense to require parents to help out?

That question was just put before the School Board in Charleston County, S.C., by a group of parents who want the school district to require that parents and guardians volunteer eight hours of their time each school year. The School Board has no decision yet. The proposal goes as far as to suggest that parents be rated for having met their obligation as “highly engaged,’’ and, if they have not done their volunteering, to be labeled as “emerging.” In Charleston County, reaction has been understandably mixed. The Parent Roundtable – the group promoting this concept – says the idea is to help parents understand how to get involved and it isn’t intended to be judgmental or punitive. That might be hard for some parents to swallow, giving the ratings system. Some parents questioned why the school district would want to create more work by establishing a volunteer tracking system. One parent went as far as to say schools “can not legislate morality.’’

While we’ve heard this mandatory approach has been successful in such environments as private and charter schools (parents opt in when they join the school) it also raises questions about the purpose of volunteers and it underscores how challenging it is to recruit and retain them.

Hey, we all wish we could get a 100% volunteer response like the folks in South Carolina want. But in the meantime, here’s a suggestion for a more down-to-earth alternative from PTO Today. It’s called 2 Hour Power, a free volunteer pledge program where you ask parents to each volunteer for two hours per year. The idea is that it’s a manageable amount so it’s easy to get people to agree. And if they have a positive experience, they’re likely to volunteer a lot more.

If you are skeptical about entering contests to bring in some money for your school, talk to Linda Golden. This PTA president just won a $100,000 education grant for her school, Fountain Woods Elementary School in Burlington Township, N.J., from a contest hosted on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show’’ and sponsored by Target. Golden said she is like many of us who have little hope of winning. She had entered other contests with no luck. Still, she decided this one was worth a try. School officials are obviously thrilled and now have the enviable task of figuring out how to spend the money. The New Jersey school was one of 50 to receive this Target grant. This contest is the latest in a series of education initiatives underway at the retailing giant, which reportedly plans to donate about a $1 billion to education by 2015. (Also, Target is the sponsor of our Family Reading Night kits.) Contests like this are becoming increasingly popular. We recently posted a story about how parents are responding to  social-media driven contests. As Linda Golden can attest, they’re certainly great when you win!

Ever wonder when it is worth speaking up about something in your role of PTO leader?  This question may be on the mind of Kristen Pierotti, PTO president at the Lincoln-Hubbard Elementary School in Summit, N.J.

Recently, she raised concerns about a school uniform issue to the local Board of Education. The response? The board clearly indicated it had more important items on its agenda. Ouch.

This story started when Kristen Pierotti heard that some parents had raised a question about adopting school uniforms. “I was never trying to dictate what the district as a whole should do, ’’ Pierotti said in an email discussion with PTO Today.

Pierotti said the PTO decided to do a survey to determine if the issue of school uniforms really was important to parents. She said she sent out more than 200 surveys and had a 50% response rate – and 75% of those parents said they were open to the idea of holding a pilot program to see if uniforms would really work.

The issue was then forwarded to the school board, which, in published reports, essentially said it had bigger fish to fry.

“I appreciate that there are initiatives of greater consequence, however, I don’t see that in itself is a reason to close the door on something [for which] there may be a majority of community support,’’ Pierotti added.

So, apparently, a public put down will not deter this PTO. Pierotti said her hope is the school board approves the idea of Lincoln-Hubbard piloting school uniforms so it can be a “test run for the community at large’’ in the near future.

We are excited to let you know that PTO Today and The Savings Bank Life Insurance Company of Massachusetts (SBLI) have teamed up to celebrate school and parent group volunteers from across the country. You may feel sometimes that your tireless volunteer efforts go unnoticed. Take heart, PTO Today and SBLI think that volunteers deserve recognition beyond their school walls. Starting this month, we’re kicking off a joint program called Superstar Volunteers. As part of this program, we profile a new Superstar Volunteer and their unique volunteer story every two weeks, from January through September. Here’s the really cool part: SBLI will donate $500 to the school of each volunteer we profile.

Our first Superstar Volunteer is Sunnie Robles-Schmidt from Santa Rosa, California. Props to Sunnie who has figured out how to juggle her busy family life AND volunteer at both the elementary school and high school. Read Sunnie’s full story to learn more about what kind of volunteer work brings her joy. Congrats Sunnie, for being the first SBLI Superstar Volunteer and for winning $500 for your school!

Do you have a volunteer at your school that you think deserves a SBLI Superstar Volunteer designation? Nominate him or her today – winners get a $500 donation to their school and will be featured on both ptotoday.com and SBLI, just like Sunnie!

Sonia Bergin, teacher liaison and past president of the Placer Elementary PTC in Loomis, Calif., overcame many challenges to have a big impact.

