PTO Today

It was wonderful to hear about your teacher appreciation programs this past week. Well done! Think it’s fair to say that you made your teacher’s week!

Before long, you’ll be thinking about what to do for your end-of-year volunteer appreciation. No rest for the weary! In this video Tim talks about what to avoid this spring when you execute your volunteer appreciation program.

What is your PTO or PTA board doing for volunteer appreciation this year? Share your best ideas with other leaders below in the comments.

It happens in every group. One of your key volunteers, probably a great person, just isn’t very organized. How do you make sure her responsibilities get done without creating all kinds of drama and bad blood? It’s tricky, but it’s possible.

My first point is that it is OK (and even part of your leadership job) to think about issues like this. Your best defense is to guide folks into jobs that fit their skills and gifts. Deadline-phobic Mary may be a bad choice to chair your auction, but she might be perfect for recruiting new volunteers or running the teacher appreciation committee. It’s also a great idea to team the organizationally challenged with a more buttoned-up volunteer as cochairs.

If you find yourself with a solo chairperson who is dropping balls, then you do need to take some action. The best tactic is to find a willing volunteer with complementary skills and bring her onto the team. You don’t have to force the new volunteer into a cochair role or depose the current leader (the credit doesn’t matter, and the drama isn’t worth it), but you do want to subtly find ways to add the skills that are missing to the event you need completed.

For too many groups, the struggling leader means weeks or months of behind-the-scenes griping and then a disappointing final result. Leaders step in — nicely, when they can — to help find solutions before it’s too late.

We have lots of resources for building leadership skills on ptotoday.com; a couple of my favorites are “Empowering Committee Chairs” and “Are You a Leader or a Manager?“

I try not to get too exercised by parent involvement articles in the mass media, knowing that the nuances of involvement are often lost on reporters who cover minivans one day and best vacation spots the next. But this New York Times piece today (“Frazzled Moms Push Back Against Volunteering”) is so one-sided and, frankly, poorly done that I just had to respond.

The article paints this picture of Moms who go waaay past balanced in their volunteering to the point where they are causing harm to their family lives and even their personal well-being. Does that happen? Absolutely. We’ve written about volunteering that goes too far many times on this site.

My problem with the article is in the conclusions. Reading, one would think that the only solution to over-volunteering is going completely cold turkey. One of the moms celebrated in the article won’t even let her husband write a check to support a school fundraiser? Really? She went from running about everything in the school to attending nothing, supporting nothing and (obviously) volunteering not at all? That’s the solution?

How about balance? Millions of parents do a great job leading parent groups in a balanced way or finding a way to volunteer or support the school that fits their lifestyle. I can name you 200 moms and dads at my kids’ school who work full-time but who have found a way to chaperone one field trip or help with the weekend school basketball program or solicited some donations for the school auction. That much more common experience doesn’t even get a mention in this article. Ludicrous.

My biggest objection is to the writer not mentioning the decades of research that makes a compelling case for the value of parent involvement at schools. My kids do better. The other kids at school do better. The school as a whole does better when the school has higher degrees of broad parent involvement. To read the Times story is to think these Moms who have completely opted out are some kind of heroes. They’re not villains for opting out (sounds like they had trouble finding balance any other way), but the story potentiallly does real harm implying that zero connection to school is the right recipe.

I know there are folks in this world who live by extremes. If they volunteer, they are going to be the greatest, most committed volunteer in history. And if they stop volunteering, boy-oh-boy are they ever going to stop volunteering. But don’t we expect our reporters to go beyond the extremes to where the real facts lie? This article takes a stereotype, find three examples to back it up and – voila! – school volunteering is only awful. The Times can and should do much better.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We spend a ton of time here at PTO Today talking about how PTO officers can thank their volunteers and appreciate their teachers. This week, we’d like to take some of that time and simply thank you for all you do for your school and the students and families.

I know it can be a thankless, tiring job. But it’s worth it; it really is. Because of your work, students are learning in a more welcoming environment and families are connecting with your school in ways that research tells us are extremely important. Great teachers are energized at just the right time by your support.

On behalf of all of those people who should be thanking you more and should see even more clearly the value of the work you’re doing — thank you!

From all of us at PTO Today, please have a wonderful Thanksgiving. You deserve it.

Every parent group has several volunteers who quietly, very quietly, are essential to the PTO’s success. And yet these volunteers are often thanked least and taken advantage of most of any parents in your school.

I bet you know a few of these moms and dads. They aren’t official leaders of your group, but they attend lots of your meetings and — more important — they almost always volunteer for your events and say yes when asked to help with almost any task.

You have your leaders who take on a ton of responsibility and also get a lot of credit. You have your outgoing volunteers who might help run one big event and everyone knows it. And then you have these quieter volunteers who simply work really hard under the radar.

