Thank you for all your help. We are sending out a "survey" to see if parents are interested in merging the three PTOs. I'll keep everyone updated. As I'm sure I'll have lots more questions. Again, Thank you.

Our district closed two elementary buildings three years ago and set up "focus" schools: two K-1's two 2-3's and two 3-4's. The district was set up with three eastside and three westside focus schools. The PTOs restructured into separate westside and eastside PTOs.

Change is in our future again. Another building is being closed and the restructuring no longer has an east/west division: four K-3's, one 4-5, one 6-8, and one K-8. The two PTOs are in the process of merging into one district-wide K-8 PTO. We have had a meeting to brainstorm structures (and to decide if we should merge or have separate PTOs). The next meeting was a brainstorming session on what the new organization would look like position-wise and in general what the executive/advisory board's responsibilities would be, and what the building representatives' responsibilities would be. Our third meeting focused on filling as many positions as possible so everyone could get to work on their piece of the puzzle. For example, I will be treasurer. I will be meeting with my two vice treasurers and setting procedures, putting together a draft budget, etc. which will then be presented to the exec. board for approval. We have a big job ahead of us, but we have done so much work in the last three years that we don't want to just throw away... everyone really liked the idea of an umbrella PTO because it would equalize funding...with the focus schools, there were no longer "rich" and "poor" buildings. Since we are now going back to a more neighborhood-like structure, we didn't want to go back to that same divide.

Is this enough info, or are you interested in more details?

We went through this about 5 or 6 years ago, we combined all 3 parent groups into a district one. We have a "chairperson" for each school, one secretary and one treasurer. It works out really well. We do just about everything district wide, from fundraisers to tshirt sales. We hold box tops for education contests at each grade level.

It makes you take a step back and find a new way to do things, but I have to say it has been fun. We attend the monthly school board meetings to keep them informed of what has been happening and what is upcoming. Our parent group meets once a month at the K-1 building.

Six years later we are still going strong. Thanks to all of you and your great ideas!

We went through a restructuring and combined 2 ptos. Each one kept their own treasurer and there is a rep for each one.

In the past our kindergarten was housed in a seperate building. At the time we had a board member whose title was Kindergarten Liaison. It was her job to be in charge of that grade and handle all communication and make sure they got all their flyers and that all their fundraisers and events were carried out. She served basically as the command center for that grade since they were seperated from the other grades.

In your situation I would suggest having a k-2 Liaison, a 3-4 Liaison, & a 5-6 Liaison on your board. This way you will always have someone at each school who is the go to person and can oversee the events and fundraisers at each school.

Hi! Our district is "clustering", taking our 3
K-6 elementary schools and making them into grade level schools - K-2,3-4 and 5-6. Since, some parents will have children attending 2 or 3 schools we were thinking of having a district PTO. We would merge all 3 bank accounts into 1. Have 1 fundraiser(s) for all 3 schools.

That is as far as we got! We need help on how we should run and manage this new PTO.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. :confused: