We have also had this problem in the past. Last year we got a new principal. Not only was he new to our school, he was new to being a principal. He felt it is important for the teachers to be involved. He gives the teachers incentives to coming to the meetings. I'm not sure what they are, but that would be up to the inidividual principal. Since he attends all of our meetings, and lives a distance away, he takes any teachers that would like to come and are going to the meeting to dinner. We also have some teachers that help at many events. Some of the teachers that were very active in the past have let up a little. The reason for this is because their children are now getting older and are involved in school and sports activities.

We are a new school this year so we are hoping to get the teachers involved so as to help get parents involved (which we are having trouble with). Our PTSO is sponsoring Student of the Month and Feature Teacher; the awards are given out at our meeting hoping to get people to come. Our principal told the teachers they should probably be present since they won't know who is getting the award and would be embarrassed to find out the next day they did and were not there. This is our first month so we will see how it goes.

"Education has nothing to do with filling a pail, rather it has everything to do with igniting a flame."Heraclitus

are your teachers pail fillers or match lighters? if their nature is the former, probably nothing you do will get them involved.

school P and T involvement is about community spirit, some schools have it, some need to improve it. maybe ask if theres something missing in the p-t relationship......its tough to know sometimes the TRUE reason there is poor involvement, or energy. is it really that 'they' just only ask and dont want to help, or is there another reason? no doubt, the reasons are many and complex. talk to them and ask. or pass out an anyonymous survey, try to finger exactly what the problem is, its never safe to assume anything orthat you know what they really think or why they act as they do. ask them what theyre thinking or why there is little involvement you may be surprised at what your hear, BUT sometimes you get a more honest ffeedback in the unsigned survey mode.

also, teachers are really overwhelmed these days with rules regs and score cards and fill in the blank youve got to make this grade or we lose xyz monies...it really has taken the fun out of teaching, much of the administrative hurdles and mumbo jumbo. sometimes we have to be grateful that we have such great teahcers doing their classroom job/career for such mediocre pay........good teachers can get work elsewhere, better paid, when they choose to stay in thier jobs, the parents are lucky. anyway, just some thoughts from other angles.

i think teaching is one of the most important and underrecognized and underpaid professions out there. really really sad commentary on what 'the market' views as they are worth. my 2 cents!!

This is an issue at our schools also.
I don't agree that since the teachers are working eight hours plus a day that we shouldn't expect them to be involved. We have alot of members working full time also and they still make time for volunteering at events and programs. We also have teachers who are parents within our district and we get no support from them either. In October, I sent out 60 e-mails to all teachers and support staff asking for two hours or more for help at our annual craft show. We were getting little parent response for help and turned to staff. I did let them know this. I got one e-mail asking for clarification on times and one staffer who gave us two hours and baked a pie for the bake sale portion. That was it out of 60! Not very good return, especially since we had just paid for transportation for kindergarten and fourth grade field trips.
Our fliers and info go through the classrooms for distribution, but it is not often that the teacher is directly adding them to the student mailboxes or handing them to the children. Volunteers do that.....ironic huh? I shouldn't complain too much because every once in awhile we do get a teacher who helps. We also have a sign up sheet at our intermediate school and we get one teacher a month at our meeting from that school. We also require teachers who are requesting money from our classroom grant budget to put in a personal appearance at a meeting.
This topic has been stuck in my craw for too long, and I've ranted enough in this thread.....so now I am going to adopt this attitude, put very nicely by crewchief:
"I believe the T in PTO/A is a sign of respect and an indication that we believe parents and teachers are on the same team - working together for a better learning environment."
We are on the same team, both working for the success of our children but from different angles.

We have a few teachers that are very supportive. The newer, younger ones that are still excited about the whole atmosphere are the best. The veterans seem jaded to it all and very rarely get the children excited about things. Everyone mentions them passing out flyers. In our school, they don't. Mailperson is one of the classroom jobs, and the students do it. Any extras are just tossed. Teachers never see/read them. To bring their attention to anything, we have to send a seperate flyer specifically to them on a different day than the day that the flyers are distributed. It's a shame, but since we've started doing that, they seem to know more of what is going on.

Our PTO doesn't expect teachers to come to meetings or events either. They work hard all day. They pass out PTO information regarding fundraisers, raffles, events, and Box Tops for us. We appreciate them. We did have one teacher who came to every meeting, but she fell and broke her hip and had to take a year off to heal. Every year, she had her class make a book of pictures, poems, and letters thanking the PTO for all that we do. We sure do miss her!!!!!!!