About 4 years ago our PTC's and PTA began meeting bi monthly with our superintendent. We take turns meeting at each building (3 elementaries, 2 middle schools, and the high school) At each meeting the building principal is also in attendance. It is such an informative time. We are all on the same page when it comes to fundraising. . . we don't copy another building's fundraiser which is nice for our community to not be inundated with the same cookie dough hahaha. Our superintendent keeps us informed of what is going on and then we take that to the following PTC/PTA meetings.
Our district sponsors such meetings four times per year, and also four times per year for all the schools' volunteer coordinators.
Might I suggest that you ask the District to coordinate this? Our district has a "community relations-school-business liason" type person who sends out the flyers and hosts the meetings at the District Office.
We also have an opportunity to visit with the Super. and other administrators (our last meeting featured the Buildings/Operations guy which was very helpful for our elementary schools wanting to add playground equip., climbling walls, etc.)
Good Luck! It is a very beneficial thing for the schools and the district to have a handle on what each other is doing!
Our district has 3 elementary PTO's and a Middle School PTO. We began having District Wide PTO meetings last school year. We have met 4 times since Spring of 2003. In my opinion, we have been very productive and able to accomplish more than any of us thought possible initially. We collaborated on getting a speaker (Mac Bledsoe) to come to our District for the day and speak to students in grades 5-12 and do an evening presentation to parents. We have been able to address financial needs for an athletic scholarship program that enables kids in our district who may be unable to afford it otherwise,to participate in extra curricular sports. We are currently considering another speaker for next fall on the topic of bullying and peer pressure. And we are trying to set up workshops for teachers on how to utilize willing parent volunteers in their classrooms. I have learnerd so much about how the other PTO's operate and handle different problems. We have also checked each other's calendars and made sure we don't schedule different fund raisers etc. at the same times. I highly recommend persuing district wide meetings. We have reaped the benefits of it and hope to continue to do so for years to come!
We just started this in my town...After getting to know one another while working on the School Levy campaign, two of the mothers invited the rest of us to an informal coffee hour so we could continue discussing the issues that effect our district. So far, everyone is very enthusiastic about the possibilities of this group! We are currently planning a group college planning night and a welcome event for the new district superintendent. The district communications director came to our last gathering and discussed ways of better communicating with our parents and offered to set up training for each of us to learn to maintain our own PTO websites!! The most important thing I've gotten from this group so far is inspiration...getting together with parents who care as much as I do keeps me motivated to do the best I can for my school!
Another nice benefit that we've been hearing more and more about = the ability for the larger group to get a group 501(c)(3) exemption. One set of paperwork, one filing fee, all exempt.
(Of course, you might want to get together a couple of times on lighter topics before getting into this one.)
Yes--I've been pushing for this too. An added benefit I see, that no one has yet mentioned. Would be parents from all schools are already united in case you every have a large school issue. ie. districts charging bus transportation fees. With a unified group--you could write a letter signed by PTO's of all schools or show up for that ever important school committee meeting. Good Luck!
