Please do not get discouraged. I know that it is very hard not, but you need to keep the faith. I am in my third year as PTO tresurer at my children's elementary school. It takes a lot of patience. At our organizational meeting in August, we had over 55 parents show up. That is more than the last two years combined. The year before I went aboard the PTO, it got a very bad start and reputation. The other officers and I have worked our fingers to the bone and have made over $20,000.00 for our school. Now we have parents who want to be apart of organization. They have seen what being apart of PTO can do for the school and also for their kids as well as other children. The money raised has been used to purchase new reading and math manipulatives and other necessities. I will try to help if I can. Keep faith and you can't go wrong.
P.S. We were the inspiration for the other three schools in our district to start their own PTO organization.


[This message has been edited by Patti (edited 09-02-2000).]

Unfortunately that problem is universal I think, I have been on the PTO for 4 years and the response hasn't been good, its very disheartening. Everybody seems to be to busy and they find the one thing that means something to them and thats where they help out, you want the ones that want to be there there will always be a few. We tried special assemblies for parents of learning interest and that doesn't help either

I've read here that some groups have trouble getting teachers involved. We have the opposite problem - how do we get parents involved. Few if any parents attend the meetings and many aren't willing to volunteer at events. Our PTO board is all new and we really need help to turn this problem around. Any suggestions are very welcome!!!