PTO Today

I try not to get too exercised by parent involvement articles in the mass media, knowing that the nuances of involvement are often lost on reporters who cover minivans one day and best vacation spots the next. But this New York Times piece today (“Frazzled Moms Push Back Against Volunteering”) is so one-sided and, frankly, poorly done that I just had to respond.

The article paints this picture of Moms who go waaay past balanced in their volunteering to the point where they are causing harm to their family lives and even their personal well-being. Does that happen? Absolutely. We’ve written about volunteering that goes too far many times on this site.

My problem with the article is in the conclusions. Reading, one would think that the only solution to over-volunteering is going completely cold turkey. One of the moms celebrated in the article won’t even let her husband write a check to support a school fundraiser? Really? She went from running about everything in the school to attending nothing, supporting nothing and (obviously) volunteering not at all? That’s the solution?

How about balance? Millions of parents do a great job leading parent groups in a balanced way or finding a way to volunteer or support the school that fits their lifestyle. I can name you 200 moms and dads at my kids’ school who work full-time but who have found a way to chaperone one field trip or help with the weekend school basketball program or solicited some donations for the school auction. That much more common experience doesn’t even get a mention in this article. Ludicrous.

My biggest objection is to the writer not mentioning the decades of research that makes a compelling case for the value of parent involvement at schools. My kids do better. The other kids at school do better. The school as a whole does better when the school has higher degrees of broad parent involvement. To read the Times story is to think these Moms who have completely opted out are some kind of heroes. They’re not villains for opting out (sounds like they had trouble finding balance any other way), but the story potentiallly does real harm implying that zero connection to school is the right recipe.

I know there are folks in this world who live by extremes. If they volunteer, they are going to be the greatest, most committed volunteer in history. And if they stop volunteering, boy-oh-boy are they ever going to stop volunteering. But don’t we expect our reporters to go beyond the extremes to where the real facts lie? This article takes a stereotype, find three examples to back it up and – voila! – school volunteering is only awful. The Times can and should do much better.

“We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.” ~ Maya Angelou

Wouldn’t it be great if our PTOs, PTAs and school events had equal representation from every ethnic group in our schools? But, it’s harder than you think, isn’t it? Language barriers and cultural differences often prevent many families from connecting to the school community. This week Tim talks about an event that is a great starting point for reaching out to minority groups at your school and forging new connections.

Parent Involvement Day 2010 is Nov. 18; here are some ways to tap into the parent power at your school:

Coffee and Class
Work with administrators to invite parents to have breakfast at school, then go with their children to the first class of the day. Be sure to let parents know about volunteer opportunities.

A Banner Welcome
Recognize parents for their support of the school by hanging a banner outside the main entrance or placing a message on the school marquee. Hand out a brochure about the benefits of parent involvement.

Tutoring Sessions
Recruit parents to work with students struggling in math or reading. Then hold a family reading night or math night after school.

Spend any time on our message boards and you soon learn that there are some very knowledgeable and considerate PTO and PTA leaders out there. This is the reason we started the “This Post Rock” program — to recognize these wonderful community members.

Here is a top line of our most recent PTO Rock Stars’ posts:

• Three cheers for clnscheffer for contributing a fabulous idea for a classroom art project for school auctions and for uploading photos of the projects.
• Critter responded to a question about implementing  basic reimbursement rules with some thoughtful advice that could save your parent group a lot of angst.
• We appreciate Slvrdrgnflygrl’s detailed post on authors to contact for auction freebies but we also commend her on her words of encouragement that she offered. Oh, and by the way, it turns out that she was writing this post the day before her school auction… like she didn’t have a million other things to do besides pass along info to our community. Amazing.
• Gmparkes post is short and sweet but it points to a bunch of files that he uploaded to our file exchange to help others working on festivals and carnivals. (See the post after his for links to these files.) We greatly appreciate when folks upload files to our File Exchange and we bet you do too. Nothing like saving hours in a project.
• When a community member vented about lack of meeting attendance barb_r not only offered some words of encouragement but she hunted down some articles and blog on our site that she thought would be helpful. Hey wait, isn’t that my job?! Thanks Barb!

Well done PTO Rock Stars. Thanks for all you do to make our community a wonderful place to share and get ideas and support!

Educating kids is a big job. It takes help from parents, community groups, and even business partners. As director of the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University, Joyce Epstein helps schools partner with all these groups to help students succeed. One of her top priorities is promoting productive family involvement.

NNPS draws upon decades of research on parent involvement and school improvement to help schools and their partners focus their efforts on what works best. That means making sure everything they do helps schools reach their goals. We talked with Joyce to find out how parent groups fit into the picture.

What is your message for parent group leaders?

Have a conversation about “What is the goal of parent involvement?” Is it to involve parents for parent involvement’s sake, or is it to help youngsters do better in school? We have learned that if it isn’t about the students’ success, then principals and superintendents and community leaders consider family involvement “fluff.” If it is about student success and if it’s in tune with what the teachers are working hard on every day, then family and community involvement is considered central to the success of school improvement goals.

What are some ways PTOs can contribute to student success?

Parent groups can help by creating a welcoming feeling at school. For example, the PTO might sponsor a picnic before school opens to help all families feel that they are partners with the teachers for the new school year. Other parent groups have held a drive-through breakfast to offer parents coffee and a “thank you” for what they’re doing to support their children as students in school. When there’s a good climate of partnerships at a school, it’s more likely that other activities that focus on student learning goals will occur.

We also want everyone to be working on activities that will link family and community involvement to student results and good outcomes. PTAs and PTOs can make sure that any curriculum-related programs that they have are tied to what teachers are working on with students in their classrooms. If the parent group recruits volunteers for a “reading buddy” program, for example, it’s important to make sure that what they do links to what the teachers need the students to practice. Otherwise, the program may involve parents as volunteers but may not really help the kids improve their reading skills or attitudes.

