It is the same with our school; however, the reason we were given (not publicized) was that the teacher's union didn't require them to stay after hours to attend the meetings. We do make it a point though that if teachers need a contribution that they should appear at the meeting an personally request it. There was 1 meeting that many teachers attended and I believe it was because of the insistence by the Principal. The importance of teacher involvement has to be stressed by the Principal to his staff (especially if you feel the PTO isn't respected) so you'll need to start with him/her and respectivefully communicate your issues. Otherwise, feelings will contunie to fester.

Hello.

I am the current president of our PTO. We're coming to the end of our 3rd year and I can honestly say that our teacher involvement SUCKS. The 1st 2 years, teachers never showed, except for once, and that was to request that we pay for something. This year, we got a new Principle and he is awesome! Pushes the teachers to become more involved, etc. We even alternated our meeting times to 3:45p so that the teachers wouldn't have to stick around after school for a few hours for a meeting .... but that didn't work either - no teachers came. One of the teachers designated herself as the teacher representative and was always at our meetings (until recently) - but still ... why can't others come?

We're feeling VERY UNAPPRECIATED by their lack of involvement with us. When they want something, they send a request thru the Principle. They won't even come to a meeting to ask themselves. Our board met outside of school today to go over our budget and it was a unanimous feeling that we're not very appreciated or respected.

HOW do we get the teachers more involved? We even changed our meeting date and time for the next school year so that it starts after their REQUIRED monthly staff meeting. Other board members feel that requests should be denied unless presented personally by the asking party. We have paid for a lot of events for the students and staff over the years. This year we'll have paid for 2 field trips and half of bus transportation for a total of $4500. Plus they also requested that we pay half of a t-shirt order for their anti-bullying program. That is another $1400. Last year we paid for one part of a smart board - that was $2000 + 1 field trip. We also host PTC dinners, Holiday Dinner, Dr. Seuss Breakfast, School Store, Book Fair (where they're given $75 Scholastic Dollars to spend and even had some teachers buy books for themselves PERSONALLY instead of for their classroom), 6th Grade Picnic, we pay for Scholastic magazine orders for students ... the list goes on.

Any suggestions on how we can get them to become more involved with us????