OK, I think I pressed the wrong key! I asked my husband about parent discussions at our meetings (He's Pres and I'm secr). Our mtgs cover business (quickly) and we're out of there-much to the delight of those in attendance. We decided this upcoming year to host 1 or 2 discussions with the administration for parents to discuss topics they feel are important. Personal problems are not the place for this. It would be parents discussing general issues. Usually a Board of Ed would listen to many issues but some are more open than others. (ours is not very friendly to ideas). We use the funds raised from the dreaded fundraisers for teacher enrichment, started Lego teams and Destination Imagination teams, fund assemblies, host movie or activity nights (family). And we are trying to start sponsoring "clubs" within the school (providing minimal funds to the clubs if needed and also being the liason between the volunteer and administration. There are many things the PTO can do. Check out all the forums. Many ideas we currently use I found on this website. You need to find out what works well for your school. Many committes or just someone with an idea and they find volunteers and make it happen. Start scanning the forums and good luck! (by theway, without fundraising, we wouldn't have been able to start the Lego and Di teams, or put in a new playground, give over $14,000 in enrichment to teachers etc. I hate fundraisers as much as everyone else-find some good ones, find something unique or just alternate years with new ones to keep things fresh and interesting. They are a necessity, but they can be fun too! Good Luck

Hi Terra,

If you would like to see your parent group become involved in other ways, you can certainly present those ideas and maybe just ask other parents what they would like to see the group do. It's certainly more exciting and fulfilling to be involved with a group that does more to help the school than just raise money.

Thanks for all the input. However I never said the concerns involved specific teachers, bullying, or just venting or complaining. We do want to better the school. We do help out. We don't have any other committees like you mentioned. We do have a SIT team, but only 2 parents are able to be invloved (as far as we know we are not allowed to attend meetings). Granted PTO may not be the place for addressing concerns, we do need some where.
This year was the first year we have been able to participate in PTO. We are going to be CO-Vice President next year. I would like to say we are very involved in the school. We volunteer weekly. We help out with the PTO activities. Thanks again.

Our groups main purpose is to promote family involvement,and volunteering. we do alot of free family nights as well as fun things for our students during the day, all of that takes money and I can assure you that there probably isn't one parent group who wishes they didn't have a money tree! In our groups four years the only other thing besides fun things that we have spent money on is a big movie screen ( of course we can use it for movie night).
we did have a pta that was great at fundraising and made a ton of money for the school. Does your group have a mission statement. I know in our district it is very common for the other schools to raise alot of money and buy things for the school. we choose to be different. it depends on what your school needs..
anyways if you have big concerns about your school I am not sure that your pto is the place to start. If I had to recommend at our school where to start it would probably be at our site base team meetings, that team main concerns is more structure to testing, safety, staffing, etc.
This is not to say that we wouldn't listen to a parents compliants at our meetings , our principal is always there (new one next year ...yikes) and she may address it or ask the parent to see her afterwards. If your principal is not a person who is present then I can see how that doesn't work. One other thing to note that if it is addressing your child or anothers by name that isn't the place to discuss it. I know in our district even to mention a child by name to the board is a no no, it has to be done behind close doors. Not sure if any of this helps...

Our PTA helps with parent and community involvement/ volunteerism. We fund homework club, reading program, arts field trip program,
fun family events and activities, assemblies, plus other costs for school neccessities or programs.

We try to be a parent, student, and teacher resource for questions, concerns or ideas but try to steer specific concerns to the appropriate person, committee and encourage all to use the chain of command in resolving n issue.

To some we are just a cliquey fundraising group, but usually those are the one that (1) dont aprticipate (2) havent been properly asked to paticipate or (3) are just an all around pain-in-the-butt.
A majority of our parent snad community support us wholeheartedly (even if only by encouragement or thank you's)

We've still got some PR, better communication, and outreach to do, (cue music) but it's getting better everyday. (fade to black, end music) :cool: