I sure can empathize.... my principal did the same thing to me last year, "please do something!". In January I sent home a welcome/ introduction letter and a survey. I tried to have fun with the survey and made a lot of questions multiple choice: what kind of food would you like to have at our next dinner? what movie would you like at movie night? What things should we spend our money on? etc. I encouraged comments and suggestions. We are a school of 325 students and I received about 160 surveys back! It was very empowering because even without a lot of active participation I felt like I knew what our families wanted. It was easy to make decisions. On the surveys I also had a spot for their contact info and volunteer availability. I had 3 catagories for volunteers: 1. yes, contact me about opportunities. 2. yes, but I can only volunteer after regular work hours or to donate items or it has to be something I can do from home. 3. No, I can't and that's perfectly ok! I had a lot of responses and I called every single person who said they could volunteer. My list of volunteers went from 4 to 30 almost instantly. This year we have about 50 active members plus another large number I keep in contact with by email. Reach out to people and ask for specific help-- you will be amazed! I still only get about 20 people to a meeting but I feel like I have a lot of support which is great.

Thanks Guys! I've found some ideas already that I'm going to take to the principal this afternoon.

I'm going to add to the flyers we send out before events that children are not allowed without their guardians.

I don't think that the no food idea will fly with this group though. Most events take place at dinner time, and like I said before this is a poor area. A lot of the kids in the school don't get to eat except when they are at school.

On the local news last night, they did a story of one of the high schools starting an "I Care" program to get the parents involved... I'm thinking something like that for our school. It seems to work for them, they had about 30 parents involved before this started and now have over 300. The kids with the most involved parents gets prizes such as T-shirts, hats, and jackets with the "I Care" logo on them. The only thing about that is the parents just have to sign sheets telling what they did with their kids that month such as checking homework, going to the zoo, family dinners, etc. I just don't know if that's going to work with us but I'm going to ask the principal about that too.

We've done the 2 hour power about 3 years ago, I'm not really sure how it went over and will bring that up.

On the 14th, the Parent Advisory Board, is holding a seminar on parent involvement in education... I've already stressed that they need to detail out what the "No Child left behind" act entails because I didn't realize exactly what was going on with that myself until the other day and I've read a majority of it already (I have an 8 year old autisim spectrum child that I have to keep watch over too). But I don't know if one seminar with limited coverage on that will make them realize they HAVE to be active.

I'm rambling now... it's so complicated and I get frustrated at how few parents are concerned about education. I'll get this done, but I'm not quite sure how.

Jennia- Good for you!! It is so hard to start over, especially when you don't have a lot of support.

I forgot to add- read the articles here & check out the Bonus Tools. Invaluable resource. Thanks Tim!!

I'm in a similar situation. I'm dealing with a Middle school.

I agree, find all the parents you can who will help.

Hold parental involvment activities. Do not let anyone in the gate/ through the door without a parent. PERIOD. I would be tempted to stand out in front of the school where parents drop kids off just to make sure they know that they CANNOT drop off their kids. Do things like the science night or fun and games night that can be (almost) free and fun for all.

When the parents get to know who you are and recognize your face, then you will be in a better place to round them up and try to get a PTO going.

I wouldn't attempt any type of fundraiser where the kids sell things at this time. You can do craft fairs, carnivals, movie nights, walk a thons, penny drives and many other fundraising activities that will raise money without sending the kids door-to-door or requiring them to collect money on their own.

I wouldn't say that our PTO is running smoothly yet, but we didn't reach out to parents first. We are just over 1 year into re-starting the PTO and I've learned a LOT!!!

Wow~what a pickle.

Start small. If you can muster a few parents to help out, hold a family night. The school family nights section of this page has a lot of great ideas & plans to help you out. Make it easy & low/no cost to families. You can set up a table for membership sign up to try to get some people involved, so that you have the manpower to do more activities & some fundraising. You cannot build Rome by yourself. If you have a hard time getting parents to help out w/your first family night, talk to your principal & staff. They know what parent groups fund, so they may be willing to help you get the ball rolling.

Send home a survey to parents. Ask them what they are looking for w/a school parent group~what they like/don't like etc. This will give you an idea of what you are up against & can expect.

Sounds like food & kids at meetings should stop. If that is all people are coming for, than nothing will get done. Once you get going & have a good base, you might be able to start it again, but right now you have lots of people taking advantage of what is offered.

Check out 2 Hour Power on this site. Sounds like this program might really be able to help you.

It also sounds like your school maybe got a little burned out on fundraising. If you are not having orders returned, my guess is it is because people just got sick of it. Non-traditional might be the way to go for your school~once you get some people who are willing to help out. I think you need a good-will building year before you hit fundraising too hard. Of course, you will need a little money if you want to do some activities-so how about some easy things- a hat day at school (pay $1 & get to wear a hat to school), a raffle at basketball games/open house or whatever activities your school ALREADY has going, a family dance w/light snacks. Small cost/small profit events like this might not be as satisfying to your bank acct. as a big fundraiser would be, but they will give you some operating money & build confidence w/families that you do not JUST want money all of the time. Once you get people interested & feeling comfortable w/your parent group, you'll be better able to rely on them for a large fundraiser & volunteering. Then you will really be able to make some bucks to fund the stuff at school that parent groups generally fund.

I hope this helps a little. This is all just my own opinion. These boards are the best place to get advice & ideas. Good for you for stepping up & taking the reins. Make sure to keep us posted on your progress!! Good luck!

This is my first time here, and I'm looking for help.

The PTO at our school has not been active for a couple of years and the principal has asked me to "take over" things and get the organization going again.

Aside from my personal reluctance of being in the spotlight, I have no clue where to start to even attempt this!

In talking with some other parents yesterday, I got a lot of support from them to do this, however out of 5 of them, 2 made the direct comment of "I don't care about doing all that, I just want the food."

Unfortunately, this isn't uncommon in the school at all. Many parents will come to the meeting if there's food, but you only get maybe 5 volunteers out of more than 300 people that come. However, they tend to bring everyone within a 1 block radius of their house to eat, or they load their kids up in the car and drop them off just to eat and be babysat for the evening.

How do you address issues such as this?

Also, when it comes to fundraising, cash orders disappear before the orders are turned in, thus there's not a large return for that. If it were a "cash and carry" situation it would be worse (like $1 boxes of candy bars) because there is ZERO accountibility for things like that. The candy AND the money would disappear.

I feel like I am getting in over my head.

Can anyone help me get this going again, and figure out some way to help raise money?