PTO Today

We had such a great response to our live Facebook chat in November that we decided to do another one!  Mark your calendars for this coming Thursday, January 27, from 2-3pm EST. Tim and Craig will be joining to me to “hang out on our wall” and answer your top questions about parent involvement and the day-to-day management of your parent group. To participate you can:

• post your questions prior to Thursday on the Facebook event wall.
• email me questions ahead of time at lgundlach@ptotoday.com (if you’d prefer to keep your question anonymous.)
• or post questions on our wall during the live chat.
• Just a note about participation: During the chat keep hitting your refresh button to stay on top  of the conversation stream.  It’s a good idea to have our Facebook page up in several tabs, just in case one gets hung up in a refresh loop.

We hope you’ll join us on our Facebook page on Thursday between 2 and 3pm EST.  Even if you don’t have a question, I bet you’ll learn from the conversation.  If you have any questions about this event, don’t hesitate to contact me.

So get those questions ready.  We look forward to a fun conversation with you on Thursday!

I don’t often do this, but I loved, loved an email I received yesterday and want to share it.  For 11 years we’ve been trying to do exactly what  Sara Nakai (from the Humphrey Elementary PTO in Chandler, Arizona ) captures here in her note:

Thank you so much, PTO Today, for offering such a helpful resource to PTOs around the country.  Our organization has benefitted so much from the ideas and advice in the pages of your magazine, your e-newsletter, and posts on your Facebook page.  The 2 Hour Power Pledge idea is pure genius and our group has more active members than it’s had in recent years.  During the second half of this year, we’re planning a Family Reading Night, a Family Fitness Morning, and several evening parent education classes to provide parents with strategies for dealing with topics such as bullying and internet safety.  Thank you for these golden ideas!

Man, that made my day!  I hope we can help your group in the months and years ahead in the same way.

For reference, here are some links from Sara’s note:

• Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/PTOToday
• Our Two Hour Power involvement pledge program:  http://www.ptotoday.com/2hourpower/
• Family Reading Night Kit:  http://www.ptotoday.com/sfn/SFN_reading_leader.php
• Internet Safety Night Kit: http://www.ptotoday.com/pen/

Thank you, Sara, for taking the time to share those kind words.  And good luck to all for a great 2011.

Back to school. Does it seem like a long time ago or like just yesterday?

Did your PTO get lots of  fresh new volunteers? Do you feel like you made a positive first impression? Did your PTO or PTA have a strong presence at back-to-school night? Hopefully you answered yes to all these questions. But if you didn’t, don’t worry… you get a do over. No we don’t have a time machine but we do have the materials you need to get it right at back to school 2011.

Believe it or not, we are already taking sign ups for our Back2School Program for 2011. Have you heard of it? Here’s the top-line on the program:

Our Back2School program is loaded with everything you need to start the year off  with a polished first impression. That way, it’s easy to get more parents involved right from the start!

If you are selected to participate, your group will receive:

• complimentary copies of Jump In! magazine to distribute to parents attending your back-to-school event
• the chance to share FREE gift packs with your school’s families
• our Back2School 2011 planning guide
• a welcome banner.

We know that building involvement is a key challenge for parent groups. And we know that parents need help understanding how to best get involved with their children’s education. This program is designed to provide you with the necessary tools to address both of these obstacles.

So now the question is: what are you waiting for? Sign up today.

How many times have your kids said to you, “Hey mom, check out this funny video on YouTube?” Now it’s your turn to share a fun video with your kids, your friends, family members and teachers at your kids’ school…

The neat (no pun intended) thing is that by sharing this video you’ll be helping schools that are struggling financially get the cleaning supplies they need. Bounty is going to make a one-time donation of $200,000 worth of paper towels (retail value) to schools in need if they get 2,000,000 views by Jan. 31st (with distribution help by PTO Today). So we encourage you “to bring it” – share the video and help schools around the country. Kind of refreshing to see brands with a sense of humor and heart, isn’t it?

We’d like to invite you to a Q & A session – live on our Facebook page - this Friday, November 5th, from 1-2pm EST.  You’ve read Tim’s tips and you’ve had your questions answered by Craig, editor of PTO Today, in our Ask a Question section. This Friday you will have a chance to connect with them “live.” Tim and Craig will be “hanging out on our wall” answering your top questions about parent involvement and the day-to-day management of your parent group. To participate you can:

• post your questions prior to Friday on the Facebook event wall.
• email me questions ahead of time at lgundlach@ptotoday.com (if you’d prefer to keep your question anonymous.)
• or post questions on our wall during the live chat.

Then hop on our Facebook page on Friday between 1 and 2pm EST.  Even if you don’t have a question, I bet you’ll learn from the conversation.  If you have any questions about this event, don’t hesitate to contact me. Also, we’d love it if you would RSVP on our Facebook event page.

So get those questions ready.  We look forward to a fun conversation with you this Friday!

Well, cold and flu season is upon us. In anticipation of the sniffles and coughs we’ve launched a new Healthy School Kids page with lots of practical tips, tools and insight on keeping kids healthy during the school year.

To take the sting out of the season we are running a blog give-away. How would you like to win* a gift certificate good towards a professional house cleaning and a gift pack chock full of Lysol cleaning products? Cool, right?!

Here’s how the blog give-away works:

• Tell us what steps your group is taking to help keep kids at your school healthy this year and you could win* this cool blog give-away! Just post your comment on our PTO Today Facebook page for a chance to win.

• If you’re not sure how to begin, just start with an old fashioned fill in the blank: Our parent group is keeping kids healthy this school year by ____________.

• Get posting, because this is the perfect giveaway package for your group to offer to busy parents at an upcoming auction or health and wellness event!

* The Healthy School Kids blog drawing runs from October 6th through October 20th, at 11pm EST. At the end of that time period all Facebook fans who wrote a healthy kids idea on our wall will be entered into a drawing to win a professional house cleaning gift certificate, and a gift pack full of Lysol cleaning products. One entry per person and one name will be drawn randomly from all the comments.

Disclosure: Lysol is a sponsor of the Healthy School Kids program.

UPDATE: October 21, 2010- The winner of the Healthy School Kids give-away is Jamie Anderson. Congrats Jamie! Thank you to everyone who participated and shared their tips. Be sure to visit our Healthy School Kids page to sign up to get in on FREE healthy school kids samples for you to share with your parents at school events, and to pick up some great tips.

Teacher appreciation done well is a great way to put your parent group on the road to success. We think it’s so important that we are hosting a Twitter chat to brainstorm teacher appreciation ideas.

So here’s the scoop:

What: We’ll be using hashtag #PTOtalk to talk about all things Teacher Appreciation!
Where: On Twitter, of course! Party on our Custom Tweetgrid (Use hashtag #PTOtalk)
When: Wednesday, October 6th, 2PM EST (1PM CET, 12noon GMT, 11 PST) – 3:30PM
Why: To have some fun brainstorming creative ways to show teachers appreciation
Who: We’ll be hosting the party (@PTOtoday & @TimPTO) and will be joined by our friends from VolunteerSpot: @Volunteerspot @VspotMom
Featured Guests:  @CarissaRogers @TeachMama @ZiggityZoom @SmartPlayBlog … and you!

This topic is too good to miss. If you don’t know how to use Twitter, don’t let that keep you away. Check out this blog post on Twitter basics:  http://www.ptotoday.com/ptoblog/organize-your-group/2010/02/09/how-to-use-twitter-to-build-parent-involvement/

Hint: it’s pretty simple! Even if you are new to Twitter and are not ready to jump into the conversation you can “listen in” by going to Twitter and searching on #PTOtalk at 1PM EST on October 6th.

Still not convinced? Watch this (very poignant) video, then mark your calendar for our #PTOtalk.

Found a mish mash of interesting articles this week! Lots of things for you to ponder over the next week.

• An online article about volunteer burnout raises some good questions and thoughts. It made me think about a blog link that I recently put up on our Facebook page, that talks about choosing “discomfort over resentment.” Read it and you’ll see how this relates to avoiding volunteer burnout.
• Is it ever ok to turn away a volunteer? How would your group handle it if a recovered addict signed up to volunteer for your school? Read this article to see how one Rhode Island school handled this very situation.
• Really liked the way one PTA reached out to encourage parents to volunteer at their school. Folks over on our Facebook page gave this idea two thumbs up and added a few ideas of their own!
• I was encouraged to read that in some areas there has been an up tick in businesses willing to help out schools. Have you found this to be the case in your area?
• Enjoyed reading an article about a school that developed an interesting behavior incentive program. Love all the photos of their new “Panther Den.”
• Finally, I also found an interesting article geared towards business professionals but bear with me: I think that the principles (not to be confused with principals ; ) in this article make good sense for PTO & PTA leaders. Work smarter, not longer. Avoid the martyr syndrome!

That’s all for this round-up. Have a fabulous weekend. If your parent group is in the news, be sure to send me a link at lgundlach@ptotoday.com.

Woot!  Excited to be putting up our very first “Rock Star” blog post. I will doing these periodically to feature the best content from PTO Today Rock Stars in our message boards. Here are two incredibly helpful posts from two terrific community members.

