Out PTO does a Walk A Thon and a this is our second year for a 5k run. We send envelopes home and only ask they each child sends 10 back, they can send more if they want and for each 10 they bring back they get a ticket entered for prizes. We talk to community members like stores to donate a prize or money. We also sell t-shirts for the Walk A Thon. We always have the same people volunteering, but in the 4 years we have been doing this we have raised over 60, 000 dollars and we are not a big school. Hope this helps
We have tried everything to get parents involved in the classroom, to help with events and to come to meetings. Nothings works. We've done the 2 hr promise and while people said they'd come for 2 hours no one actually did. During our Winterfest in December we had to cajole parents to help and still ended up with having our spouses and teenager kids work the whole evening. We will be canceling our carnival this year due to lack of volunteers. There is only me (president), Vice President and a yearbook advisor on the board this year. Next year the yearbook advisor will be leaving and the VP and myself are so burnt out that we will no longer be apart of the board. How do you get people to understand the importance of the parent club? I will be putting a newsletter out in April explaining the cancellation of the carnival and the open board positions but I do not think anyone will come forward.
Hey Sabine-
We tried the 2 hour power program that pto today offers and it has increased our volunteer base. I think that the fact that it is so simple helps. We also have shifted our focus to trying to get people to go to our website instead of meettings. We have volunteer posting oppts there -- I think the key is to have a range. Like some of our jobs can be done in an hour at home even with screaming kids and others are co-chairing something. Don't get discouraged - we kept at it and it worked.
Karen
I am the PTO president and our school had the monthly PTO meeting last night. I had 2 people in attendance, the school principal and myself. I am extremely discouraged. My board members didn't even think it was important enough to show up. My treasurer had a family emergancy and was out of town, he's excused. How do I get more parent and teacher involvement? Teachers don't even think that it's important to show up to make their funds request to the general membership but then complain when their request gets denied. I am so frustrated. Any advice would be appreciated. I should mention that I live in Japan on a military installation. You would think that there would be more involvement due to just our military way of life.
I agree with not threatening to pull fundraisers. I also agree that promoting your goals (smart boards) and the benefits to all the kids is v important. We are also fundraising for smartboards and I was surprised to discover how many parents don't even know what they are!Maybe you could get a rep to do a demo at some upcoming family event.
We have found that by having fewer fundraisers and by asking parents to team up with friends we are getting more involvement. I am not saying they have come out of the wood work - we still have to "recruit" but when we suggest that they ask a buddy to co -chair we have gotten better results.
Have you tried our
Two-Hour Power
program yet? We hear from schools that they have great success bringing in more parent volunteers this way. It sounds like in your post that parents might be hesitating to jump in because they are afraid of falling into the "volunteer black hole" -- they think that once they say yes, you'll be asking them to chair a committee. Start people off slow, let them see how their involvement matters, then hopefully they will be more willing to step up for future volunteer slots.
Lastly, here are 2 articles you may want to pass along to your parents:
