We hope that everyone’s New Year is off to a happy and productive start. In today’s video blog Tim offers some motivational thoughts about the power of PTOs. Sometimes when January rolls around, parent group leaders hit a mid-year slump. Hmmm. Did we get some heads nodding? Whether this applies to you or not, re-energize yourself and your group by taking the time to watch this video – it will reinforce why you do what you do!
Do you appreciate the help you get from parents? Do they know that you do?
Volunteer appreciation is best when it’s real and obvious and year-round. If the only time your volunteers feel thanked is one time, at the end of the year, then you’re likely to have trouble keeping your current help and attracting new help.
We’ve gathered a bunch of great, simple appreciation ideas that can help you with this challenge right now. Check out our creative list of volunteer appreciation ideas on the website.
We’ve gathered a bunch of great, simple appreciation ideas that can help you with this challenge right now. Check out our message boards thread in our online Community on volunteer appreciation. Would love to hear what’s worked for you.
School fundraising is no doubt an important part of a parent group’s role. But is there such a thing as too much fundraising? Absolutely. Yes. That’s what Tim tells us in this week’s video tutorial. Learn more about his take on the right amount of fundraising and how fundraising relates to the overall health and well being of your school community.
Still thinking about family event plans for spring? I recommend utilizing our Family Movie Night kit and info to put on a relaxing flick night. There’s a good element of fun with the added bonus of being one of the easier family nights to run.
You can order a free Family Movie Night planning kit on our website, plus find info on all of our School Family Nights. To me, these kinds of involvement events are a welcome mat to deeper involvement. Don’t charge admission. Don’t give folks the hard sell that they have to help out. Just make it a great night. The good news is that some of your attendees will have a great time and feel more comfortable getting more connected. That’s how more involvement develops — not through guilt or the like.
We’ve also recently added a brand-new Family Movie Night ”group” in our Community section on ptotoday.com. Here, you can share what’s worked and what hasn’t with other leaders running the same kind of event. We’ve even got a movie tracker, so you can review which movies worked best for school nights. I really like the movie Cars, for example, but it was a terrible choice for our last Movie Night — just way too long for 90 K-5th graders. Wish I’d known that before we picked it.
Good luck with all your involvement efforts!
Maybe it’s because we have a few months of school under our belts and people are feeling more comfortable…. or maybe it’s because the holidays are upon us and patience is wearing thin due to overload … but it seems that we’ve been hearing about an awful lot of drama going on in parent groups lately! That’s what promped us to do a video tutorial on how to combat PTO or PTA drama:
Hope it helps. Maybe this can be your group’s collective new year’s resolution: to stop the drama and move from controversy to consensus.
After a decade of talking with PTO and PTA leaders on the phone, in person, and through our online message boards, we’ve found that one of the most common themes is how to deal with principal problems. Can the principal decide what kind of events we run? What if she gets in our way? Who has final say over fundraising and finances?
My latest video blog on who’s the boss of the PTO covers the short answer — if your parent group is independent from the school, then technically the principal does not control these decisions — and also why this isn’t really the right answer. A strong, successful parent group needs cooperation and support from the principal; you aren’t likely to get either of those if you’re fighting over territory.
So here’s this week’s tip: Instead of challenging the principal’s authority, find ways to work together. Start by thinking about concerns she might have, and what you and your fellow PTO leaders can do about them. Is the principal worried about embezzlement? Wow her with the financial controls your group uses. Did previous PTO boards plan activities that interfered with classroom time? Might make sense to check dates with teachers before printing up flyers. (Read ”Real Disputes With the Principal’‘ to see how several parent groups solved their own disagreements.)
In the end, it doesn’t really matter who’s in charge; what does matter is that your PTO is doing great work for the kids and making the school a better place. That’s also the best foundation for building a strong principal-PTO partnership.
Our online community is expanding! We are excited to let you know that we are adding “groups” to our community. What are groups? Think of this new area on our site as a virtual coffee shop, where you can collaborate with leaders around one topic or theme. Our goal is to help you share and discover targeted information more effectively in a supportive environment.
Our first group is the Family Movie Night Group. Why Family Movie Night? We hear from schools all the time that Family Movie Nights are their favorite way to build community. And if you’ve spent any time on our site, you know that we’re all about building community.
So visit our first group today. Lots to do on the Family Movie Night Group page:
As always, we love to hear your feedback. What do you think about our first group? What other groups would you like us to add? Please jump in with your feedback and suggestions here.
Yup — drama-filled PTO moments (and how they scare away and chase away good volunteers) seems to be a theme this week. We’ve had message board threads about presidents with bad attitudes and clashing leadership styles, among other things, and have seen stories in the news on the same kind of stuff. Ugh. The good news is, we can take steps to limit the drama. Seriously.
In my experience, PTOs and PTAs have more drama than the average organization for a couple of reasons. One is that parent groups work with our kids — and we all have very passionate opinions about what’s best for kids. Another is that in a PTO there is often no “what I say goes” authority figure who can put an end to drama that has gone too far. (Think about what you do at home when the kids take things too far.)
And there’s no doubt that all this drama hurts our groups, our schools, and our volunteers. Drama is really tiring. It saps everyone of energy. It takes the focus away from doing good work. It absolutely makes parent involvement and gaining volunteers more difficult.
I wrote a column called ‘‘Stop the PTO Drama” a while back, and the solutions remain the same. It starts with working hard to be the grownup in these situations, even when others are reenacting the worst parts of high school. Another huge factor is communication — don’t let nagging annoyances and growing bad feelings fester. Schedule a coffee or openly discuss your group’s efforts to avoid drama right at a meeting. Small dramas become debilitating dramas when not addressed.
I’ve never met a PTO volunteer who hasn’t faced her share of drama in the volunteer world. What have you faced? And what have you done about it? Would love to hear your take on dealing with drama.
I love Twitter! It’s such a great place to stay on top of the latest trends, news, and also to find some talented bloggers. Today I found a link to this blog post about a PTO wannabe. If the post wasn’t so infuriating it would be funny!
Lindsey Ferrier writes about her desire to be a valued member of her school’s PTO. Sounds like a good and attainable goal. So here’s someone – as far as I can tell from her blog — who is bright, capable and has a good sense of humor. Sign her up, right? Wrong. This woman volunteered not once, not twice, but three times… without even an email acknowledging her offers! Ouch. Now that’s what I call frustrating.
Please don’t let this happen in your group! We are several months into the school year. Make it someone on your board’s charter to go through your forms and emails and match the volunteer offers up to volunteer opportunities. Lots of good articles on our site on how to attract and keep volunteers -take few minutes to read them. Do you have a system for managing your volunteers? If yes, tell us how you don’t let people like Lyndsey fall through the cracks. If no, perhaps you’d like to check out our PTO Manager/Volunteer Builder software package.
Find a way to let those who volunteers help out. If you can’t use them right away, at least email them back and thank them for their offer and tell them you’ll call them when the next volunteer job comes up. Communication is key. Despite the lack of communication and validation from her PTO, Lindsey hasn’t given up. But most people most certainly will!
Oh, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter – http://twitter.com/ptotoday.
Image: Andy Newson / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Tim answers the Question: how do you increase PTO or PTA meeting attendance? He also provides some tips on parent involvement.
So did it make you feel better to have Tim put parent group meetings in perspective? Hope so.
If you are interested in learning about the basics on running an effective meeting, be sure to check out the Meetings and Robert’s Rules section of our site.
 Tim Sullivan |
 Lisa Gundlach |
Follow Tim and Lisa on Twitter: twitter.com/TimPTO and twitter.com/ptotoday
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