You can ask the prinicpal for 5 minutes at the start of the orientations for new kindergarteners, or attend the orientation night of the school and run a day care for the kids while parents go to the classrooms and then hand out things as they arrive. Doing something free always brings in a nice draw and you can address folks at the start. Contact a local paper and ask them to run a feature on your PTO or start a website/newsletter. You can see ours at brentpto.com. They are fun and a bit of work but they get the word out....d

Thanks, for that. We have a PR person that sends out emails, the problem is some of our parents don't have access to a computer. We are a little school that is considered a poor district. We send out notices, but the response is not there. What can we do to get our parents, teachers and principals there?

Hi Vicki--I would suggest that you figure out immediate ways to start to communicate to your folks. Get the word out via emails, newsletters, websites, big signs on people's backs if you have to as to what your goals and ideas are. You can visit our website and brentpto.com and get some ideas on website formats, newsletters and also our first 100 days brief is there so folks can literally see what is coming out of the PTO. That makes them much more inclined to support. This is just a start but we were a small group that started last year and now have over 256 members (up 25 percent) and send out 300+ emails once a week. The communication really helps. You can build everything else from that in my mind...d

I really need help! We have had PTO for about 3 years now and we have had poor turn outs. Like 4 pto board members, 1 teacher and 3 parents attend our meetings. We just can't get them to attend. We have registrations but no BODIES. Will some of you very successful people HELP ME PLEASE! Let me know where to start forming a solid PTO.