Do you recognize these key parents? Or do you just thank your lucky stars that they exist and send them four more jobs to do? I hope it’s the former and not the latter. How you treat those volunteers says a lot about your group and about your prospects for recruiting more help. All the parents in school have eyes and see how your group works. If they see a few volunteers constantly working and running around, then those parents will be reluctant to volunteer themselves. They’ll rightfully worry about how they’ll be treated if they step up.

My advice: Do two things for those quiet volunteers. First, make efforts to thank them both publicly and privately for their key, understated contributions. Second, take pains not to take advantage of their reluctance to say no. The best groups spread the volunteering wide (and even cancel efforts if they can’t) rather than placing an undue burden on just a few.

Want some more volunteer insight? Check out these resources on ptotoday.com:

• 25 Ways To Catch and Keep Volunteers
• Treat Your Volunteers Right
• Care and Feeding of Key Volunteers

Volunteer appreciation isn’t just for spring. Not at all. Sure, a well-organized, larger volunteer thank-you effort is great, but it’s actually way more important to build a year-round culture of thanks in your PTO or PTA.

The best thing is that the best thanks don’t need to be elaborate. Can you make it an expectation that your event chairpeople will write a quick email thank-you to helpers within a week after events? How about adding an “Our Volunteers Rock” section to your monthly newsletter? Or creating a bulletin board of photos of parents chipping in?

One tip: Always err on the side of thanking too many people. Far better to thank someone who maybe doesn’t deserve it than to withhold thanks from someone who does.

For more on volunteer appreciation, check out “Treat Your Volunteers Right” and “Care and Feeding of Key Volunteers“.

And while I’m at it — thanks to you for all the great work you’re doing this year.

Every year, there’s a whole new crop of parents at your school. Not all of them will want to become volunteers, but some will.

How those eager new parents are treated as school begins, as they attend their first meeting, and as they make their first suggestions will play a huge part in whether your group is able to add new energy to your team.

In my experience, almost every parent group says they really want more help. But do your actions match your words?

My column “A Tale of Two Volunteers” tries to capture the very real emotions around the new volunteer-old volunteer dynamic. You were once a new volunteer — how did you feel then? And as an experienced volunteer, how do you feel when your work is questioned? Understanding where those feelings come from is a big step in making your group a more effective melting pot of old and new.

We have several additional articles about making a good first impression on new parents, including:

• Do You Really Want Help?
• Orienting New Members
• Communication Tips for Better Involvement

Starting to think about back to school and getting parents involved? One of the best approaches I know of for increasing involvement is our 2 Hour Power pledge program.

Basically, you ask parents to pledge two hours of volunteering, any kind of volunteering, per semester or per year. And you make it clear that you’ll celebrate those two hours and not ask/badger/guilt them about doing more. For many parents, the reason they don’t volunteer is because they feel that volunteering once will send them down this super-volunteer path that they can’t escape from.

You want to make volunteering less scary for parents. And 2 Hour Power can help you do that. Plus you’ll get lots of two-hour time donations, which really add up. Even better, many of those folks will find that the volunteering wasn’t half bad and — even without you badgering — will sign up for more. Nice, right? I highly recommend you give the concept a try.

Our 2 Hour Power materials have lots of tools and know-how for executing a program like this. If you’re looking for more ideas for connecting with volunteers at back-to-school time, check out this article on welcoming new families.

Fairly soon, your group will be welcoming a whole new crop of parents to your school. Some small percentage of those parents will be excited to get involved with your group. How will you react to those parents?

Will you make it clear that their questions are tiresome? Will you hastily dismiss their “new” ideas (that you’ve had in the past) and discourage them?

I hope not, but that’s what a lot of us PTO and PTA old-timers tend to do (often unknowingly) when we first deal with these new parents. It’s a great way to turn off the fresh, enthusiastic volunteers you most need.

I tried to capture this dynamic — and also some of the mistakes that new parents make in jumping in too aggressively — in a column I wrote last year called “A Tale of Two Volunteers“. I think this is a great time of year to bring it back out. I hope you’ll share it with your fellow leaders as a reminder of the mistakes we should try to avoid this summer and next fall.

As the school year ends, please accept our thanks for all you’ve done (and all you will do) for your school and for the kids and families you serve.

If we must call this a “tip,” I guess the tip is don’t forget just how valuable this work you’re doing is. I know it can be frustrating and sometimes thankless and always time-consuming, but your school is a better place thanks to you. Great teachers teach in a better environment thanks to you. Tons of students find their school more welcoming and home-like because of you. Families have connections with school that they wouldn’t have except for you.

And that’s not just me talking. Volumes of research makes it clear that schools with higher levels of parent involvement serve all kids better. Well-run schools with talented teachers teaching the three R’s are great. Those same schools with folks like you making involvement happen are even better.

So on behalf of all those parents who should be thanking you (but who perhaps don’t know it or haven’t gotten around to it) — thanks! May your summer be filled with lazy pool days and no emergency calls from the principal about the mess you left in the gym or from volunteers mad about gluten in your cupcakes.