so far I have discovered that when I send home a letter and wnat a responce, if I just include my contact info for them to call me, I get no responces... however when I have sent home letters with a spot for them to fill in their name, phone number, student name, teacher name, and email, I seem to get more responces. you just need to inform the office of what to do wiht them so that when they get the forms they know to give them to you. our pta board memebers have their own mail boxes in the office, so if we tell the secertary that it goes to us then they will put it in our box.
We have # and emails on our MEMBERSHIP FORMS but i sent letters to the teachers and asked for ROOM MOTHER"S phone number and/or Email addresses. And I am getting them right and left. Try it that way!!
At the start of the year, with our membership forms we create a PTO roster from the information we receive. We now have an email list of aboiut 389 families and teachers. We just recently got together a roster of room moms by going to each teacher and asking for the information. They too couldn't release without their parents say so, so we asked them to ask. They did and now we have the roster. Pretty straight forward process. Since most of the folks involved are also PTO members we already had most of the contact info and just needed to know the names to pull....
We've dealt with this problem by having a phone list signup in the teacher's room on Meet the Teacher night before school starts. We explain that if they want to be contacted about class parties, special events, etc., they have to give us their phone number and email. We get about 2/3 of the parents' numbers, which at least gives the room moms somewhere to start.
Another trick we are trying (too soon to tell about the success) is to prepare notes to go out, from the teacher (instead of from the PTO or room mom). Now, the room mom wrote it, or we did, but if it comes out from the teacher, it often carries more weight with the parents and they respond better. Obviously, you have to have the teacher's OK with this and have a good rapport, but I haven't had any problems yet.
Are there parents hanging around at the end of the school day to pick up their kids? If so, start asking them for help. It's so much more difficult to say "no" to someone who is standing right in front of you!
That's pretty sad that no one is helping! How many 4th and 5th classrooms are there? Do you have room parents? We have 2 for each classroom and that is usually a good starting point. If you can recruit their help, maybe they have a friend or two that is willing to help.
Can you go into the classroom and talk to the kids? Tell them what they will miss out on and ask them to go home, with flyer in hand, and ask their parents to help!