Photo by Bruce Brown

There’s evidence of Sonia Bergin’s hard work all over Placer Elementary in Loomis, Calif. Thanks to her work on the traffic committee, a paid traffic coordinator directs students before and after school. There’s a new school marquee that the PTC uses to send student birthday messages and advertise volunteer opportunities. And Bergin has accomplished a lot inside the school, too. “If it’s PTC-related, I have pretty much been involved in it in some way, shape, or form,” she says.

Mom to Allison, 12, and Jonathan, 9, Bergin first volunteered as a room parent when Allison was in kindergarten. She then served as room parent coordinator, PTC vice president, and eventually PTC president. She has chaired the group’s annual auction, coordinated ticket sales for the Harvest Festival, and maintained the membership database.

She has also implemented movie events for students on early-release days. “This gives the working parents the opportunity to have their child go to a supervised place where they can have fun with their friends and enjoy a movie,” she says.

Under Bergin’s tenure, PTC leaders updated the computer lab and funded teacher grants, a Spanish program, field trip scholarships, and an art docent program. Bergin also established monthly meetings for all district PTC presidents and the superintendent to discuss collaboration with the local education foundation.

Bergin says she loves helping kids go on field trips and seeing them smile at the Harvest Festival. Volunteering at Placer has been personally rewarding for her on another level, too. “Being in a wheelchair for over 20 years has made me aware that it can sometimes make people uncomfortable, but not here at Placer. They have all been so supportive and I finally felt just like a ‘regular’ parent, not a parent with a disability,” she says. “I have overcome my insecurities and have been motivated to give whatever I can and however I can.”

Here’s an idea if your parent group is short on volunteers. Instead of sending out a tersely worded note asking for help from your parents, how about borrowing some volunteers from a neighboring school? We came across a story about schools in Chattanooga, Tenn., doing just that and we think this is a great idea. In Chattanooga, one school had literally hundreds of volunteers (can you imagine!) while another had just a dozen. So, the school with all those helping hands sent over volunteers to the less-fortunate school to give it a boost. Think of the possibilities. If you could get some neighboring schools interested in this idea, you could create a volunteer swapping program. There are many opportunities for this, including providing babysitters for each other during parent meetings. Also, volunteers could assist a neighboring school by manning the snack or carnival booths so parents could enjoy these events with their children instead of working the event as likely do most of the time.

The Chattanooga story was particularly touching because the school in need of help had been without a parent group for a decade. It was really trying to make a go of it and those borrowed volunteers made a big difference.

That’s a win-win, as they say, especially for the kids.

Instead of a tip this week, I have a resource to offer you that will help get your message across about the importance of parent involvement.

It’s from our sister website, SchoolFamily.com. If you haven’t visited SchoolFamily yet, it’s filled with information to help parents help their children succeed in school. Topics range from how best to help your child with homework to tips for communicating with the teacher to explanations of academic expectations for each grade level.

The resource is a newsfeed from SchoolFamily to use on your own parent group or school website or blog. It features articles on the importance of getting involved in your child’s education — articles like ”5 Reasons To Get Involved.” You can get the newsfeed for your website here:

SchoolFamily.com newsfeed for parent group and school websites.

As encouragement, we’re offering a copy of PTO Today’s Parent Involvement Toolkit to any parent group that uses the newsfeed. I think you’ll like the newsfeed. It’s easy to use, and it will make you look good for providing helpful information to parents.

So did you brave Black Friday? Getting any amazing bargains? Not me. I am not one for crowds, especially when it comes to the shopping mall! I did, however, get some fabulous bargains online in the electronics category. (Obviously my kids don’t read this blog ; )

While I am excited that I got some excellent technology deals, these gifts come with some serious mommy angst. After the holiday excitement fades, my biggest priority is to teach my kids to be safe and responsible online. And fast. It feels kind of daunting to me! That’s why I am excited that PTO Today has everything I need to know in this category in its Internet Safety Kit! Now, maybe I am a little biased, but I feel like this event is a gift to parents and to a school community. Teaching parents about how to keep their kids safe online… awesome. Getting all the parents in the same room to compare notes and swap stories… even better!

From an event planning perspective, the nice thing about our free Internet Safety Night Kit is that everything in the kit comes on one CD. Just pop it into your computer to download, email and print these tools:

• A FREE copy of Trend Micro™ Online Guardian software (retail value $49.95) to give away at your event
• Easy to follow step-by-step event planning guidelines
• Professionally written Internet safety PowerPoint presentation
• Discussion starters
• Educational videos about online safety, shot by real adults and kids!
• Take home flyers for parents (including a cyber bullying & cell phone handout)
• Promotional materials

It’s not too early to start thinking about PTO Today’s 2012 Parent Group of the Year search. Entries are due May 31, 2012, but you can start collecting information for your entry now, saving materials from or making notes about your activities as you hold them. Just tell us how you connected with families and students this school year, and your group could win cash prizes up to $3,000.

Click here to see the entry form, complete details, and answers to frequently asked questions. And be sure to read about the fantastic groups that took honors in the 2011 search, too.