One of our standing committees on the board is Homeroom Parent Coordinator. This person designates a homeroom parent or two for each classroom taken from a list of volunteers. She also coordinates weekly readers and classroom volunteers. Since our PTO coordinates the holiday parties, we know exactly where to send the information. A subcommittee that falls under this (in our organization) is Staff Appreciation and we divide up the year into four major activities sponsered in turn by the High School, Middle School, 2nd-5th grade and the Preschool - 1st. The homeroom parents help to coordinate these activities too.
At our school, the school arranges for homeroom mothers (this year they changed it to homeroom parent) by sending out a notice at the end of the school year requesting help. The school has a homeroom parent volunteer tea where all homeroom parents meet each other and get the low down on what is expected of them during the year. Generally, they take care of planning all parties for the year and collecting class party money from their class. Homeroom parents, also, help out with the Field Day activities in May. Our HSA really does not have anything to do with all that, it is the school's responsibility to get the help in the classrooms. Good grief, glad we aren't in on that one. How time consuming. Don't we already have enough to do as it is? lol
I,too, am a third year President and we are asking the homeroom parents to help us out with our annual Winter Wonderland Tricky tray this year. (They will find out at the Homeroom Mother's.....excuse me..Homeroom Parent's tea)They will be responsible for collecting all the items for the class basket and wrapping it and all that fun stuff. Quite honestly, we do not have the room to store all the items that are bought it. I did it the first year we had a basket theme - it was a good thing I wasn't having Thanksgiving....couldn't move in my house! Anyway... The class themes are given to them in advance. This was well received as this is a Fun project and also shows great class pride!
Well, this is what we do at our schools, hope this helps.
We have found that the individual teachers have a much better response in asking for parent voulunteers than the PTO ever would. All of our teachers chose their own room parents and coordinate the parties, field trips, extra help etc. that they need for their own class. Our PTO has never tried to to set up functions in the classrooms, the teachers all have different themed parties and our PTO does not have the time nor the energy to involve ourselves to that degree. I have been however been my chilldren's room mom for years as well as the PTO president for three years. AT the school open house the teachers all put out a sign up list in their rooms for different jobs/donations that they need. The interested parents sign up for what they can and the list is given to the room parent and after that the teacher let's the room mom handle all of the details for the parties. The teacher choses their own room parent as well.
At our elementary school we have two holiday classroom parties each year, a Fall Party and a Friendship Party (Valentine's Day). Each year we ask for coordinators, co-coordinators and helpers for each classroom at the beginning of the year. And each year it is like pulling teeth to get coordinators to step forward. We are trying to find out if any other school has had this problem and so changed the way they do holiday parties. We are in need of a big change and would like to get it in place for next school year. HELP!
