centralpto,
Thank you for your reply. The only problem we face is there is "no" volunteers when it comes to PTO! We just had a Family Fun Night that was called Harvest Festival. The chairperson said she had all the help she needed, actually she said, "Got it covered! I have my people!" Then when I got there nothing was set up there were not very many games to play and she complained the whole night about how hard she worked! Some people brought money and raffle tickets to put in the drawing, she wanted the money but not the tickets!!!! I explained how that would be illeagle and I put the tickets in the drawing. Then on top of that, I get a call from the place we had a Chair donated from and they wanted to know why their employee was handing back money for tickets that his children, who attend our school, had sold? They said nobody would take their money at the school! It just so happend that we had a meeting last night and I brought this up, she said she was the only person that does PTO work. I told her I had a problem with that comment, that she is not the only one that does PTO work. You are the chairperson of the Fundraising committee, You vonunteered for it, you are supposed to invite people to join your committee. You were asked if you needed help, you made the I've got my people comment, you have to want the help in order to get it! She got mad and quit! Said she was done with PTO and she left.
Now our problem is that after that fiasco, how will parents want to come to our next function?
Ok, now I understand. We only have 3 grades at our school, so I was confused for a minute. Yes, you definitely would want to try to break that up a little bit. Have you thought of splitting into different PTO groups for each "school" level? (1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12)I don't know how many volunteers you have at your school, but maybe that would be the way to go. Then, the junior high age moms could work together on projects for those grades, while the elementary age moms could work on projects for their kids. Just a thought!
The idea behind grade level meetings is so that the Jr. High parents don't have to attend the 1st grade meeting or vice versa. Our objective is to get the parents together with their children "at" the school. For example the second grade studied Johnny Appleseed in September. Our meeting for that grade could have been centered around that. However I am sorry to report that we have been unable to schedule these grade level meetings because of Century 21, after school activities. There is a two week break betwee sessions but basketball practice for the girls has already started. I am ready to scream!!! We thought a different grade level meeting each month would be a good idea, we just can't get it together!
I'm unsure about something...are you saying that you are having a different meeting each month for each grade level? How do you manage that? Getting everyone to come to just one PTO meeting a month is next to impossible at our school. Let me know how that's working out for you.
We held our first PTO meeting of the year last night. This was my first meeting as president. I used the information from the PTOToday cover story. The response was great. No one came last may to our re-organization meeting, so I made a proposal that we hold meetings for each grade level and focus on family involvement. They voted it in, now I'm not sure how to do it! Please help!!