Our school is located 30 minutes or so from the school in the story and I am watching to see how this all pans out. We have our core volunteers, those in the school weekly. We have our behind the scence folks, who take work home. We have our twice a year, help out at special events folks. All play an important role. We could always have more, do more. We are not allowed in our own child's classroom. It is felt this is a distraction... I do not think "rewards" would increase our core group of parents. I do think, however, seeing the results of their efforts in their childs room would increase participation.

I should have said also that the parents that are not able to physically be at an event,if they do anything "behind the scene" they are credited for that. We have parents that bake goodies for different events, all of that is included. If a parent or child is involved in any way, they receive points.

I realize that either people are involved or not. It is simply a matter of choice, however I think it is our job as active members of a PTO to get the information out to them. Otherwise how are they aware that there are things they can do from home and do not have to physically be there and those things done at home are just as important because it frees you up to do something else.

We created a "PRIDE book" this past summer and sent it out to every household the first day of school, in it was (in detail) everything our parent group did throughout the year, how much time it took, etc. A lot of our parents were then able to decide what they had time for depending on the time of year it took place and what it involved. This book has done wonders for us, we have heard nothing but praise over being able to put it together.
Anyway, I tend to babble....

We started somthing similar to this, our parent organization is called PRIDE (Parents Readily Involved in District Education), we are the parent group for the entire district (3 schools), anyway we started what we call "PRIDE Points".
For every event a parent or student participates in the classroom receives a PRIDE point. If a parent has more than one child in this district and they volunteer for an event, both students classrooms receive a PRIDE point. At the end of the year, the classroom with the most points receive a pizza party.

Parents and students receive points for attending the meetings, babysitting at the meetings, helping at open gym, particpating in the fundraisers, etc.

It has taken us a little while to get organized with it, but our volunteer list doubled this year compared to past years and we just held our 3rd meeting of the year and our attendance was in the high 20's (last year we were lucky to get 3 or 4 parents there, it was usually the officers and the building princpals and one other parent)

Anyway, it seems to be working for us.

I think those who want to be involved will be involved regardless of incentives. You might get a few people that think about it involved with this approach, but I would bet it is not many.

But, I could see a program like this being used to better track volunteers and how people are involved in the PTO. We don't track hours or how much someone helps out (events, fundraising or at school).

It would be nice to recognize someone that may not be involved in the fundraising and events, but puts in a lot of time in the school either in class, helping with pictures, hearing, vision, etc. I think these people are less noticed. I know of several people in our school that are there all the time, but don't have any interest in the PTO.

I am not sure about the kids getting something for the parents involvement (as a school). What if one class has a bunch of parents that want to be involved while another doesn't. Is it fair that the one class gets a pizza party each semester while the other doesn't just because of their parents lack of involvement.

I think that at school, that some of the kids should not be affected because of their parents lack of involvement - but all kids should be benifiting from those that are involved. I know I am there for my son, but I am also there for the other kids (neighbors, friends, and even those I don't really know).

On one hand I think it is good if it works and it gets more people involved in their child's education.

On the other hand I think it is terrible that parents need to be rewarded for being a part of their child's education. Also what about the kids whose parents continue to have empty passports? Certainly there will be folks who still don't care & don't do anything. Does this type of program just make it even more evident to the child that their parent is not involved in their school life?

Found this story on the web:

www.ky3.com/newsdetailed.asp?id=6866

.. and linked to it on the blog. Interested in what folks think of this type program.

Tim