:confused: If the meetings are in the morning, how do your teachers and school staff attend? How do you provide inexpensive child care (I use high school students who are earning community credits, but they are only available at night)? I think maybe there could be a committee of folks who meet in the morning and maybe they could do the lions share of things that are able to be done during the day. :confused:

Thanks for all the input everyone. I still do not know what the answer is, but you all have given me lots to consider.
I was really hoping for a clear cut answer, but how silly of me, when dealing with people there really are no clear cut answers to anything. Thanks again

Our meetings are at 7:00p.m. as well...always has been. We tried to have a few meetings right after school, with volunteers to watch the kids in the gym and library. Our reasoning behind this was that because we are a walking district (no buses) most parents are already there picking their kids up at that time anyway and the biggest reason teachers couldn't come to the meetings is many of them live about an hour from the school and it would be senseless to drive home for an hour and come back...so they were having 12 to 13 hour days just to come to our meetings.
To say it was a disaster would be an understatement...our regulars who enjoyed the evening meetings came with guns drawn so to speak and complained the ENTIRE time...and only a handful of teachers showed up....so we are once again the third Tuesday of every month at 7:00p.m.

We do the same as julier, every other month day and night. It works quite well, and I believe is the most fair way to do it. That way working parents and stay at home parents both have a chance to attend at least half the meetings. And also, neither group can say they feel excluded. We also have about the same turnout with different people.

Suzi

I'm looking at exactly the opposite situation.

We have moved into another elementary attendance area. Our school district allows open transfers between schools, but we have made the tough decision to leave the school we have loved for six years and spend our last three at the new neighborhood school. (I was eligible to serve another term as President, so the Nominating Committee is as sad to see us leave as we are!)

The old school holds the monthly meetings at 7:00pm. The new school holds their's at 10:30am. A co-worker previously attended this school, and when I asked her about the PTA her response was "well, it's for stay-at-home Moms."

So, my challenge is to get the new school to hold some meetings in the evenings.

I understand where your coming from but I do believe it's hard to conduct business without the
president of the org there. I would continue to have evening meeting. Our board meets once a month only the officers show up along with Principal, Asst. Principal, teacher rep. No parents we take care of business. And go forth.