PTO Today

I imagine we’ll be seeing a fairly large onslaught of press over next couple of weeks, as PTA hires male CEO and prepares to install first-ever male president. It’s perfect for PR. Here’s the first feature we’ve seen on the PTA CEO hire.

For the record, a couple of clarifications for the article: 1) That 6 million in membership is actually around 5.3 million these days. But what’s three quarters of a million members (or 13%) among friends? 2) That 26,000 units is actually around 23,000 units.

Excited to introduce all of our ptotoday.com readers and users to a new site we launched just this morning — schoolfamily.com.

It’s from the same team of involvement experts who bring you ptotoday.com, but you’ll see that the focus is subtly but importantly different. Where ptotoday.com is all about the challenges of being a great school PTO or PTA leader, schoolfamily.com is all about the challenges of being a great school parent. Example: ptotoday.com might talk about how to put on a spaghetti supper for 400, while schoolfamily would talk about why attending a spaghetti supper actually matters.

We’re excited about how this kind of new content can help you (as a leader) accomplish even more. Hope you’ll share the new site with all your parents, as helping parents “get it” when it comes to getting involved is what you’re all about and what schoolfamily.com is all about.

(We’d also love your ideas on how we can make schoolfamily.com even better.) Enjoy!

Love to see good results from a program we played a (small) role in.  Here’s a great result ($10,000 grant) from this past year’s Love Your Veggies school grant program, sponsored by Hidden Valley.  PTO Today — through our connection with so many schools — helped manage the back-end of this program for Hidden Valley.

Check out the Love Your Veggies program for your school next year.  Nice dollars and nice, healthy cause. 

We couldn’t be more proud of our affiliation with Lowe’s and the Toolbox for Education program or more thankful for Lowe’s support of PTOs and PTAs nationwide. It’s the only comprehensive grant program focused exclusively on the work of school PTO sand PTAs — and Lowe’s has now given millions to groups through this effort.

Here’s just one great Lowe’s giving story from Lynn, MA. These guys built wooden easels for all their teachers thanks to their grant.

Similarly, I was lucky enough to attend a ribbon-cutting for a local playground recently. Lowe’s generously contributed nearly half the funds needed for the build. So great to see a couple of hundred little faces as they surged toward their new school backyard. Very cool.

I just got the heads up that our editorial team posted 2 new articles…just in time for elections & transition season!

What Every Secretary Should Know

What Does a Vice President Do

A few other sections that are useful for new board members (and those you’re encouraging to join the board!)

Officers & Board

President

Secretary

Treasurer

Vice President

Thought I’d give a quick heads-up that my favorite new tool on the site — our File Exchange — has been redesigned and upgraded. Better than ever.

You can check out the File Exchange here.

What’s the File Exchange? Think of it as a treasure box for PTOs and PTAs. If you’ve written a great letter on getting involved or created a great flyer for teacher appreciation — load it to the File Exchange so others can use it, too.  And next time you’re sitting down to create a brochure or flyer or letter for this project or that — get a head start with a visit to the File Exchange first.

Have anything to share???

At each of our expos, Patty Catalano (PTO Today staffer) puts on her white doctors coat and helps leaders diagnose and find solutions to their most pressing parent group challenges. After our last expo in New Jersey I asked Patty to share some of the most common/interesting questions she’s addressed so far. Here’s what she had to say…

Q: What can/should we do about the fact that involvement at the middle school wanes?
A: The wane here is typical-not uncommon. Teachers don’t need parents “hands-on” etc. in the classroom, (kids don’t want ‘em hanging around either!) Involvement here tends to be more event focused, i.e. helping out at talent shows, jogathons, chaperoning dances, open gym nights, etc. Competition typed events work great here too, i.e. trivia nights, spelling bees, basketball game/shootouts etc. When planning teams, consider holding teams of students to participate AGAINST their parents. (They love to be on a team with their friends at this age instead of being teamed up WITH their parents. They are just so like, OMG, uncool. ; p )

Q: We have one parent (i.e. steamroller type) who tries to take over every committee and goes right to the principal (overstepping PTO) to make changes to our activities /plans without our knowledge. How do we address this?
A: I suggested the two leaders first sit down with principal and then the steamroller. Need to chat with principal about how your group is trying to be more orderly/structured and that it has procedures in place for chairs and volunteers and no one should side step PTO board. Tell her that you would appreciate that parents come to the board with ideas/proposals for PTO related activities. Process should be that all PTO events and programs are put on an agenda, voted, and approved. Things should not be changed haphazardly after they are voted on.
Also, the steamroller needs to be put in her place. Stand up to her and make sure she’s following documented procedures. Let her know you would LOVE her help; you just want to make sure she’s going through the right channels so that help can be put to the best possible use.

