PTO Today

Grrrrr….. this goes in the same category as the recent discussion on restricting PTO fliers and categorizing them the same as fliers from outside community groups.  This Pennsylvania district is considering charging outside groups for use of school facilities.  I understands the budget pressures that lead to that conclusion.

But, ummmm, PTOs are not outside groups.  Are they going to charge English teachers for use of the classrooms, too?  The local sports league, the Girl Scouts — yup, those are outside groups.  But an active, effective parent group focused on building parent involvement and community and supporting the school is a key part of a great school.  It’s foundational, not extra… and certainly not “outside”.  Double grrr.

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.

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?  

Very cool news came our way today with word that one of our long-time colleagues (though her work here is just a drop in her busy life bucket) is being celebrated by the state with an “Unsung Heroine” award. Can’t think of a more deserving recipient for this honor.  Hooray Paula!

If you don’t hear from me for a while, it will be because Paula has hunted me down and hurt me for even posting this note.  But I’ll take that risk….

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.

Love it when districts “get it” when it comes to honoring and valuing volunteer efforts in schools.  Here’s a recent parent-focused release from the Anoka-Hennepin district in Minnesota that captures that well.

Two more cool things about the release: 

1. All that data on volunteer hours was captured because the district uses our PTO Manager “Volunteer Builder” software to help encourage volunteering and to track volunteer efforts.  Neat to see such nice end results.

2. We’re goig to be in Anoka-Hennepin Tuesday for our PTO Expo.  I’ll be presenting a “best habits of successful PTOs and PTAs” keynote in the morning.  If you’re in the area, i hope you’ll come by.

On the heels of the Go Green Night announcement last weekend, we’re equally excited to be working with the folks at Symantec to introduce an annual Internet Safety Week for schools.  For 2009, ISW is next week, April 27 – May 1.

Couple of relevant pieces to this story for you:

1. We’ve created a great set of resources for parents over on SchoolFamily.com.  Check out our Internet Safety Week section for all kinds of insight and tools.  I hope you’ll share the link in your emails (you are using the new, free Parent Express Email service, aren’t you?), your websites and even your print newsletters to home.

2. We created a flyer to help you participate in Internet Safety Week at your school.  It has great tips for helping your parents engage with their kids online, which is the first step to all of this. You can download the photocopy-ready flyer there (from our File Exchange) and share with all of your parents.

3. Symantec just launched its new, free OnlineFamily.Norton service for families.  I’ve been an Advisory Board member for the product’s development, and I must say — pretty darn cool. I think the big switch these days has to be from parents thinking of Internet Safety and Parenting as two different things to parents realizing that — with the ‘Net being such a central part of kids lives — Internet Safety and Parenting are one in the same.  The good news is that the new Norton tool helps make that a reality.  USA Today agrees in a review of the product today.

More to come next week on this exciting devlopment….

Unless you spent this week under a very heavy (and sound-proof) rock, then you’ve heard about Earth Day, and of course the health of our environment has been a big topic for years now.  That’s why we’re so excited about our newest School Family Night — Go Green Night — in partnership with the Energy Star program and the EPA. Very cool.

The kits for the NIght will be ready in the fall, but you can already learn more and sign up to host a Go Green Night at your school.  Learn more about Go Green Night here.

We kicked off the partnership this past Saturday on the National Mall in Washinton, D.C., where we were proud to work with new EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and her team for the launch announcement.  On a beautiful day in that beautiful spot, it was easy to get jazzed about getting green.  If the initial response to this Night is any indication, this could be the biggest School Family Night yet.

There seem to be more and more sites these days talking about what’s wrong with schools, and I suppose there’s a need for that.  But we also know there’s a lot right about our schools, and we always like when that gets attention too.

It’s why we created our own version of “Find a School” and why we encourage you to click through and add your own comments about your school.  Let the world know what’s going right in your school.  (I’m sure it starts with a great group of parent volunteers, right?).

Hope you’ll also encourage all the parents at your school to chime in.  Our find-a-school tool is referenced by a ton of young parents (choosing where the little one is headed) and moving parents (picking a new house based on the possible new school) – and the more reviews of your school the better.

For encouraging the reviews (and, frankly, for encouraging your parents to take advantage of all the great content on schoolfamily.com), we also have a nice tool you can put right on your PTO or PTA website.

I suppose I should explain that www.schoolfamily.com is a sister site to this one.  Whereas www.ptotoday.com aims to help the leaders of local PTOs and PTAs run their groups most effectively, www.schoolfamily.com aims to help the general population of school parents do their best in the important job of getting their kids through school most successfully.  Sometimes we think of the site as a web assistant to all the work you do (as a parent group leader) in trying to explain why parent involvement is so essential.

Spread the (good) news….

The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio takes a look at some local auction efforts (and, natch, looks to PTO Today for expertise on the matter). The skinny?  Seems that donations are still healthy, but the top dollars (for the big items) are a bit down.   

This dovetails with what Jon Carson of cMarket observed back a few months ago, as well as with what we’re hearing from around the country.  How are your auctions doing this year?

For more on school auctions, visit our school auction homepage here.