at our school, teacher involvement is zero.
we are happy to provide them what they need (as long as everyone votes OK) so they can do their job better.

they are alwways welcome at mtgs and events, but we dont mind if they dont come, after all, their job is to teach, and the parents job is to support that role.

Sounds like a Catch-22 - Teachers may think "Why should we get involved if the parents don't even care enough to get involved?" while parents are thinking the same about the teachers. Maybe you can find ways to increase overall involvement so more members from every segment of your community will help more.

What do you suppose is the root cause of the low numbers right now? There are some pretty handy tools here at PTO Today, like Two Hour Power and Back to School 2007. Maybe those would help?

It seems from other posts that the teachers in some schools really believe that the PTO is there to help them. They freely (and I hope gratefully) take whatever the PTO has to offer.

If your teachers are good about sending things home, collecting fundraising orders, things like that then they really are helping your group a lot without ever coming to a meeting or volunteering at an event.

To answer your specific question, "What is typical?"

At my last school, we had two teacher reps on the board, active volunteers at the Winter Carnival and Arts Day, willing participants in the "backpack express" and a near constant show of gratitude through hand written thank you notes to the PTO, cards, letters and drawings from their students and kind words about us and our work to other parents.

What is the typical involvement by teachers with the PTO? In our school the only time teachers are interested is when they need money. Our group has limited participation from parents so a little help from the teachers would mean a lot, but we can't seem to get their support.

Any comments or suggestions?