PTO Today

Good details in this piece about an Ohio PTO’s overall efforts and their upcoming road race community day.

Readers of this blog have followed this story for months and months now. Doesn’t seem like an easy conclusion is in sight. Basically, the Maryland PTA pulled the charter of the Baltimore PTA Council. State claims that council wasn’t operating well or responding to requests. Lot of debate has ensued. Still don’t really get the big problem. Don’t think the Baltimoreans realize that they could — like hundreds and hundreds of other districts — just re-form their council independently. Just a thought…

Few details at this point, but former volunteer under arrest in $40,000 theft. Hope these guys have insurance.

I haven’t really been counting, but I sure do love stories like this one about parents and teachers and admins working together to transform a school. Especially like how the parent piece is featured not as a nice-to-have, but as a must-have element of really getting the school thing right. Couldn’t agree more.

It’s decidedly not a quick read, but it’s good enough to make the “grab a cup of coffee” or “print it out and read later” list. We’ll have to make these guys contenders for our next Parent Group of the Year search.

As we all know here, there can be some significant differences in commitment and leadership between one PTA or PTO member and another. As they say: “in a ham omelette, the chicken is involved, the pig is committed.” So I was wondering PTA-wise if Ms. Palin was a chicken or a pig.

At least according to this research, it appears that Governor Palin was a PTA member (not leader) for 2 years back when she was a mayor of Wasilla, AK. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a member, it just tends to be significantly different than leading the group in some capacity.

Still love the attention this nomination is garnering for school volunteer work….

Not since Barbara Eden was traipsing around Harper Valley have parent group volunteers had this kind of attention. You can’t turn on the TV or read the paper without reading about how this PTA mom has ascended to the national stage. Cool, right?

I ‘m hopeful that the attention leads to even more school involvement. Now there’s a platform we all can get behind!

I do have a quibble, though, or at least something to keep an eye on. While no one is making the case that PTA or PTO leadership is akin to national and international standing, it should be equally clear that volunteering (and leading volunteers) shouldn’t be any kind of a blackmark either. I can’t give you an exact link (if you have one, send it through), but several of the commentaries I’ve seen contain a subtle condescension toward Palin’s school volunteer work, as if no one of real substance would have done that job. That’s equally unfair and says more about the speaker than it does school volunteers.

Finally, one interesting link. Found this memo from/to national PTA leadership re: what to say about Governor Palin.

Will be interesting to see if Palin’s school work/school beginnings stay in the spotlight or if — as I suspect — that element of her biography will fall more into the background as the election nears.

Prince Georges County (MD) making specific efforts to involve Dads. Article includes good research and background on why getting dads involved is so key.

More releases coming out on this blockbuster of a fundraising deal. To clarify from last week’s posting, QSP was not purchased by Time Direct Ventures but instead by Time Inc. itself (and its consumer marketing division). Reportedly, the QSP operations will remain a separate business unit from (and report into entirely different areas within the larger Time, Inc.) Time Direct Ventures. Following…

This is a huge deal for the fundraising industry, a deal which is sure to have effects on PTOs and PTAs. Time — through its Time Direct Ventures group – has been successfully integrating magazine subscriptions into traditional fundraisers for the past several years. And now they’ve purchased the largest of the traditional magazine fundraising companies. Very interesting.

Short-term, we’re hearing that there will really be no changes for groups. But we’ll keep an eye on how this all plays out for you.

Gotta love it when a PTO realizes that involvement takes unique outreach… and then sees great success.

This PTO in Southwest Florida is hosting family events and they’re involvement motto is: “Make it Fun and They Will Come”. How great is that? Check out more about their involvement success in this article.

It’s such a fundamental truth of growing involvement — it starts with the family events. Meetings aren’t the key at all. You can have better meetings. You can have raffles for attending meetings. You can have shorter meetings. But they’re still meetings. When you’re trying to connect with those who aren’t connected, you have to attract them. (Hint: meetings are not attractive.)

This has probably been our number one topic on the site and in our talks (which is why I love this Florida story so much). Looking for more aroud this? We’ve got: My column on why meetings don’t matter nearly as much as most PTOs think. And we’ve got great family event ideas.

If you do nothing else this coming year, think this way. (Now, would someone please help me down of my soapbox???)