it IS *free* at some schools, to belong to the PTA. only if you want to VOTE, do you need to pay the dues. but you can particpate in ALL other ways without having to pay the dues (which dont directly benefit the school anyway).
LOTS of 'free' (no membership dues) ptos have members who never vote, either. in fact, seems the majority do NOT vote even when membership is free, so the whole membership issue (and TYPE of org) does not seem to influence voting, nor participation in the whole parent community, ie committee involvemnt, events and all the other things that make up the effectiveness of a parent grp
In my own personal opinion, being from both a PTO and a PTA school district, that I feel that the PTO school was more parent friendly. It had a more warm and inviting feeling vs. the PTA school that seemed to only have the basic "few" parents involved.
I think that because the PTA charges dues to be members and the PTO is free to be a part of. This had a great influence on the amount of people that participated.
With the way things cost now days, it is hard to manage all of the costs that come with taking care of our families. To have to pay to be a part of your childs PTO/PTA is even harder for some families.
Hi,
My childs school has both a PTA and a PTO
They work together on behalf of all children at our school.
Parents who choose to join the state and national PTA pay a small membership fee. They become a active part in advocating on behalf of all children.
Our PTO does the majority of fundraising and our PTA focuces on Community Service. All fundraising done by the PTA OR PTO stays at the school. Only membership fee move to the bigger organization.
All 501c3 charities must follow the same IRS guidelines.
The PTA help individual unit PTA's follow those rules.
They are a wonderful organization that has done and continues to do great work on behalf of children.
sorry if htis is off track, but my 2cents say whether you are ptA or O, i think the one thing that would benefit both groups is the involvement of more men, both as officers and as general members. they are half the parents (in most cases, not to be exclusionary for non traditional families) but are sorely underrepresented in both organizations. go shawn, cape dad, all the rest here, recruit some more men to balance the groups and be more representative of the parent body iand help run parent groups to maximize the benefit for our schools and our kids!
Test-
Ooops- any unregistered can edit an unregistered post??? Shawn
8 fundraisers???? I would be upset too!!! Your group made that decision to hold that many fundraisers. Boy, am I glad I live in a district that limits the number of fundraisers to 2.
Develop a budget that reasonable and then plan a reasonable number of fundraisers to achieve that budget. If you plan 3 fundraisers and can achieve your budgetary needs in two, STOP FUNDRAISING!!!! Your parents will be more supportive of the activities.
Something to think about--Are your fundraising activities helping or harming your school? Is your district becoming dependant on the fundraising activities of their parent groups? Are you creating inequity among the schools in your district with your fundraising activities? Could your time fundraising be better spent advocating for adequate funding with your legislators?
There is a lot of confusion between pto/pta. When I made the change, I felt like the state PTA was not helping my board enough with our new administration. I stumbled upon the pto today website and called them and recieved just as much if not more help. Then I formed a commitee and we looked at the pro's and con's. We then brought it to the membership and voted to go to a PTO.
The expences to being a PTO are much less(confrences, membership to pto today) since going to a PTO, Pto today has grown a lot. They still are very helpfull.
Good luck and rember let the membership decide with good research on the isue.
lt ryan
