Maggie, the school is five years old? I cannot see any die hard tradition that could have developed in that time! Do you know any of the teachers? They are the ones who brought me through my first year as president. By the way - t-shirts for the fifth graders sounds like a good idea, a nice gesture. How does the rest of your board feel? Are they new also or the proverbial "old hats"?
to tell you the truth,the school is only 5 yrs old, and no we don't have anything as useful as a scrapbook, just a few people who have decided "this is the way it will be done, because I said so". It's getting uglier by the day, unfortunantly. Maggie
Hummm, "What are the Traditions of the school PTA/PTO?"
That's a great thing for you to check into so that you know how much better those traditions will be because of you and those that are on your board.
Find out if there is a historian scapbook collection hanging around the school. We've always kept ours in the school library in an area reserved for the Parents Resource Shelf and scapbooks. These will help you learn about the history, and the traditions that came before you and then give you lots of room to take those traditions and improve upon them with your talents and those of many others working alongside you!
Take a negative statement and turn it around into a positive!
Thanks for all the replies. I talked to our principal and she seems to think that I don't know what our "traditions" are. (not to vent or anything, but the past president handed me a box and said, "here you go") How on earth would I know what the "traditions" are? But looking at the budget... it cost 110$ for pizza and 155 for the dj.... Um what happened to the rest of that money? Keep those suggestions coming because I have yet another meeting later this week. thanks again, maggie
dcd, happens all the time here that the parents of the kids in these 5th and 8th grade parties do not want to seem to do anything. I have suggested to our units that in the beginning of the year it is announced that these parents will be responsible for their year end party and even call the first organizational meeting. Then they are on their own. Our PTSA still provides $100.00 for our 8th grade party (if they need it and they must submit receipts). These parties have caused much stress in different schools.
In the past we tied a specific event (Breakfast with Santa, including food, pictures and little gift items stuff) to budget line item. Intent - break even and then use profits to help send the 5th graders to Six Flags over Texas (subsidizing the cost of the tickets so the parents don't have to pay for the entire ticket).
The problem was, we couldn't even get the parents of the 5th graders to help volunteer at the event- nor could we get them to cooperate and donate food. Remember this event was to help offset their expense of the $$ ticket.
In the end - we no longer give them the profits - and updated the standing rules to note that there is not special line item to award to the 5th graders end of the year party. We let them enjoy the benefits of PTA like all the other grades.
We award two field trips for each grade level each year, and the fifth graders can use one of those two field trips as their end of the year activity expense - or the parents and teachers can work the deal out with principal (he has an activity fund to use for such things.).
If there is a particular child that the teachers knows the parennt can not contribute to their ticket by any means - the teachers are always invited to approach PTA and the Principal to help offset the cost of the ticket for special situations.
