PTO Today

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.

This Dallas feature takes an interesting look at Texas state PTA membership and parent volunteering trends in the Lone Star State.  Looks like Texas PTA membership is down 200,000 in last 15 years or so at a time when Texas student enrolment is up by 1 million or so.  I was surprised to see this, as Texas PTA has traditionally been one of the strongest and most aggressive state PTAs on membership development.

One missing piece from the article is the possibility that the PTA membership decline does not necessarily mean a decline in parent volunteering as a whole.  If an existing PTA disbands and becomes a PTO (as has happened quite a bit across the country), PTA membership goes down but parent volunteering does not.   Not sure if that’s a cause of the Texas numbers per se, but certainly a possibility.

Do think the article captures an interesting phenomenon that I’m sure *is*a factor in Texas.  Many immigrant parents do not think of parent involvement in same ways that many long-time citizens may think of as “traditional”.  That’s a definite challenge for all schools and parent groups.  Some thoughts on that in this feature story on engaging immigrant parents.

Interested in your thoughts on the Texas PTA membership story as well as your own creative solutions for connecting with multi-cultural parents.

Don’t see this too often but like it.  This Ohio PTO taking nominations for its annual teacher of the year award.  Nice.

Former president from outside Denver arrested — after her kids tried to play lookout on her getaway effort  –  for stealing from her group.  Grrrr.

In this case, the method was forging her co-signers signature on dozens of checks.  Our most basic of financial best practices – making sure that a non-signer opens the checking statement each month — would have likely prevented this one.  Also hope they’re insured. 

Maybe it’s this nasty cold I have that’s making me grumpy this week, but these news stories (started with the lady suing the PTO over raffle rules) are driving me crazy.  Now, we have a Superintendent completely missing the boat on the essential nature of parent involvement in schools. Did he miss the memo? That a district even considers charging the parent-teacher group to use the space is ludicrous.  C’mon! Shall we charge the history teacher for classroom space? 

The PTA or PTO is not, repeat not, equivalent to the scouts or the local basketball league. We’ll be happy to forward the dozens of research reports that make that clear. Ugh. <end rant> 

There’s a special, very warm place for someone who would sue the PTO because the raffle wasn’t run to the letter of the law.

That’s what happened in New Jersey.  The crime?  A couple of the organizers had a cocktail or two and the big raffle barrel wasn’t rotated/mixed enough. Give me a break, please! The original suit was for $15,000, but PTO settled for $1,000.  And now their fundraiser is less successful, as well.  I hope these folks sleep well at night now that they’ve protected the world from wine-drinkin’, barrel-half-rotatin’ school volunteers.  Good grief.

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.

Looks like Varsity Gold won’t make it out of banruptcy.  We’re hearing that their recent Chapter 11 filing (which implies a re-organization) has been switched to a Chapter 7 filing (liquidation). I’m sure there are a lot of good people looking for work today, and I’m hoping that not too many groups are owed $$ from Varsity Gold.  Best wishes to all.

If you are a school scheduled with VG for spring or a group owed money, we’d love to hear from you, as our editorial team is right in the middle of covering this story.  editor@ptotoday.com

Have been hearing more and more chatter from Utah these days around PTO v PTA issues. Utah has always been a heavily PTA state, but there’s been a not-insignificant number of media stories and small dust-ups in the past year or so re: local groups exploring options. 

Interesting, therefore, that this state senator is forwarding a bill to open up the state, hoping to prohibit requiring dues for parent involvement.   One obvious implication of the bill — as noted by Utah PTA president — would be a conflict with standard PTA bylaws, which require dues for all members.  Will follow this story as it progresses.

Quick story from Utah on a PTA-to-PTO switch. The reasons given are fairly standard: feeling that dollars going out don’t match value and a bit of a mis-fit with PTA politics.  The non-standard part is the state.  Utah remains the highest % PTA state in the country (by far).

Found this quote:

Other benefits Dyreng has seen through the PTO are not having to deal with the politics of a national association. “We’re just not tied to all the politics the PTA has,” said Dyreng.

…interesting, as it captures pretty well the common, subtle disconnect between PTA politics and locals.  It’s not content of PTA positions that is typically the issue, but more the fact that the connection to politics (by definition, politics = contentious) tends to get in way of what many groups consider their more important goals of growing parent involvement, creating community at school and supporting kids and teachers. Politics isn’t exactly the recipe for kum-bay-ya togetherness and involvement.