We have had success with teachers coming to our PTA meetings by having each grade perform a program on the night of our meetings, This also helps with parental attendance.
Our PTO got them to attend by letting them know that it is easier to get stuff if we know who you are. The only way for "us" to know who you are is to attend PTO meetings. It also helped that our principal and asst. principal told them to!
We also have teacher reps, we include them on our board and in our bylaws. We also let it be known that when there is extra money available the teachers get to have first input, in addition we added a "PTO parent" so that if additional funds are available the parent rep attending get first hand information to their respective teachers.
We actually have a teacher representative that comes to all the meetings. If she is unable there is a co-representative. The teachers decide on who they want to be their representative at the beginning of the year. Ours is wonderful-she happens to be my son's teacher.
We were having a similar problem with the teachers in our school. We talked with the principal and she instituted a "rule" that 2 teachers must attend each meeting. The teachers rotate throughout the year so they each only have to go to one meeting. They take notes and they are responsible for bringing the information back to the others. It's not great but it's better than not having any teachers there.
We seem to have a problem at our school of teachers coming to PTO meetings -- we've joked about changing our name to PO. Have any other schools had this problem, and if so, how did you encourage teacher attendance?