In the Fundraising Forum Rachel offered details that add up to one marvelous math-a-thon:

We ran a Math Challenge this year rather than a math-a-thon. The idea was that it’s hard to get kids excited about doing pages upon pages of problems and the idea was first to get kids excited about math (this school’s math scores are not to be envied and the attitude of the teachers, parents, and students about math in general was pretty poor). We had three levels: 4K-5K, 1-3, and 4-6. In hind sight we should have had a different level for each grade because skills are so different at these ages. Students worked in groups of 4-5 students. It lasted for one hour. At the start time, the principal made an announcement that it was to begin. Each team received their packet.

There were the 1 point questions – simple, quick, varied between math facts and trivia like what is Pi and there were between 75-150 depending on the level.

Then there were the ‘challenge’ questions. These took longer and there were about 10 (worth 5pts each) – word problems, logic based, needed more thinking and generally had multiple answers required.

Every 10 minutes (there were 5), the principal came over the loud speaker and gave a different ‘movement’ question. They varied in difficultly based on grade level and the student needed to go to one part of the building to obtain information and then perform a math funtion (one example was go to the front of the building and find the year the building was built and the number address of the school – for 1-3 they had to add the numbers together, for 4-6 they had to multiply them). These were also worth 5pts each and every team member had to have a chance to do one.

All the volunteers got a t-shirt, all the students got a smart smencil (although we had trouble with ours so I would necessarily recommend unless you have plenty of times (many weeks) to deal with smencils if they are incorrect). It was a fundraiser but this school it terrible with fundraisers so it didn’t do very well as a whole school. However, the students that did participate in the fundraising portion did VERY well collecting pledges.

We set it up like any catalog fund-raiser – a certain dollar amount raised gets a certain incentive so it was a pledge drive for the donor but the students got more than just ‘knowing they helped their school.’

$25 t-shirt like the volunteers (kids loved them because they were different, a great color rather than grey, and the logo was professionally designed – donated).

$50 a math drill calculator

$100 Equate math board game

$125 extra Equate tiles

$250 electronic handheld math game (either stand alone or a cartridge for a handheld system like DS – they choose)

$500 either zoo pass or family four pack to a local water park (both about $100 value)

Prizes were cummulative so you could get some serious stuff if you tried. Some did! Next time I would have smaller prizes for the inbetween amounts but that is based on your school (this one is very much ‘what do I get’ and fewer-better doesn’t resonate, they want more more more).

Teachers were excited about it but didn’t help. Some of the lower grades did because they needed an adult for each team but the upper levels used it as a planning period and offered no help with the organization of the event. It was a lot of work but the school buzzed with excitment the whole hour and the kids loved it. They were very excited to hear their scores and results as well, announced over the course of a week to build excitment since there were classroom prizes as well.

Good luck – math is a great thing and I wish fewer people were scared of it!!

In the School Family Events Forum Barb R offered some excellent advice to a community member thinking about organizing an art show:

Our PTO pays for the entire art program at our school. As part of that one of the fundraisers is focused on art and we ALWAYS do an art show at the end of the year to highlight the kids accomplishments.

We normally chose one week night, normally a Tuesday or Thursday, in April or May. The show runs for about 2 hours or less. We post the art work in the hallway by the child’s classroom, normally 3 to 4 pieces, depending on how/what was done. The easiest way is to put the child’s name on a card at the top and all of the art work under it so it is easy to identify per student. The kids normally do 6 or so projects but normally only the best 3 or 4 are posted. There are signs put up with each grade level telling what the art is or why it was done. Last year was the first year that we gave ribbons for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place per classroom. A grand prize and a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (I think) were then chosen from those pieces and highlighted at the front of the entrance on a special table. (They were later framed and hung in the school lobby. The ribbons are just paper clipped to the edge of the picture for simplicity sake. We normally offer some light refreshments. (Last year were pretzels, m&m’s and lemonade… some years have been cakes and fruit, it varies.) And we have also started involving different musical (instrumental) artists in the community and have them come in and provide atmosphere music for the event. One year it was the kids for the talent show, another year a few kids from the high school orchestra. It varies, depending on timing, etc.

One year we also had an “exhibition guide” which shared information about the type of art, classes, etc. So that can always be another option.

Congrats Barb R & Rachel and thanks for being team players.  We appreciate each and every one of the questions and comments posted in our community. It’s a lot of fun connecting with all of you and even more fun keeping an eye out for “rocking” posts!

NOTE: If their posts have inspired you to take on an art or math program at your school, check out these links:

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/88-how-ptos-foster-math-skills

http://www.ptotoday.com/answers/question/12414-sunshine-math-club

http://www.ptotoday.com/answers/question/11263-family-math-night

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/1018-pto-program-puts-art-into-action

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/147-bringing-art-appreciation-to-students

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/853-make-it-an-a-plus-year

Did you see Tim on TV this past Monday talking about the good work of  PTOs and PTAs and about Schools Serves‘ efforts to bring schools together to make a dent in childhood hunger? If you missed it, check out this clip then be sure to sign up to be part of this impactful program.