Let me start with my normal disclaimer that I think general meetings are wonderful if you can make them work. So I don't want to discourage anyone from sharing innovative approaches in this Forum.
Our school is ethnically and economically diverse with most parents working. We get good participation and volunteers, but the parents simply don't seem interested in yet another evening obligation each month. We've moved to having only two general meetings a year: one in August to approve the budget, and one in May for elections.
Our Board is large (30+). so it's a good size working group that meets monthly (6:30-8:00pm) to transact all PTO business. Anyone is welcome to attend the Board Meeting as an observer (or to ask to be on the agenda), and we publish a monthly newsletter to keep everyone in touch with upcoming events and issues.
Two members of the Board are pushing for more general meetings. However, we just completed our end of the year survey. One area asked how many general meetings the parents wanted to have next year. Here are the results:
Keep as is: 55 %
Keep as is, but sponsor a few evening educational programs (not meetings): 28 %
Have meetings every month (10): 4 %
Increase the number to ___ per year: 11 %
(They filled in the blank with anywhere from 2 to 6, generally).
Out of about 600 students (less actual families), we had 115 surveys returned.
I was lamenting the different views on this to a workfriend who is a specialist in leadership and strategic planning (really into goals, objectives, outcomes, etc.) He pointed out that we were achieving our goals of having members involved, informed, and supportive. With 83 % happy with the current system, we shouldn't be trying to schedule more meetings just because that's what the PTA did when WE were all kids.
Our group may still add another meeting or two for next year once the Board has a chance to discuss it. I'm not ruling anything out. And any group that does move to limiting general meetings has to be very careful not to become a clique.
My advice is that if monthly general meetings aren't working for you, examine why you think you should have them and see if there's another way to achieve those goals. Maybe the answer IS more creative programs so more people come. Maybe it's having them less often, quarterly instead of monthly, or even less often. With today's two-career households, more organized children's activities, media and internet, people are "plugged in" to community differently. Examine ALL the possibilities, not just the historical ones. Good luck!
[This message has been edited by JHB (edited 05-24-2001).]
