It's ironic -- most of the messages is this (old) thread involve PTO's that want more parent involvement. At my school, we want LESS.

At the last election, teachers effectively took over our PTA, taking the offices of President, Vice President, Financial Secretary, Historian, and Ways and Means Chair. The Membership chair is the sister of a teacher, and the Secretary is that same teacher's best friend (was the maid of honor at her wedding). The only offices held by parents are programs, auditor, treasurer, and hospitality.

These teachers also restructured the Chairmanships and eliminated most of them and gave those that remained to board members, so there are no longer any of these positions for parents to get into either.

Parents at our school are feeling frustrated and alienated that there seems to no longer be room for us in our parent organization. This is no longer a PTA, it is a TA.

Our PTA district reps say that PTA officials all the way up to the state level are unhappy with this situation, but the teachers stacked the deck so strongly in their own favor there was nothing that parents could do.

Not enough teacher involvement? Count your blessings!!

I feel that our school is very lucky when it comes to teacher involvement. We have at least two teacher reps show up for every meeting (one from K-2 and one from 3-5). Quite a few volunteer to read books to the kids at PJ night and run a booth at our winter and spring festivals. We try very hard to make sure that when we do a restaurant fund-raiser that there is a benefit for the teacher if he/she comes (free salad bar etc.). They get an allottment at the beginning of every year for their classroom in addition to a Teachers' Luncheon in the fall and spring. I think that if you treat them with respect and acknowledge that they have families that they don't get to see during the work day like the rest of us that it is easier to understand why they don't come to ALL of the after-school functions. Some of them run clubs before school or after school in addition to going to school themselves and teaching all day. It's no wonder when they reach tenure they don't give it their all anymore.

We have pretty good teacher involvement. In general, they are willing to do close to anything to help our school. We do give teacher grants annually, but don't do a wish list-too much of a fiasco a few years back.

We do not do this, but the parent group at another school in the area requires that teachers volunteer at X number of events before they get X amount of $. They do however, give teachers money for special projects upon request. Personally, I don't agree w/this because really, the money is for the kids not the teachers, but they do pretty well getting the teachers to show up. Luckily, we have a great staff and have not had to do anything like this.

Our PTO started up last year. We were new and invested most of our time just getting up and running. Now that we have a bit of time for reflection we are doing several things differently.

1) I attend the staff meetings. I attended the first one last month to get a feel for it. This month I asked for 5 minutes to address the teachers. We are also planning to take baked goods with us to the meeting. I guess that falls under the category of bribery.

2) When I'm at the school I make a point of talking to the teachers. Now that I'm starting to figure out who they all are and what subjects they teach, I can talk about something applicable. That's how I found out that the PE Department wanted a new curriculum- I asked if they still watned donations of sports balls and was told that they'd rather have this new curriculum (Dance Dance Revolution.) Win-win situation because this is a great project for our PTO and if I wouldn't have talked to the PE chair that request would NOT have ended up with the PTO.

3) This sounds simple but make sure your PTO meetings don't conflict if you want teacher's to attend. Our PTO meetings are on Tuesdays this year. Why? Mondays were staff meetings, Wednesdays are teacher work days and parent conferences, Thursdays are a meeting of another group and Fridays no one is going to show up. So we planned every single PTO meeting (board and general) of the year on Tuesdays so that the teachers can attend if they want to. Last year, I didn't even think to check their schedule and our Monday meetings conflicted with their Monday staff meetings.

Hi All,
Just had an idea...about getting teachers to attend the PTO meetings. Have them mentioned in a news letter -- that you post at the school. After the teacher's name has appeared in the news letter (for the seventh time) have a few pizzas delived to his/her classroom for the teacher and his/her students...just a thought?
Take care,
Hank LeGrand
Author of Paddle Tail (the story about the little beaver born without a tail).
Websites: www.authorsden.com/hanklegrandlll
gottawritenetwork.com/hanklegrand.html

Anonymous, I would love to have you at our school. Our parents find the staff very standoffish-don't want to know us and don't want to help. That's why a lot of parents don't want to get involved. In many groups they wind up feeling like it's a Parent Org not a Parent Teacher Org. I understand that our teachers don't make enough $ and more than 50% of our staff have a second job of some sort. Maybe at the next meeting you could suggest what we do, make sure everyone who works an event gets at least a handwritten thank you note if not a personal thanks when they show up. There are only 2 parents in our group but we work off what my grandma taught me, "thank someone before they do anything for you and back it up with a written note." If your group is having trouble keeping track of volunteers, they might need a sigh in. We all get busy during events. I hardly get to see my kids during the carnival and I have 3 assistants and a walkie talkie, but I have found numerous neat ways to thank the volunteers.