I too am shocked the Board doesn't attend. If they can't be bothered, the parents surely would feel it is not worth attending. I am President of our PTO and started having board meetings the week before the general meeting to get everyone up to speed. We make sure there is enough of interesting stuff to cover to keep people coming back.

As far as attendance, we too have had problems, alot of people quit coming because they were tired of the bickering over money. We are trying to make it a little "lighter" this year. We started more service oriented projects like teams to prepare meals for sick, or those who lost a loved one. We also started a Family Outing committee to form more of a community spirit (movie night, swim night, etc.) We have offered prizes to the classroom with the most parents attending. We also have babysitting for every meeting, including evening ones with teen volunteers. We have livened up our announcements for the meetings. You gotta attack it from all sides!!

I can't say that we have great attendance at our meetings but we usually have 15 which is what we need for a quorom for any voting. All of our officers attend every meeting unless they're sick or out of town. The nominating committee makes it clear that attendance is expected at the board meeting (week before the general mtg.) and all pta meetings.
We regularly send out the agenda a week before the meeting and ask that if any committee is listed on the agenda, the chairperson should attend and give a report or send a written report. We vary the time of our meeting to accomodate different peoples schedules but have the highest attendance at morning meetings. We hold our meetings in the school library and parents that have pre-schoolers tend to sit in the back and all the kids play together in one section. Periodic shushes, and snacks are needed. To get evening attendance we try to have a special topic and a guest speaker.
Getting your officers on board with meeting attendance and asking committee chairs for reports might be a startPromise a short meeting. Was there something about previous meetings that turned everyone off? Our attendance at middle school parents meetings went from about 6 to about 25 when a new principal was installed that welcomed people and let us be involved. Good luck!

I wish I had an answer for you, too. You actually have had BETTER turn out than I have! We have yet to have a board meeting to quorum(sp).

I am calling a special meeting to ask this very question of parents. I am sending home a special newsletter for Jan. (don't normally do one with break) and am asking/ telling parents it is difficult to vote on a budget when 5 (including the 3 on the BOard) are present. I am including an email I set up just for this as calling the school, not going to happen... our parents like email.
I have no idea if this helps but I can tell you, you are NOT alone!
Remember the reason we are involved....I have four and number five will be here in 6-8 weeks!
yeah

Hi. Most of us have a problem with getting good attendance at meetings, you're not alone. I'm shocked, however, that the rest of your board didn't come! Did they have good reasons?

I just got home from our monthly meeting, and we too had poor attendance, about 10 people, not including the board and the principals. Our president actually did have to miss the meeting because her child was home sick, but usually all of the board is there.

I would really stress to your officers that it is important that they attend meetings. You need at least a few people there who are gung- ho about the meetings.

I don't really have any advice for you on drawing people in, wish I did.

This is my first year as President of an elementary school PTO program. I have really tried to get parents involved especially in attending the meetings which are on the same day of the week each month. For example the last meeting in December I had six parents which is less than 1% of the children attending the school. It also bothered me that no other officers other than myself attended the meeting. A note was sent home about 3 weeks prior to the meeting telling everyone what would be discussed and then about one week prior to the meeting I sent home a note with the agenda. The PTO meeting date and time are are always put on the sign in front of the school also. A parent actually made the comment to me that maybe the parents did not know about the meeting. I do not know how to make it more clear. I recently asked the principal about having an area for children to go and having someone watch them so their parents could attend the meeting. This will be implemented at our next meeting. However I would also like suggestions of how to make the meetings more interesting for parents and teachers to attend. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.