Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
I posed your question to Christy Forhan, a long-time PTO president and contributor to PTO Today. Christy is currently a high school PTO president and has also been president of elementary and middle school PTOs. She pointed out that because involvement is so much different in high schools, with booster clubs, band parents, etc., parents are less inclined to get involved in the PTO. Her group has established a reputation for providing a school-related topic or guest speaker. Topics include Meet the Administrators at the first meeting of the year, Planning for Collect and the ACT, saving for college, etc. They set the topic list in August and promote it all year long. Guest speakers talk for 30 minutes, and they spend another 30 minutes after that on business. They usually get 30-40 people at a meeting. One possibility that has come up is renaming these events to Parent Forum, sponsored by the PTO. They think that more people might attend a forum than a meeting. Christy also suggested that you carefully review your communication procedures. Actually getting information home to parents is difficult at the high school level. Make sure contact information, meeting dates, volunteer opportunities, etc. are easy to find. Web, email, bulletin boards at the school (and especially at school activities) -- use multiple methods to get your message across. Regarding volunteer opportunities, make sure parents know what the PTO does and what your focus is. If you are primarily doing fundraising, it may be hard for parents to distinguish your goals from those of clubs, student council, and other organizations in the school that are also doing fundraising. Good luck!

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