Sounds like you have some serious issues with communication and respect going both ways. Your comment from parents about "why should I do anything for the school they don't do anything for us" this is a HUGE statement and the fact that your parents are feeling that disrespect for their child's school is amazing.
If I was you, I would start with a parent involvement committee, not a witch hunt but a true committee. This has nothing to do with a fall festival. Get a few staff members, the principal, a few open minded parents on board. There is a PTA program that if you go to their site and look for Parents of Excellance, it is a series of questions that your committee grades your school. With those grades you see your weaknesses and can start from there. Start addressing concerns, ask how can we repair the home school relationship, are there any opportuntites for parents to volunteer? Your relationship needs to be address before you plan any event, the key is working together and somehow it needs to be repaired. There may have been parent issues that you are unaware of (every school has had some) and you may never know what happened. I would truly try to get a team together and it is important to have different stakeholders, your principal may say no at first but keep working on it in a positive manner. I would skip the fall fest until your parents and school can speak positive about each other.

first off, sounds like you need to find out why parents are being locked out....talk to admin, vice principal , principal, superint, the boe, find out why parents not welcome......academics does not seem the reason,,,,doesnt make sense, anyway.

if you know why parents are being shut out, then you will know what to do next to increase involvement.

but, with out support of the admin , you will never get parents involved. you have to work together. sounds like there are issues maybe local, not at district level, that have created the situation. find out what the reasons are for their policy.good luck.

It sounds like you have your hands full! One quick idea would be when you send out your Fall Festival flier to send 1 free (CUT HERE) raffle ticket for a FREE chance to win a prize with a THANK YOU to the parents?

We are starting a fall festival. Our challenge is how to involve parents in this big project? The problem for our school is this: over the years parents have been forced out of their child's classroom. All that stuff about open classroom does not exist at our school, and in fact, almost everything fun that the kids and parents looked forward to have been taken away. For example, the fall festival was cut, because "there is nothing academic about it", halloween is not mentioned, and the parade that the community looked forward too is gone, and parties in the classroom that use to ask for parents to volunteer, now only ask for goodies, and parents are told to stay away. And then there is the holiday sing. Our students sing in front of each other. Parents are not welcomed, it is never mentioned by flyers or on the calendar, parents are refused at the door, and to really stick it to the parents-the night programs was cancelled for the last 4 years.The reason giving was it was too much with all those parents(who wouldn't come to see their kid sing) Parents are just mad but worse they really do not care about the school. In fact, just from asking around why people do not attend activities, the common answer is the school does nothing for us, and has made it clear parents are not wanted so why should I support them. Now, mind you nothing bad has ever happened at any of these things before they were cut. We were told the focus should be on "school work", of coarse the parents will not buy this because our schools are close to each other and they see what other schools are doing. So the big challenge is...how can we get the communities"buy-in" to our fall festival. The school really needs something fun that will promote fellowship. Has anyone else experience this, and if so do you think this can be overcome or is this a lost cause?--thanks