We meet once per month and always have a speaker or different topic along with our regular business. The Principal's report is part of regular business and she chooses her own topic each month.
Last year we had these speakers: Cafeteria Head-Cook (?) spoke on the lunch program, Music teacher talked about music program and the concepts the kids learned at each grade level, the gym teacher talked about their curriculum and grading policy, a 3rd grade teacher presented a reading program, 1st grade math presented "new math", our School Board candidates came to speak about a bond referendum, a member of our community spoke of a community related item,and our technology coordinator gave a presentation and hands-on computer class, etc.
I suggest you ask the teachers what they'd like to present and the parents what they'd like to know about. We have not yet paid a speaker to come in. Other ideas of topic - standardized testing....speak of the tests before or go over the results of your school compared to other schools. Do you have a legislative committee? Have someone speak on any possible legislation affecting funding for your school district and what the parents can do to help.

At one of your meetings, you could take the opportunity to acknowledge some of your schools outstanding students. It may not just be academic, it could be a student who has had alot of discipline problems and has really improved during the year. This could be a huge self esteem builder. And an excellent reward for hard work. You could even make them some nice award certificates.

Best thing we do on this is to ask parents what they want for topics and to see if they know people who would be good on those topics. This is one of the big questions in our survey that we do early in year. Last year we had an amazing speaker on discipline because she was the sister in law of a parent inour school. Full house at that one.

What do other PTO Groups talk about at their meetings? We have four general meetings per school year. The meeting is opened by the PTO pres, a topic of discussion is introduced, the principal speaks on the topic followed by a brief discussion of PTO business. Past topics have included such things as discussion of upcoming conferences, a review plans for the upcoming year, class sizes, preventing violence in our schools. This year we are having a hard time coming up with topics that would be of interest to parents and teachers. Do other PTO's have speakers come in? Do their principal's speak at the meetings? Any ideas/comments would be very welcome. Thanks!