This is becoming a huuuge topic for the PTO world, and we'll be covering it in depth coming up.
But a few independent thoughts:
1. I HATE the fact that your district has applied its new materials policy to your PTO. It's the wrong decision on many levels. Your PTO is not the equivalent of the local little league or karate school or church group. Your PTO (and parent involvement and parent communication) ios an essential element of a great-working school. I hope you'll make that point strongly with your admins and get a change to that policy.
2. Unrelated, I've never quite understood how/why schools became the default for the US mail for all these other activities. In some ways, I think this controversy (provided PTO communications aren't thrown out with the bath water) may do us all a service. There are tons of fine activities for families and kids in all of our communities... and there are tons of fine businesses (some of whom may even give back to your school), etc. It's just not the school's job to market those offerings.
And I'm not just saying that to be a scrooge to those guys. I think that groups and schools strongly underestimate the "boy who cried wolf" issue. If we send home reams of papers and announcements every week (80% of it fluff or unrelated to school or involvement), is it any wonder that parents tune out?
Off my soapbox.... but I do hope that you and all will make the very clear point that your PTO is not the same in this debate as the karate club. It's a a bad policy that will hurt our schools.
I suggest that you avoid the whole can of worms and keep your email communications to the parents exclusively for your PTO. No web links, no messages for other groups, nothing except PTO or school news only. As you say, your PTO could put themselves in a precarious situation by picking and choosing which requests to honor.
From a parent's perspective, I think your readership would decline once your parents find themselves slogging through all manner of other news except that which specifically has to do with PTO or school activities.
Our PTO is trying to formulate a policy on including information from other community groups (such as local sports leagues, charitable walks, etc.) on our website and in routine e-mails. Our District was recently sued by a religious organization because the district turned down a request from this org to send flyers home through an elementary school’s weekly envelope. Because of this suit, no organizations, including the PTOs, can send info home with kids. If flyers are approved by the asst. superintendent, they can be put out in the schools’ offices for parents to be picked up — kids cannot be told to look for it or that it is there. We’ve started to receive some requests from community organizations (nothing controversial, yet!) to include their info on our website or in our routine mass e-mails. Some of our members are worried that if we do this, we could also be subject to being sued if we ever turn someone down. Currently our by-laws stipulate that web postings can only be made after majority approval of the board and for services or activities by non-commercial organizations.
Personally, I feel that as a part of the community we should try to help other organizations get the word out if their info would be of interest to our families and students. But, can we get into trouble if the KKK asks us to post something, and we say no? Do any of your PTOs have policies regarding these types of matters?