Q: How do we get teachers to come to our events/become more involved in our PTO?
A: Teacher’s job is to teach, job of parent group leaders is to provide support to make that teaching environment a positive one. Also, don’t take it personally, the 800+ kids at school are all very cute, but frankly by 2:00 p.m. the teachers have seen enough of them. (LOL)
It’s important to understand that they have other essential/more important things (family/kids/a life!) to deal with outside the school. They might not want to come to a book fair, or spaghetti night or some other PTO fun filled night just for that reason. Also, some teachers fear that parents will hunt them down and want to talk shop (so why did Johnny get an F last month on that test??)
If they show up for an event count your blessings, but don’t hold it against them if they don’t.
Other things that might help them to show up to at least one event during the year: put individual/personalized invitations to the event in their mailbox (versus the collective “Attention Teachers! Come One Come All” flyer posted on the copier room wall!)
Also, if you really really have to have their help for an event, recruiting teachers is not unlike recruiting parent volunteers…. You just need to ask for SPECIFIC help based on their skills/background, i.e. hello Mrs Smith (art teacher), can you help us make a back drop for the talent show? Hello, Mr. Smith (gym teacher) can you help us recruit some teachers to play basketball against the kids at our Get Movin’ night?
You get the picture…

If you’re attending the Chicago or Denver show be sure to stop by and see Patty…she’s the one in the white coat

Could someone please help me up on my soapbox?

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was in this long, front-page feature on parent invovement in Education Week. On the one hand, I suppose it’s great that American Education’s Newspaper of Record is focusing on involvement.  It happens far too infrequently throughout the insiderdom of education.

But I’m always amazed and disappointed when a writer and nearly a dozen strong education sources can talk at length on involvement and not once mention the huge involvement infrastructure that already exists in so many schools.  Yes, PTOs and PTAs.  It happens all the time.  I actually spoke on this very peeve at a National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE) meeting a year ago this month.

It seems to me that the researchers and many principals and district-level types (plus the education media, which typically only talks to those same folks) are always looking to invent a new way. This committee or that. This new rule or that.

My question: how in the world can folks so focused on building parent involvement look right past and dismiss the groups who: 1) currently do more to foster involvement than any other entity in the school world; 2) exist to build community and ionvolvement around their schools; and 3) are led by the kind of passionate, committed parents who will make the best first-movers in any and all involvement improvements.

In Massachusetts some years ago, a mandate came down that every school had to establish a School Council with a good deal of parent representation, basically a new parent organization with some decision-making and accountability input. Nice idea, but why the heck did we need another level of bureaucracy when virtually every Massachusetts school already had/has a PTO or PTA of some sort. Why not mandate that principals help their existing groups take on some of those same valubale roles? The training and relationship-building and communication work being put into Councils could have been used much more effectively. What a waste.

I’m not at all saying that PTOs and PTAs get it all perfectly right.  I’d love to see (and we try and share in the magazine and on this site — see here and here, as examples) groups getting even more adept at taking parents up the ladder to new heights of impactful involvement at their schools. But it’s crazy to think about these kind of improvements without co-opting the potential of existing PTOs and PTAs. It’s an army of parent passion at the ready to help make their schools great. If we’re going to think about new solutions and training and new committees, start with the installed infrastructure and take advantage of it.  A principal (or district) who really gets it re: involvement paired with a parent group ready to work on involvement — now that’s a combination that can work.

Every proposal for classroom improvements obviously includes teachers. And school changes start with principals. It’s just plain… dumb… that parent involvement efforts don’t start with the hundreds of thousands of parent-leaders already working in our schools.  It’s an insider-itis that leads to good-minded folks missing tools and solutions that are right there in front of them.   I hope it changes.

Every year we talk about the excitement and energy at our PTO expos. Of course when you put hundreds of parent group leaders in a room full of ideas and information great things are bound to happen. I sure had fun at our New Jersey show. And from the looks of it, so did these 80 folks from the Newark school district.

I hope the gang in the pic below are feeling strong. Conference tote bags always end up jammed with information and samples. Lots of stuff to take back and discuss with the whole group.

And of course the entertainment is always fun. Here a couple of Harlem Wizards get ready to show what they can do.

Two more shows to go this year - Chicago and Denver. If you’re attending be sure to stop by the PTO Today booth and say hi!

Was such a fun day Wednesday that I thought I’d add another picture. Great crowd, and this photo really captures it. That big blue ball is actually the earth from “Earth Balloon“. You can also see (through all the people) booths for Innisbrook Fundraising and Primary School Supplies.