K-I think the website is priceless in value and especially touches working parents in a way that nothing else does. Our site at brentpto.com started last year and already has close to 3600 hits (or there about). While we don't get everything approved, I would never think of putting something controversial on there. That trust has formed with the principal for 3 years now and I would hate to mess it up.
Good luck--d

Oru PTO website is done by one of our teachers who is a computer wiz!!!

He email the prinicipal and offered to help, she emailed me and I passed on what info i had. He then had the website up and running within a couple of hours. Now I just have to remember to keep him updated!!

We are linked to our school web site.

That's interesting information. Last year I told my daughter's teacher that I was willing to bet that most (not all, but most) kids in the class had a computer at home and she doubted me, so I said "Raise your hand if you have a computer at home" and I'm not kidding, 18 out of 20 kids raised their hand. Some said that they did not use it, but it was their moms or dads, but they had one at home. And I would not be surprised about the dictionary.

Anyway, I told the principal last year that once we got used to keeping the school website up to date we really should start advertising that it is up and running. I did a little informal survey of my own and asked a few parents at pick up time if they had seen the school website and they all said the same thing, that they had checked it out once, but that it was totally outdated. They didn't know that I had been working so hard to keep it up to date because the principal was not telling parents that it was up and running. My motto about any website is "If you build it, they will come."

Kathryn

When you are trying to get the site going remember to pur your URL on EVERYTHING you do. Every note, every reminder, every form, everything you have printed to give to the kids, every little thing.

We are in an area with about 50% Title One (maybe more since they just built a new school and made changes in demographics.) These people *DO* have computers. Maybe they don't have a dictionary in their home but they have computers and Internet. I want to make it easy for anyone to get info on our PTO.

I didn't get a .org just because .com is the most familiar top level domain. I'm not positive how it is now but it used to be that you could get a .org if you simply TOLD them you were a non-profit before you even had papers. If you want to go with a .org I think you can do it now.

PSSSSST- Shawn- My sister teaches at the school who just got your old Vice Principal. She has been on the committee to create her school's website. That's a whole interesting story in itself. Lots of $$ was spent and it remains to be seen how much website they will get out of it.

A good website whether it is for a school or business is truly a valuable asset. I'm so glad that our school lets us have free reign with the PTO site.

I think in our case the school really sees us as our own organization. When we "speak" we are speaking for the PTO not the school. Even so we've never had an incident where anyone complained but I think most people realize that the school and PTO or PTA are separate entities.

Thanks for the support. We don't have our first meeting until Sept 26th, so I'll know more after that. Seeing as how there are so few people involved I have a feeling that they will not object to someone taking charge of one component, such as web design and maintenance.

Thanks for the links to your pages. Lake Center and Vista Compana look great. Lots of information. I hope your hard work is appreciated. For me this kind of thing is fun, so it's not a sacrifice, but it does take time away from other things I could be doing for myself or my family. I just need to keep things in perspective. I have a 4th grade daughter who does extremely well in school because it just comes easy to her and then a 2nd grade daughter with a learning disability who struggles. So, I have decided to see how things go and not to stress about it knowing that spending extra time with my 2nd grader on homework or just extra time reading is more important. If they want me to work on the web site I can do that while she is at school or in bed at night.

Thanks again for the information and support.
Kathryn

Kathryn,

Our school has a fairly decent web, but we were running into the same problem: the PTO info was lagging and nearly non-existent. We wanted to be able to get the information out there.

We took it upon ourselves to use orgsites and create our own.
Lake Center

As communications chair, I do all of the updating and creating for the site. I don't go to our prinicpal for an okay before I post anything like we do when we send a note home in the backpacks. However, we have made our school staff very aware of the site. If they were to come to me with a concern, we would certainly listen. I try to take into account a policy similar to the "What goes Home" when I put stuff on the web.

We've had it for a year now and it's worked great. Slow on the number of hits, but it takes time to aclimate the parents into going to it.

Best Wishes