At our meetings we have two principals, one superintendent, and perhaps 2-3 teachers usually at each meeting. We have evolved in the past two years to be an organization that wants involvement and is not clickish which is what most of us have to deal with. We have increased our attendance to about 30 parents at each meeting. It takes awhile for change to happen. By making positive changes and letting people voice their opinions and really listening to what they have to say has been our biggest help.

We have speakers come to our meetings and talk for about 15-20 minutes. We invite teachers, administrators and even some of the clubs in school to come out with their members to do a presentation. Usually, the parents will come too if little johnny is going to be involved in the meeting. Worked for us. good luck

I REALLY like the idea of "teacher must be present" to win the attendance prize! Don't know if we'd be willing to require participation to give them their class team money, but I guess it's a possibility and I am so glad to know that it works for you.

I think our group is very lucky. We usually have about 2 (sometimes more) teachers attend each meeting. One of the teachers is actually on our board as a faculty coordinator (always filled by a teacher). We also have a lot of help from them during our festival. They serve the food and work the book fair. They don't help in any other event but I think it's because we don't ask.

I love those ideas C. Brooks. Do you have any more? E-mail me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

We are a small k-5 school. When I took over as president of our PTO they had a long standing tradition of giving a banner to the teacher with the most parents attending, it hangs in the hall by the classroom until next meeting. This year a very talented mom made us some new ones (they are actually more like small flags). We give a supply basket and banner to the k-2 teacher with the most parents attending, and a banner and supply basket to the 3-5 teacher with the most parents attending. We have a time set aside on our agenda to take attendence, and here is the catch, the teacher has to be present to win. We fix the baskets up and put them on display in the teachers lounge so they will have something to look forward to. ( you would be surprised what kind of supplies you can get in there for $10-$15) We also have refreshments and door prizes. They hadn't done that in the past! Teacher attendance is up some since we have started this. We have tried giving away dinners, and I mentioned gift certificates or money but our principal didn't like that idea, with the supply baskets the parents, teachers, and students are rewarded.
As for participation our teachers get $100.00 alloted to them per year, more if our treasury is bigger than usual, and $50.00 to our support staff, but they can't get the money until they work at least 1 major function per semester. (Fall festival, Holiday shop, etc.)

Wow you are right next door. I am the vp at Dighton Elem. We have very little teacher attendance at about half our meetings we have 1-2 taechers show we are the pto for both elem and middle) They also do not help with events. One year we did family portraits as a fundraiser and not 1 teacher got a picture done. If you could email me i have a question abouit an event that was done in Berkley before. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.