PTO Today

You might recall that earlier this year we redesigned our website and added a bunch of new features and tools. Since then we’ve been ‘finetuning’ and adding smaller enhancements and tweaking things every couple of weeks.

This week I’m particularly excited about a change we made to how search works. Yes, an odd thing to be excited about, but I really think our new search page will make it MUCH easier to find exactly what you’re looking for.

In the old search, you entered your search term and got a whole bunch of results from all over our site. Now, it’s broken down into categories: Articles & Programs, Message Boards, and File Exchange.

Looking for sample PTO bylaws? Search the File Exchange.

Need some advice about bylaws? Search the Message Boards.

Want to read everything our experts have written about parent group bylaws? Search Articles & Programs.

You might not be as excited about this new feature as I am, but I hope you find it useful. Enter any search term in the box in the top right corner of our site and take our new site search for a spin!

(and of course if there is something you can’t find on our site email me directly at klagden@ptotoday.com)

I suspect field trips might be completely gone by now if not for the work of school PTOs and PTAs.  Keep it up!

This column in Education Week caught my eye, as it makes a compelling case why we should save field trips. I often think of the work that PTOs do as being about making sure that schools are places filled with life and spirit, not just big imposing brick walls of book-learnin’. Parent involvement (of all sorts). Playgrounds. Family events. Field trips.  These are parts of the tapestry that yield the kind of people that we (at least I) want coming out of our schools. 

Soap box moment over (though you can feel free to jump up on it yourself with your $0.02 below) …

UPDATE:  I was visiting yesterday (at our New Jersey PTO Today Expo) with our friends from Target, and I was reminded about their generous new Field Trip Grants program.  Process is closed for this year, but I’m told it’s coming back for the 2008-2009 school year.  Nice! 

Very happy to hear that the local PTO was removed from this lawsuit over a playground injury.  Also hope they (and your group) will take this as a warning to get parent group insurance. Small investment for financial and personal security.. 

While I wish there’d be far fewer lawsuits (kids get hurt growing up), the reality is that groups and leaders can and do get sued.

First time we’ve ever seen this — Scholastic Book Clubs disallowed in this Washington (state) district. 

There was one complaint about content of Book Club books, but the larger issue in this town seems to be having kids connected to selling anything. We’ve said it before — these issues need a more nuanced analysis than simply equating all selling or all for-profit efforts with doing harm to kids.

Whether schools could benefit from Scholastic having more competition is an open question, but — c’mon! — the 50-year tradition of school book clubs doing harm to kids??? These guys can’t be serious.  Your thoughts?

A few weeks ago I posted about a Tide sampling program we’re launching this month. You might recall that participating groups will be able to give Tide samples (it’s a brand new type of Tide — it actually has Dawn  in it, we’re told — that Tide would love families to try out) to moms and dads at an upcoming school family event.

We just found out that the samples will be ready for distribution in phases over the next month, rather than in one fell swoop, so I wanted to outline how the program will work and when you can sign up to participate.

PTO Today Plus members get first dibs so we’ll be emailing some of our Plus members today and the rest of our Plus members in February. When the distribution company receives the final shipment of samples I’ll post a note on the blog (and likely in the weekly newsletter) with details on how everyone can sign-up to participate. Keep in mind there are a limited number of spots so you’ll want to sign up quickly if you’d like to participate.

I know it sounds a little more complicated than usual but the reason we’re doing it this way is so you don’t sign up and then have to wait weeks for your samples. We’d rather have the samples ready to go so you can plan your event and not worry about receiving the shipment in time.

If you have any questions our customer care folks can help - 800-644-3561 x. 208 or you can post your question in the comments below and one of us will jump in with an answer.

What’s better than a parent group? A parent “supergroup”!

Parents from five elementary schools in West Springfield, Mass. have formed a new group that “transcends school boundaries,” The Republican newspaper reports. As one of the leaders explained, each school PTO will continue its own work, but by coming together they “can do a lot of great things.”

Ouch. Boston Herald opinion piece pulls no punches in questioning the effectiveness and political role of Massachusetts (and national) PTA.

Just can’t seem to shake this trend. Big ($50,000+) story from a Texas PTA is outlined here. And this Virginia piece talks about another plus some tips for avoiding the problem at your group. And for good measure, here’s our more comprehensive piece on the same topic.

Kind of excited about this development. Check out the beginning steps of our new PTO Today Parent Group Store. Watch over the next few months as this thing develops in full. lots of great stuff on the way.

Interesting model. Arkansas group partnering with Barnes & Noble for a store-based Book Fair.