For us, a school directory is a booklet listing all the children and their addresses and phone numbers. Ours is printed at a copy shop from 8-1/2x11" paper folded over with a cardstock cover all stapled together to make a booklet. We send home notices so that anyone not wanting their child's information published can make that decision. Then we get the class, name, address, and phone number from the school's database and delete those who requested it. We sell some limited advertsing for a few pages, list all the teachers, and staff, and students by class. We also have student artwork contests and the winners' work is used for the cover and section dividers. Ours is pretty simple, just blank & white with a colored cover. We try to distribute by October (lots of adds and drops at the beginning of the year make this a challenge). As a parent, it's very handy. We live in a metropolitan area with many, many elementary schools so it's not like the local phonebook (huge) would be much of a help.
I asked this on another page and did not get a response, so sorry for being redundent! What is a school directory? And also Donnadooo, what are your family nights that the members get into free? We have events that serve dinner and a halloween carnival, would they get in free to those or something different?
Thanks for your help, the more I read I think we should collect dues to help boost our membership. We have 4 key families and the same volunteers every time, year after year. It gets old and people call us "clicky" maybe this could help us too. Good luck
Our annual family dues are $6 at our primary school and $10 at the elementary school. For that, the family gets the school direcotry and a "note to school" notepad which the office really appreciates because notes come on consistent color/paper. Of course, dues also entitles the parents to voting privileges with the PTO. We have about 80% of our parents joing PTO, so I don't think having dues has limited membership, even tho many of our families join both groups ($16 total).
Our organization has membership fees of $7 for a family and $5 for single parents and staff. We have people giving us $10 and wanting no change sooooo.... why a fee? Because when a person puts a little money on the table to belong to an organization they then take ownership. This brings in more people with fresh ideas that we enjoy showing them how to impliment. I see no reason not to charge a fee- any club from boy scouts, to the VFW to Sunday School usually charges a fee, it gives the purchaser ownership.
We do not impose any fees. As president I spoke at open houses and encouraged parents to join. I try to entice them with the fact that this (our monthly meetings) is the forum where the principal speaks openly/monthly WITH the parents. Our principal is great at answering questions and making parents feel at ease. Our montra is that as long as you have a child in the school you are a member of the PTO. All parens have the right to vote at our meetings. We try to make everyone feel welcome and appreciated. Our school has over 70 active PTO members. Not all attend meetings but are active on a committee and as homeroom parents. Most parents want to get involved with their childrens education, and if you approach people, asking for a small committment I find you can usually get it. I have worked on filling the committee positions for 3 years. I find people are more willing to share a job than to take on the whole project. I find this works well especially if you ask if they have a friend who might work with them. We try to make it fun and I think it is. We fund raise to give every family a directory and a student handbook. We also sponser the assemblies and one field trip/student. I could go on and on but I won't! Good Luck in starting the "fire".
