At our school, anything that goes out school wide to parents/students concerning our parents group must be approved and initialed by the Principal and the PTA president. It's also looked over first by the Principal's secretary who does an excellent job of proofing. Calendars would be treated the same way.
I found someone to look over the newsletter AND I am turning in a copy (again [img]smile.gif[/img] ) of the activity forms I have turned in to the staff member that does the school calendar.
The secretary/office staff in the front office has had 10 complaints against her just last week SO hopefully we will see some adult help!
What about asking the honors English teacher at the high school for a volunteer to do this? Honor Society students need community service hours every year - maybe this could help serve that purpose for YOU and for THEM.
I always did my own newsletter and the mom that did the calender got her dates direclty from me. I would have the principal to approve EVERYTHING before I sent it out. I am not an English and Grammar person, obviously. She could correct these errors and make sure my wording was correct and dates were correct. Also if there was something in there that would offend someone or the school could be held liable for it, it wasn't my fault! When I first started taking things to her she asked me why she was having to intial it. When I explained my reasoning she said "Gee thanks". [img]tongue.gif[/img]
The problem is this stuff if proof read three four times and STILL has errors! We are still small enough we don't own our own rizo so copies are a constant issue. I had a court reporter for a neighbor and she was awsome but she moved, the High School engilish teacher took over and she was wonderful until she left! My President (I'm the secretary) isn't much for grammer just context. Normally the Principal, Prez, myself and a teacher look over everything in the newsletter, I'm not sure who looks at the calendar. It just feels like no one on staff cares. No one is worried or conserned but me.
The funny part is, people ask me how I do this with five kids. The kids are a peice of cake next to dealing with the adults!!
Publish a calendar! Ours is double columned single page. Everyone has a copy of this. I maintain the master copy and it is my responsibility to distribute it to board members. The secretary then distributes it to other people as needed. Our calendar includes those things that we know are going to happen and when. When the board approves an event it is place on the calendar and we use the above process to get it out. It is also published for the current month and the next month in our school magazine. The MC (Master calendar) is reviewed by myself and the principal as needed (changes) this acts also as the approval process, if it is not on the MC then there is no approval to do it!
We are blessed to have 3 proof readers and trust me we need them [img]smile.gif[/img] Each has to sign off an authorization form before anything is put out to anyone. Once the proof readers have signed off (all three) then it goes to myself and the principal for approval. Then the document can be published and distributed.
This system works best for us, some such may work well for you. There are other reasons than just bad spelling or grammar why we do all this, but it started with the spelling [img]smile.gif[/img] We had a copy of our magazine ready to go out, all 1000 copies of it with principal spelled principle! My bad! We caught it just in time. This may seem minor to some, but it was a front page headline! If a school can't get it right then who can [img]smile.gif[/img]
