Sunflo- I really like the PTO Express Idea, as well as the other teacher involvement things you have done in your school. I'm going to try these in the fall.
When you have the PTO-Express meetings, are they after school hours? (Our school gets out at 3:30) And is it a regular meeting or just for teachers? Thanks for the info
This isnt a funny issue but I really wanted to laugh at the PO comment because I have been saying we should just be PA because no T's come to meetings. We have spoiled our teachers by giving them wishlists for their classroooms and filling them completely but they wont attend meetings I really wish our principal would make it required but for some reason she doesnt. Its very frustrating since you want to include them but they seem to not want to be involved but they sure like it when we buy things for them but maybe not enough too come to meetings. Any good ideas on getting them to meetings will be an asset to a lot of us.
I am a president of a PTO in my third term. We have been successful this year in getting teachers involved by creating PTO Express Meetings. Our teachers cannot make our monthly meetings at night as many live out of town. We have our PTO Express Meetings at 3pm once a month. This way they do not have to come back to school. We started this mid way through this year, every other month and we got great partipation. They loved it so much that are doing it every month in the upcoming school year. We also put them on our email list and get all our email updates and reminders. We also put a copy of the minutes of our meetings in the teachers lounge to keep the ones who cannot make it in the loop.
We need to remember that teachers have worked a full day with what can be very trying (being nice here [img]smile.gif[/img] ) little ones. We then are asking them to hang around for what amounts to 3 more hours before we even begin our meeting. They have to deal with the kids, parents, administration, etc. We ARE infringing upon their time! It is up to us and our school administrations to make it worth their time. District credit, education credit, door prizes, bribery, whatever it takes. I know that by putting in a "Teacher's Forum" on the agenda, it went a long way to getting them to come, because they could come in and ask for anything they needed. Thing is, I told them early in the year that they would be more likely to get stuff if everyone knew their face and name. The teachers who did come regularly got a whole lot more stuff than those who didn't. Game. Set. Match.
This year our PTO would like to have a teacher rep from each grade level. The sad thing we hear that they don't want to stay late for any meetings than they have to. We do have a Teacher Rep on the exec board. I feel that this is their obligation as a employee of the district and rep for their grade level it wouldn't be so hard if they would just take turns our meetings are usually heald in the evening due to board members work full-time. I hope to see a difference this year.
What a great idea IMovePeople! We have done the prize thing with a grocery store gift certificate and it seemed to work for a while. We awarded it to the teacher with the most parents in attendance. I think that a teacher from each grade should attend, and lucky for us, so does our principal and asst. principal. I know that our top brass went to bat for the teachers with the district and they receive district and school education credits for attending the meetings. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I do know that the teachers are usually at the meetings 'en force'.
It kind of makes me sad to realize that we have to bribe/buy our teachers and parents attendance and interest in their child/children's school.
