We ask the BETA club to watch olur lil ones while we attend the meetings.
Like the lil ones, you may ask the K-3 grade teachers to use their room. Those grades usually have alot of information they like to look at, and etc.
Have an imagination...
We actually had our assistant superintendent help with babysitting last year.You can imagine we had the most well behaved children EVER!! Also when she couldn't help us out a teacher or two gladly pitched in. The kids love to have their teachers "babysit" them for an hour or so. Needless to say we not only made our principal happy (no liability issues since she is over 18!) and the parents are happy to see someone so important to our school involved with the kids and their kids so WELL BEHAVED.
We used to do it, but one of our principals said there was a liability issue and we had to stop. Then we had people come to meetings and then leave because there wasn't childcare. Any solutions to this one?
We used to do it, but one of our principals said there was a liability issue and we had to stop. Then we had people come to meetings and then leave because there wasn't childcare. Any solutions to this one?
We have a great arrangement at our PTO. We hire 2-3 high school students for our 1.5 hour meeting. They are paid $10 each and typically they play in the gymnasium and do crafts or color, draw, etc. We have done some more structured crafts, etc. but not knowing how many kids will show up and having a large age range, we haven't been planning specific crafts, etc. We have a list of available students and the Vice President has daycare as a responsibility. We provide a light cookie snack and juice boxes for the children. If a child needs changing, etc., the parents are brought in. If a child is not listening, misbehaving, etc. then the parent is asked to come in as well. For many years this arrangement has been working quite well. We use to have a larger turnout at our PTO meetings, resulting in more children, but lately there have only been 5-7 kids. I believe this is more direclty related to the attendance at the meetings than people not knowing about the childcare available.
I think you may see a spike in attendance if you offer childcare. If you have quality meetings you may be able to sustain the attendance.
Hope this helps.
In order to be covered for our insurance, the babysitter MUST be 18 years of age. This is something that many of you may want to look into so that you do not void any of your insurance coverage.
I'm not sure how much difference it makes in attendance. Last year there were often only 2 children, but the year before there were as many as 12.