What is your advice for PTO leaders who want to increase parent involvement?

Talk with the principal about how the group’s activities can be linked to what the staff is trying to achieve with the school improvement plan. And keep the focus on student success. Also, we would like the PTO or PTA to let the principal know that NNPS can be a resource to the school (and to the district) to provide ongoing guidance for strong and sustainable partnership programs.

—Emily Graham

Many parent group leaders have told PTO Today that it has become harder to find volunteers as the country’s economic recession has worsened. Nationwide, though, more people volunteered in 2009 than in any of the previous three years, according to a June 2010 report by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Even better news for parent groups is that parents of children younger than 18 volunteer at significantly higher rates than the general population. In 2009, 34 percent of these parents volunteered in their communities, compared with 27 percent of all adults. Volunteerism among parents of minors rose slightly from the year before.

Overall, Americans are most likely to volunteer for a religious organization (36 percent) or an educational cause (27 percent). While parents of minors also supported religious groups (32 percent), they are far more likely to volunteer for an educational organization; 44 percent of parents who volunteered during 2007-09 helped educational groups.

Parents’ other volunteer interests included social service organizations (9 percent), hospitals (5 percent), civic groups (4 percent), and sports and arts organizations (3 percent).

The CNCS report also contains a bit of simple wisdom: How did most of the people surveyed start volunteering? Someone asked them.

—Emily Graham

No shortage of inspiration in this week’s news.  Here are my take-aways from this collection of articles:

• Not only is a jog-a-thon a great fundraiser but it’s also a terrific way to encourage families to get moving and make healthy choices.
• Family Fun days are a excellent way to build community while showing parents how to make learning more fun.
• Never, ever give up. This parent group’s turn around story offers hope for groups with low involvement.
• Sometimes some of the most basic things require a parent group’s attention… in this case, a PTO rallied support for a walk-to-school program.
• Parent groups have an opportunity to influence their community in their green living habits. Kudos to this PTO for challenging families to go “garbage free.”
• Think beyond fundraising- think pink! This PTA organized a pink day to highlight breast cancer awareness.
• Always love coming across articles about events that were inspired by our PTO Today Magazine… this giant hay maze sounds like a fun, fall event!

Hope you found something to inspire you. Have a fabulous weekend. Don’t forget to send me a link to any articles about your parent group!

Leslee Tejada, a board member with the International Spanish Language Academy PTO in Minnetonka, Minn., inspired us with her efforts to get more parents involved.

Leslee Tejada is a firm believer in the theater adage “There are no small parts.” That philosophy is behind her success at involving parents at the K-8 International Spanish Language Academy, in Minnetonka, Minn. Whether parents are collecting box tops or combing a child’s hair on picture day, to Tejada, their supporting roles all play a major part in helping build a great school. And finding just the right role for everyone is a job Tejada has performed rather well as both volunteer coordinator and vice chair of community events and extracurriculars.

Tejada, who was widowed in 2007, has two children at ISLA, Fionna, 10, and Gianni, 8. As volunteer coordinator, she says she first gets to know each parent personally so she can identify that parent’s motivation and strengths. “The more I know the families, the easier it is to recognize who to call on,” Tejada explains. When the school needed more committee members for a facility search, for example, she called on the parents she knew in the real estate and architecture fields.

“I know which parents are available during the day, which have younger siblings [of students], who is a photographer, painter, etc.,” she says. The result is a ready and capable network of parents to help with the school yearbook, a booth at the town fair, and even the year-end rummage sale.

Tejada has also planned several events to help families connect to the school. She initiated the school’s Dia de Los Muertos celebration in which families play lotería (a Mexican version of bingo) and make an ofrenda (“offering”) to loved ones who have passed away. In May, she coordinated a family event in which students showcased projects from the school’s grant-funded recycling program. In recognition of those efforts, another board member nominated Tejada for a 2009 Minnesota Vikings Community Quarterback Award.

ISLA executive director Karen Terhaar describes Tejada as an advocate for families. “She has her behind-the-scenes role, but she attends every event and stays late to clean up consistently,” Terhaar says. “She not only gets others to help out, she models by working so hard herself.”

That hard work is paying off; involvement in the PTO and ISLA’s fundraising efforts is thriving. Says Tejada, “I feel great about the community that has been built, and it is getting bigger.”

You probably knew that getting involved in your child’s education can help his academic achievement, but did you know it could help improve his social skills, too? A study published in the May/June issue of the journal Child Development found that kids of highly involved parents had better social skills and fewer behavior problems at school than children whose parents were not as involved.

The study by University of Pittsburgh researchers looked at students in 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades. Those whose parents had above-average involvement at school got along better with their classmates and made fewer trips to the principal’s office.

One explanation for the improved behavior is that the more often parents visit or volunteer at school, the more opportunities they have to talk with teachers about their child’s behavior. As parents become better informed about their child’s social troubles at school, they can address the issues at home. Involved parents were also more likely to be aware of school and community resources that could benefit their child socially and academically.

—Emily Graham

Well it’s officially autumn now! Happy Friday to all our hard-working friends. Just did a scan of the news this week and a few headlines caught my eye. Perhaps these parent group stories will inspire new events or ideas for your group.

Walk-a-thon raises $12,179

2,500 volunteers get things done on Day of Caring

PTO car show growing in popularity

Fun fest brings families together

Kamp-out in Redlands offered stars, tents and s’mores

Have a fabulous first weekend of fall! As always, if your PTO or PTA is in the news let us know.